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The Kindergarten Toolbox
Welcome to The Kindergarten Toolbox Podcast, your go-to guide for creating calmer classrooms and more confident writers in the wonderfully unique world of kindergarten.
I’m Amy Murray — former kindergarten teacher, Type C “organized-in-piles” human, and vanilla-latte enthusiast. After years of helping teachers streamline their classroom routines with tips and tools that actually make sense for 5- and 6-year-olds, I created this podcast to support you with the practical strategies you’ve been craving.
Each episode is short, actionable, and designed to help you:
✔ simplify classroom management
✔ reduce behavior chaos with systems that stick
✔ teach writing in a way that meets beginning writers where they are
✔ build routines that make your day flow
✔ use visuals, tools, and expectations that really work in K
Whether you’re a brand-new kindergarten teacher or a seasoned pro looking for clarity and calm, you’ll find step-by-step support to help you feel more confident and in control.
Because kindergarten isn’t just the new first grade, it’s a world all its own, and you deserve tools that actually work.
Hit follow so you never miss an episode…
Here’s to calmer days and more confident writers!
The Kindergarten Toolbox
Latest Episodes
40. What Should You Actually Talk About at Kindergarten Parent-Teacher Conferences?
Do kindergarten parent-teacher conferences make you wonder how you’re supposed to fit EVERYTHING you want to tell families into 10 or 15 minutes? Between assessment data, work samples, behavior, academics, independence, and all the things, it c...
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39. What Should You Do When a Kindergartener Asks, “How Do You Spell...?”
Do your kindergarten students ask, “How do you spell...?” approximately 75 times during your writing block? You want them to become independent writers, but simply telling them to “sound it out” isn’t always enough, and spelling every wo...
38. Should You Use Sentence Starters in Kindergarten Writing
Should kindergarteners use sentence starters when they’re learning to write? Sentence starters can be a helpful scaffold for beginning writers, especially when they’re paired with a picture, but we don’t want students to become so dependent on ...
37. Why Your Kindergarteners Can Tell You a Sentence But Can't Write One
Your kindergartener just told you exactly what they want to write...so why can’t they get that sentence onto the paper? Writing a sentence might seem like one simple task to us, but for a beginning writer, there are a LOT of skills that have to...
36. Why “Make Good Choices” Doesn’t Work in Kindergarten
Do you find yourself telling your kindergarten students to “make good choices” all day long? It sounds like a perfectly reasonable reminder, but there’s one problem: what YOU consider a good choice might be very different from what a five-year-...