Hi, I'm Susanna Candelaria.
I've been teaching for more than twenty years, and building my own curriculum and lesson plans for over ten of them. I hold a degree in early childhood education. In all that time, the work has never once stopped feeling like what I was meant to do.
I've taught just about every age there is, infants still learning to reach for things, all the way up through high schoolers. Teaching the older ones is what taught me the most about the younger ones. Years later, you can see plainly which foundations held and which ones never quite got built. That's why I came back to early childhood and stayed. It's where the most is at stake, and where the smallest things matter most.
I think it really started at home, though. I grew up with ten siblings: a house that was always loud, always busy, and always full of somebody learning something. I'm a mother of four now, and my own house has never been much quieter. You pick things up about children living like that. That no two of them arrive the same way. That the quiet one is usually paying the closest attention. That the best lessons rarely look like lessons at all.
Every resource here came from a real classroom
Nothing in this shop was written to fill a catalog. Each pack started as something I made because I needed it: a theme I couldn't find good materials for, a week I had to plan from scratch, an activity I wanted to try with my own students. It got used, adjusted, and used again. Then another teacher asked me for a copy.
That's the standard I hold everything to. No filler pages. No activities I haven't watched children actually do.
Before this shop existed, these resources reached teachers through Etsy and Teachers Pay Teachers, a 4.7-star average across 54 Etsy reviews, and 279 teachers following along on TPT. This store is simply a proper home for the same work.
What I believe about teaching
Young children learn best when they're allowed to explore, get their hands into something, and follow their own curiosity. Our job is mostly to set the table for that and then get out of the way. Good planning should make room for wonder, not crowd it out.
I also know exactly what it's like to plan a week at nine o'clock at night. That's really who these resources are for: teachers, home daycare providers, and parents who care deeply and are also tired. If something here saves you an evening, it's done its job.
Thank you for being here
Whether you're running a classroom, a home daycare, or a kitchen table, thank you for the work you do. If you have a question, or there's a theme you wish existed, I'd love to hear from you at sunshine@sunshinememories.com.
Susanna