5 little monkeys

My class loves singing the five little monkey songs. Several weeks ago I introduced the letter 'Mm'. We read the book "Five little monkeys jumping on the bed" and sand the song many, many, many times! The children made their own monkey mask and acted out and retold the story. They had such a great time and did an excellent job retelling the story. :)

DAP

Not just cute is a great blog! Today there was a posting on Developmentally appropriate practice. Check it out!

Brain Sprinkles

I got this cute idea from Dr. Jean. I took an empty cocoa can and covered it with foil. I put a few pieces of rice in the can and then glued on the top. I decorated the foil with glitter and rhinestones and wrote "Brain Sprinkles". Any time a child needs some encouragement or they have answered a tough question, etc. you simply turn over the can and sprinkle his or her brain. Its a very fun way to encourage or praise a child.

2010-2011 Pre-K Classroom

I have been working in my classroom for several days getting ready for my little ones to come on Thursday. I took some before and after pictures for you to see. Now please remember that I am not the best photographer and my room is still not 100% ready, but pretty close. The first picture is before and so is the last the middle is what it looks like right now. Enjoy!

A child's work is play!

Play is essential to early learning. Play is the main way children learn and develop ideas about the world. It helps them build the skills necessary for critical thinking and leadership. It's how they learn to solve problems and to feel good about their ability to learn. Children learn best through their everyday experiences because they are naturally curious, active, and eager to learn and try new things. Learning through play introduces and teaches new skills with a happy, comfortable and fun approach which will help a child maintain the information in long term memory.

Hands-on, playful learning experiences not only build interest in a subject, but set off a preschoolers experiences in learning as positive ones which they will want to continue for years to come. :)

Good Buy

I tried my new dry erase crayons. They are awesome! I plan on buying more so that my kids can use them during small group instruction and large group assessing. Target has a pack of 8 for $3. :)

Dry Erase Crayons!!

You know your a pre-k teacher if you literally "gasp" out loud when you see "Dry Erase Crayons"! I was reading a post on one of my favorite pre-k blogs and found out about Crayola Dry erase crayons. I have to try these. I just thought I would share this exciting news. Enjoy! :)

Behavior management

This is a dog I made to use for behavior management in my class. I plan on putting on the back of a shelf unit that will face circle time. Each child will have two paper laminated dog bones with his or her name and picture on them. When someone makes a good choice or is a good helper, etc. he or she can "feed" the dog a bone by putting it in a large dog bowl. The title is "Look Whose been Dog gone good"! I used this two years ago and the kids absolutely loved it! They all wanted to feed the dog a bone. :)

Getting ready for back to school!

The last week of July is always bittersweet to me. I'm always excited and looking forward to meeting my new students, but I always dread the first few weeks of school. All the chaos and anxiety by students and parents wears me out. Being that I serve mostly a Hispanic population and other non English speaking families makes everyone more anxious the first few days of school due to the language barrier. Currently I am working on a welcome letter that I will mail hopefully next week to my new pre-k students. I haven't done this before since it is so difficult to have everything translated. However, this year I've decided that it is too important not to. Something as simple as a one page letter introducing myself, my educational assistant, and giving the parents some important reminders about dates, times, dress code, etc will help to settle some of the uneasiness on the first day. I also found a cute first day of pre-k award to send home with each child after his or her first day. :)

10 signs of a good preschool- NAEYC

If your child is between the ages of 3 and 6 and attends a child care center, preschool, or kindergarten program, the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) suggests you look for these 10 signs to make sure your child is in a good classroom.

1. Children spend most of their playing and working with materials or other children. They do not wander aimlessly, and they are not expected to sit quietly for long periods of time.

2. Children have access to various activities throughout the day. Look for assorted building blocks and other construction materials, props for pretend play, picture books, paints and other art materials, and table toys such as matching games, pegboards, and puzzles. Children should not all be doing the same thing at the same time.

3. Teachers work with individual children, small groups, and the whole group at different times during the day. They do not spend all their time with the whole group.

4. The classroom is decorated with children's original artwork, their own writing with invented spelling, and stories dictated by children to teachers.

5. Children learn numbers and the alphabet in the context of their everyday experiences. The natural world of plants and animals and meaningful activities like cooking, taking attendance, or serving snack provide the basis for learning activities.

6. Children work on projects and have long periods of time (at least one hour) to play and explore. Worksheets are used little if at all.

7. Children have an opportunity to play outside every day. Outdoor play is never sacrificed for more instructional time.

8. Teachers read books to children individually or in small groups throughout the day, not just at group story time.

9. Curriculum is adapted for those who are ahead as well as those who need additional help. Teachers recognize that children's different background and experiences mean that they do not learn the same things at the same time in the same way.

10. Children and their parents look forward to school. Parents feel secure about sending their child to the program. Children are happy to attend; they do not cry regularly or complain of feeling sick.

setting up my classroom

I am planning on heading to my school bright and early Monday morning in order to get the set up process underway. I have been chosen to be the model pre-k classroom for my district this school year. These are big shoes to fill so I want my classroom to look it's best. I plan on painting the walls and hopefully the bathroom. I also want to paint numbers 1-20 on the floor and paint some built in shelves. Currently my classroom has a life size big bird painted on the wall when you enter my room, also around the top of each wall is a foot and half tall dark blue stripe with badly sponge painted clouds. Some of the clouds aren't even finished. I pent last school year glaring at those ugly walls and I don't plan on doing it again. I will post some before and after pictures. Wish me luck. :)

House/Home Living center

This is a picture of the house that my brother and I made two summers ago for my pre-k classroom. It was very simple, but time consuming. First you need to decide how big you want your house frame to be. I bought a large piece of ply wood and two sets of inexpensive wood shelves. Each shelf was only about two feet tall. You can find these shelf units at Target, Walmart, or Home Depot. I kindly asked the paint department at my local Home Depot for large paint stirrers. They were nice enough to give me these without a charge. They are used as the picket fence. My brother first used a jigsaw (I think?) to cut the house shape out of the ply wood. Then we simply attached the front of the house on either side to the shelves using screws and nails. I think we went back at used wood glue for added support. I painted the house and shelves a baby blue color and I used a lid to stencil the circular design on the rood edge. We did this in a weekend. The total cost was probably about $100, but it was well worth it. My students have really enjoyed it!

My next big project....I think?

I accidently came across this blog yesterday, I believe the name is Sutton Grace. Anyways, she is a mom who repurposes old furniture. Her most recent project is awesome!!! She bought an old wood entertainment center off of craigslist and turned into a play kitchen for her daughter. It is absolutely adorable!!! I made need it for my classroom. My husband thinks it will be a lot of work, but I think it's worth it. Let me know what you think. :)

Here is a link to the blog:
http://suttongrace.blogspot.com/2009/06/repurposed-entertainment-center.html

Here is the craigslist teacher rocking chair and child's chair that I painted for my classroom. I think the child's chair will be for my "Star of the Week". He or she can sit in the matching chair beside me at circle time. :)

Here is a picture of the bucket stools I made for my library center. :)

Pre-K Workshop!

This past Wednesday I presented at my very first workshop! I have known since late May that my pre-k director wanted me to present at our summer symposium, but deep down I was hoping she would forget. I am very outgoing and could talk to a wall, but I was a little nervous about talking for 6 hours to my pre-k peers about literacy and math centers in pre-k. Well, after a sleepless night I made it early to the professional development center and I believe the workshop went well. Another teacher who works in a blended class also helped with the workshop, so I wasn't on my own. I have always wanted to be an advocate for pre-k and early childhood education, so I guess this workshop puts me one step closer to that goal. :)

First Post

Well I am brand new to this whole blog world. I always love searching online and reading other peoples blogs about pre-k and early childhood so I thought that I would give it a try. The countdown has began! Summer break is over soon, school officially starts in 3 weeks. However, starting next week I will be busy working away in my classroom to get ready for the kiddos in August. During the summer I'm always day dreaming of things I could do in my classroom, mostly decorative. The older I get the more crafty I am becoming. Today I made three very cute stools for my classroom library. I made the stools using plastic buckets that I bought at Lowes. I got the idea from a Pre-K teacher friend. They were super easy to make and didn't cost much. Probably a total of $5 each. I will upload a picture soon. Last week after a tedious summer long hunt I finally bought a rocking chair off of craigslist. I only paid $20. It was in pretty good condition plus I painted it red. I also painted a child sized wood chair I already was using in my classroom. They both turned out cute. I've wanted a rocking chair for some time, but I'm too cheap. So as of right now I am pretty proud of myself for getting such a good deal. :)