Well, yesterday I was home in bed with a fever all day. I am often slightly ill due to my chronic sinusitis problems, but I am rarely so ill that I lack an appetite or have an actual fever! However, I went to bed at 8pm last night and got a good 10.5 hours of sleep. I wasn't tip top at school today, but guess what? Over half of the ENTIRE student body was home sick! That's from all classes, aged 2 to 9. My assistant was also sick, but between my class and the other 4-5 year old classroom, we had just nine kids. It was great working together, and in the afternoon my colleague's assistant led the class, so she and I actually got time to collaborate on upcoming activities. I love to work with her, but we don't have any time scheduled in our day to actually collaborate. It feels so good to have even thirty minutes to plan things together. Hopefully we'll find a way to make this planning time happen more consistently.
Off to bed (quite late tonight!)
Adventures in Pre-K
Monday, February 11, 2013
New Stuff on TPT
I just spent hours making this heart clipart. And I'm not sure anyone's going to buy it, but I really enjoy making things look pretty! Check out my cover page :)
If you're interested, it's on sale until Valentine's Day - this Thursday!! Buy it here!
My other recent addition is the health theme easy reader, which I did with my kids last week. After reading the book to the whole group and discussing the different things we do to stay healthy, I took 3-4 kids together at a time to read the book together. I love these small group reading times, because we work on so many things! Sight words and letter sounds, but also vocabulary and, well, life. It gives me a chance to get a bit deeper into the topic with a small group. After we did this book activity, we had snack and then one of my children went back into the classroom and picked up the Arctic book we did a few weeks ago, and started reading it! I was so proud! I love to keep the bigger reader on our bookshelf just for that reason!
Saturday, February 9, 2013
Snow and Ice
Snowman Names
I have done this for a couple of years now. I have to make quite small circles to ensure the longer names will fit on the A4 paper. Then I have the children tell me how many circles they need for their name - they have to count the letters in their names and add one if they want a separate ball for a face. One girl actually just turned the L of her name into the nose for his face - so cute!
Then the kids cut out the circles, wrote the letters on them, and build their snowmen. We looked at all of our snowmen and talked about which ones were the tallest/shortest or which were the same size.
Animal Tracks in the Snow
First, we mixed our own simple play dough (1 c. salt, 4 c. flour, 1 c. water - we had to add a bit more water) - this recipe was enough play dough for ten children.
I have done this for a couple of years now. I have to make quite small circles to ensure the longer names will fit on the A4 paper. Then I have the children tell me how many circles they need for their name - they have to count the letters in their names and add one if they want a separate ball for a face. One girl actually just turned the L of her name into the nose for his face - so cute!
Then the kids cut out the circles, wrote the letters on them, and build their snowmen. We looked at all of our snowmen and talked about which ones were the tallest/shortest or which were the same size.
First, we mixed our own simple play dough (1 c. salt, 4 c. flour, 1 c. water - we had to add a bit more water) - this recipe was enough play dough for ten children.
We didn't have time to complete our activity in the morning, so I wrapped up the play dough in cellophane and we got back to it in the afternoon.
Each child got one clump of play dough. I modeled how to make a sphere and then flatten it into a pancake. Next, we got out the plastic animals to make tracks in the "snow." We placed the creations on paper (with names) and onto the heater to dry. It takes a few days to dry totally through, but it's mostly hard already after one day. The paper does stick a little bit to the dough, but it's not a huge problem.
Don't forget the cleaning up! In the past, I have done similar activities and then spent about twenty minutes cleaning dough or paint off of these tiny plastic feet. This year I had an idea - the kids can bathe the animals! We put warm water and dish soap into the tubs in our water tables and let the kids go at it. It did leave a bit of mess (just water) on the floor, but it was a great activity for the kids. They were involved in every step of this activity and I love that!
Frozen Paint
Another teacher in our school made frozen paint pops and invited us to use them that week. She simply put paint into plastic yogurt containers, added a popsicle stick, and placed them in the freezer. They were pretty interesting to paint with (it was a little difficult to get some of them out of the containers), and the kids had a great time. Here are some of their creations:
P for Pink and Purple Potato Prints!
How many letter P words can we jam into one activity?
Although we had pink and purple paint at school, I decided it's always more fun to do it ourselves! In fact, lately I am really trying to make a point to let the kids do the absolute most they can - in terms of passing things out, preparing materials for a craft, cleaning up, helping each other do the tricky things - and they love it! A friend of mine told me a couple of years ago about "Ask three before me." Especially when it's time to get dressed and go outside, I remind the children to ask three friends for help before asking a teacher. Children often approach me later to tell me how they helped one of their friends get dressed. Great!
Anyway, here are our pink and purple potato prints for P art!
Although we had pink and purple paint at school, I decided it's always more fun to do it ourselves! In fact, lately I am really trying to make a point to let the kids do the absolute most they can - in terms of passing things out, preparing materials for a craft, cleaning up, helping each other do the tricky things - and they love it! A friend of mine told me a couple of years ago about "Ask three before me." Especially when it's time to get dressed and go outside, I remind the children to ask three friends for help before asking a teacher. Children often approach me later to tell me how they helped one of their friends get dressed. Great!
Anyway, here are our pink and purple potato prints for P art!
Q and R
For the letter Q, we decorated letter templates (from dltk.com) with squares of fabric. The children wrote the word "quilt." I think it worked quite well, and they look great! I just used what scraps we had in our art corner at school. I miss the scraps you could buy quite cheaply in America. Nothing is so cheap here, but perhaps I haven't been to many sewing shops. I love working with different materials with the kids, and they love it, too!
For letter Rr, we cut out the letter templates and glued them to colored paper. The kids then added rice and wrote the word "rice." It's fun to see how much they enjoy just playing with and feeling the rice. Another fun texture-filled activity :)
For letter Q art, the children painted with Q-tips. I'll have to add those pictures later. They turned out so great!
It's good to have such activities once a week to ensure scissor practice :) The kids have gotten really good at cutting out holes. Check out those R's!
Tuesday, February 5, 2013
Little Bursts of Light
OK. I had meant to do a bit more reflecting on this blog. I have a big problem with doing things (reflecting, writing emails, studying...) only in my mind but never in reality or never putting things down on paper. I will try to at least put things down "on blog" :)
I am constantly struggling with TIME in my classroom. It seems to take us forever to wash hands, use the toilet, eat snack, focus as a group... I feel like I am losing so much valuable time every day! Today I did something that I had gotten out of the habit of doing, and it felt good: learning instead of waiting.
We eat our snack in the lunchroom, so there's a lot of time used up to get to and from the lunchroom. Of course there are always fast snackers and slow snackers, so there was often the dilemma of keeping everyone together as kids finished, rushing kids, or sending some kids ahead to the classroom to... wait? No! Today the kids who were ready just came right in, sat on their circle carpets ready for the morning calendar time, and I just did a few alphabet activities with them that I rarely have time for. It was great and it also encouraged the children, who were entering the classroom, to enter in a reasonable manner and to get right into the game or conversation. Fun! I have to remember to keep doing this. Today, I just used one of my alphabet lunch bags. I have a paper bag (some are red and some are brown) for each letter. I had long ago photocopied the pictures from an early picture dictionary and put them inside each bag. So, during our "waiting" time, kids took turns taking a word out of the letter "R" bag, we talked about them briefly, and I stuck them onto the blackboard.
Last year I used to play a kind of storytelling game with a phonics workbook we have. On each page there is an animal or object starting with that letter. Then there are four or five small objects in a column on the side. Two of those objects begins with the SAME letter/sound. I used to make up stories about the children walking to the forest and meeting a silly fairy, who turned them into ... (whatever the big picture was on that page). They had to find TWO things in the forest that started with that same letter in order to get the fairy to turn them back into themselves again. The kids LOVED this! I am going to have to try it again this year ...
I am constantly struggling with TIME in my classroom. It seems to take us forever to wash hands, use the toilet, eat snack, focus as a group... I feel like I am losing so much valuable time every day! Today I did something that I had gotten out of the habit of doing, and it felt good: learning instead of waiting.
We eat our snack in the lunchroom, so there's a lot of time used up to get to and from the lunchroom. Of course there are always fast snackers and slow snackers, so there was often the dilemma of keeping everyone together as kids finished, rushing kids, or sending some kids ahead to the classroom to... wait? No! Today the kids who were ready just came right in, sat on their circle carpets ready for the morning calendar time, and I just did a few alphabet activities with them that I rarely have time for. It was great and it also encouraged the children, who were entering the classroom, to enter in a reasonable manner and to get right into the game or conversation. Fun! I have to remember to keep doing this. Today, I just used one of my alphabet lunch bags. I have a paper bag (some are red and some are brown) for each letter. I had long ago photocopied the pictures from an early picture dictionary and put them inside each bag. So, during our "waiting" time, kids took turns taking a word out of the letter "R" bag, we talked about them briefly, and I stuck them onto the blackboard.
Last year I used to play a kind of storytelling game with a phonics workbook we have. On each page there is an animal or object starting with that letter. Then there are four or five small objects in a column on the side. Two of those objects begins with the SAME letter/sound. I used to make up stories about the children walking to the forest and meeting a silly fairy, who turned them into ... (whatever the big picture was on that page). They had to find TWO things in the forest that started with that same letter in order to get the fairy to turn them back into themselves again. The kids LOVED this! I am going to have to try it again this year ...
Sunday, February 3, 2013
Super Bowl Sale!
I'm throwing a sale at TPT! Everything is 20% off!!! That means, with the coupon (promo code: SUPER), you get 28% off everything you buy!
Check it out!
By the way, I know I am WAY behind on blogging, but I will try to catch up today or tomorrow. Last week was super busy, but I am not going to take my Czech classes anymore, so I'll have a bit more free time. (although I should use at least some of it to work on my Czech!)
Happy Super Bowl Sunday for all those who watch or follow it! I'm sure to be in bed by the time it starts :)
Check it out!
By the way, I know I am WAY behind on blogging, but I will try to catch up today or tomorrow. Last week was super busy, but I am not going to take my Czech classes anymore, so I'll have a bit more free time. (although I should use at least some of it to work on my Czech!)
Happy Super Bowl Sunday for all those who watch or follow it! I'm sure to be in bed by the time it starts :)
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