Funny

This was too funny not to post and goes out to anyone who says PreK is just daycare and that we shouldn't get summer off. Every so called "Break" I am working, even on my days off. The best part about it is I absolutely love my job so every second of working my behind off is 100% worth it! 

MONSTERS!

This week we learned all about monsters. We learned that monsters are just pretend and instead of scary they are pretty darn silly. 

Monday we read Go Away Big Green Monster and then created our own colorful monsters. We worked on creating sentences and color sight words by putting the words Go away big _______ monster in order then each student had to match the color word with the color they had colored their monster and trace the word before placing it in their sentence.

Tuesday we read Where the Wild Things Are and created ourselves as Max the King of the wild things then we transcribed what each student likes to do when they feel wild.

Wednesday we followed a Monster Glyph to create silly shape monsters and I am so impressed with how far all of my friends skills have come from where we started at the beginning of the year especially with cutting. It may seem like we do the same things over and over again in different forms sometimes, but repetition is a great way to make sure skill mastery is attained. 

Friday since we were running short on time we worked in our lowercase mouse 

m's

Once again this was a short week and if you read my little rant about loathing short weeks you can tell I wasn't happy that we didn't have another day to fit in more fun games. For jobs this week we made:

Monster M's

Worked on putting some Monster ABC's in order then feeding to our monsters

Measured different sized monsters placed the matching number with each monster, then worked on writing each number. 

Last but not least we counted monsters and matched the corresponding number in the box.

If you can't tell we have been working very hard on number recognition and counting and we are now moving on number writing. We will also be movig into more intensive letter writing activities with a little sight word action thrown in for good measure. 

Good times in 4k!!

The Tooth and Nothing But The Tooth

Last week Dr. Lale came to visit to teach us all about taking care of our teeth. Shattuck and Sam helped read a story and we all got to dress up like dentists with gloves and masks. Everyone got a chance to floss and brush some teeth and we got to pick a treat from the treasure box and Dr. Lale sent us home with brand new toothbrushes and toothpaste. We loved learning all about this special Community Helper!

Thank you Dr. Lale!

Whirlwind

I am just going to say it and you may think I am nuts, but I highly dislike short school weeks!! 4 days is definitely not enough time to get everything done and it is definitely not enough to prepare for the next week.

Most people think preschool is all fun and games and it is, but those fun and games take a lot time and preparation to seem more like fun and less like work. If you have never walked into a classroom full if 20 four year olds without every single thing you might need ready and waiting to go then you are basically walking into a lions den full of lions who haven't eaten in 3 weeks. Four year olds like routine and structure and down time is the worst thing that can happen to a classroom. To make sure this never happens and just incase I can not be at school I spend the entire previous week getting everything and I mean EVERYTHING prepared and layed out for the following week. This means everything is copied, laminated, and in a labeled box or folder ready to go. Now I have a ton of help which makes things much easier, but it still takes us about 4 days to get it all done. 

If you think about it, during a typical 5 day week we usually complete 3 activities first things in the morning (lowercase letter craft, coloring letter person puppet, coloring uppercase and lowercase letter sheet), 4-5 games or crafts that go along with our theme or a book we read, 5 afternoon activities/jobs, letter writing and drawing a picture of something starting with that letter each and every week. That is 13-15 activities all with multiple components all requiring 20 sets!! Holy Moly I just got more exhausted than i already am just typing all of that out. 

Right now I am also working on assessing each one of our babies to prepare for parent teacher conferences coming up in a few weeks. I only have a few assessments left to finish up and the day they are done I will be celebrating with a big ole gluten free pizza and cupcake from Whole Foods! 

Wish me luck and send me prayers that I make it through these next few weeks unscathed! I am looking forward to meeting with all of our wonderful parents so I can tell them what a wonderful job each and every one of their babies are doing, but for now I am going to go cuddle with my girl and not look at this giant notebook anymore!

Happy Fall Break

I have sent the girl off to Mrs. Julie's and the hunky hubby is at work so you may be asking yourself what is this preschool teacher doing for fall break????

Cutting out monster alphabets 

and making monsters out of tissue boxes if course!

Happy Fall Y'all!!!

Winner Winner Chicken Dinner

I might not have been happy that we had to take apart our precious bear to decorate for spirit week, but winning 3rd place for door decorations kind if makes up for it. 

I think he turned out pretty darn cute and I am proud of Ann and I for pulling this off in just a few minutes! It's amazing what a good team can do! And of course thank you Mrs. Ann for putting up with the mess that is me! Love you!

Planes, Trains, and Automobiles

This week we have been learning about the Letter T and modes of transportation.  

Monday we learned how different modes if transportation travel by land, water, or air. I made up a fun Smart Board game where each student got a turn to graph how one mode of transportation travels by placing it in the correct column. 

Tuesday we played another Smart board game I made up. This one was to help us on letter recognition and uppercase and lowercase letter matching. Each student got a chance to come up and match the lowercase letter with the uppercase letter I gave them. The letters were written on the tires and they had to place them on the car on the screen. After playing our game we used the letters in our names to create trains. 

(Picture coming soon)

Wednesday we learned that God created water and why water is so important to us. We learned that the water the priest blesses us with at church helps God work through us. We also learned about airplanes then put the different parts together to make our own airplanes. 

Friday we made train names by searching through the letters to create 

For jobs this week we made a Tractor T

Loaded up trucks with the correct amount of boxes

Counted drops of water

And made trains by adding the correct number of cars behind the engine. 

This week was  short due to fall break, but we fit as much fun is as we possible could! 

Community Helpers

This week we are learning all about the letter C and Community helpers. 

Monday we watched a video about the different types of community helpers from doctors and teachers to firefighters and priest. Anyone who helps us or keeps us safe is a helper. After learning about the different jobs helpers have we graphed what kind of helper we would like to be when we grow up. We had your everyday  answers like doctor, architect, and firefighter, but I junk my favorites were a bubble maker and an ice cream maker. I could definitely make a career hangs for one of hose especially am ice cream maker. I could live off if mint chocolate chip and be happy for the rest of my life (thankfully it is gluten free so my dream shall not be broken!)

Tuesday we watched a video about the gear firefighters wear and we learned how to Stop, Drop, and Roll. After we rolled around like wild monkeys we created our own firefighters with hoses to put out any fires. 

Tuesday we read Officer Buckle and Gloria. We learned about why it is important to follow rules to stay safe. 

Thursday we jumped of if the Community Helper track and jumped in the "Hey it finally feel like fall track" and created super cute scarecrows following a glyph. 

Friday we capped off our week by turning a lowercase letter c into a road full of cars. 

For jobs this week we worked on many different skills. 

We of course had our obligatory letter craft which was a C cat

We matched the lowercase clip to the uppercase letter on the fire truck card

We matched the badge with the flame with the matching number if dots

We placed the correct number of pom poms in each numbered fire station

And we finished police car patterns by finding the matching car and coloring the pattern in the matching row

We had so much fun learning about these special people who help take care if us and we are looking forward to learning all about transportation next week. 

A Camping We Will Go

What an exciting week! We have had so much fun learning about Mrs. Y and camping. 

Monday we met Mrs. Y. She has a yodeling yawn. She taught us that during the daytime the sun comes up and during the nighttime the moon comes out. We talked about things you can do at night and camping is one of the most fun things you can do when the moon and stars are out.  We sang A Camping We Will Go and learned about all the things you need to take with you when you go camping from a tent to the all important marshmallows and graham crackers to make s'mores. 

After talking about daytime and nighttime I asked the class if they knew who had made everything in the world. My smart little babies of course knew that God had created everything. We read the story of creation and learned that God created everything in 6 days and rested on the 7th from the light and the dark to each and every creature on this beautiful Earth. 

Tuesday morning we worked on our lowercase y yo-yo's. 

Then since our guidance lesson was canceled we learned about someone special who is a light in our lives just like the lights that help us see when it is dark. We read the story about Jesus healing the blind man and how Jesus was a light for his man and he is a light for us each and everyday. 

Wednesday we learned about a different kind of light made by special little beetles called fireflies. Did you know fireflies are beetles because I didn't). We watched a video of real fireflies then we watched the story The Very Lonely Firefly. After watching the story and learning a little more about fireflies we made our own glowing fireflies. 

Thursday we played a camping counting game on the smart board and afterwards we made self portraits if ourselves in our sleeping bags for our camp out mural. 

Friday we worked on our fine motor skills by ripping paper to create campfires. Now that we have started doing a lot more writing this was a great way to strengthen our little fingers. 

After workin so hard we got to have 2 special snaks. It just so happened to be a sweet little girls birthday and she had brought in delicious pink sprinkle doughnuts and we had a fun campfire snack that was supposed to happen Thursday but picture day kid of threw that off

During jobs this week we covered a lot of different skills from number order and position words to skunks and yaks. 

We made Yak Y's

We put the numbers 1-10 in order on on slithery snakes. 

Look at that beautiful grip! 

Everyone followed the position word directions to finish their camp ground pictures. 

We created forest creatures like skunks, bears, owls, deer, and porcupines. 

Last but not least we worked to place the days of creation in order. 

Our friends have been working so hard for weeks now to earn all I their Brownie Points and finally after working so hard we earned our Pajama Party on Friday. Not only did we get to wear our pajamas to school, but we also got to watch a movie during lunchtime. Everyone lovedd our super 80's Chipmunk's movie. There may or may not have been a reference to the band U2 if that tells you anything about the awesomeness of it! 

On top of pajamas and a movie we also had a very special snack provide by one of our awesome room moms. We made delicious campfires out of pretzels, marshmallows, m&m's and candy corns. I am not sure how we are going to beat this snack! It was too cute and too yummy! 

Sadly we had to do a little redocorating of our door since they scheduled Spirit Week in the middle of all out camping cuteness. I never got a chance to turn his era into horns to make him lookalike a ram. Maybe tomorrow I will get a Jane in between tomorrow's lesson and getting everything ready for next week (ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha that's funny thibkinni might actually have a minute to do that!) sometimes you just gotta work with what you've got and make a ram out if a bear. Teaching is all about Rollin with the punches and being flexible as Mrs Caroline and Mrs. Jessica would say (live y'all!) 

Happy belated Friday and hopefully I will get this weeks lesson up before I leave early Friday for my sisters bachelorette party!!