Snow Days and Christmas in February

I live in an area that gets very little snow each year, but always some.  We got 6 inches and the temps have been very low so it was light fluffy snow.  It is flat, open, and windy as well.  Clearing the roads has been next to impossible so we have not had school all week.  But does that mean I have not gone in, of course not.  Especially after getting an e-mail from my principal  titles Christmas in February.  We went to full day pre-k this year, which meant adding pre-k classrooms to our school, which was funded by a grant.  Well a huge chunk of our order came and my classroom was full of boxes.  I braved the bad roads and cold temperatures to go through everything.  While it is amazing to have all of these resources in my room it is a lot of go through!  I am glad we had these snow days because I have worked on it now for about 6-8 hours and it is still a mess.  I am going in again tomorrow, it must get done tomorrow, because I think we will be back to school on Monday.  Below is the carnage from my trip today.

How is it February Already?

This year is flying by and I have done so many fun new things this year.  It has been a very hectic but rewarding year.  This year we went form half day pre-k with a morning and afternoon to full day pre-k.  It has been a lot of work, but wow has it been worth it.  I already have students who are writing sentences!  They are amazing me at every turn.  One of my favorite projects this year was making self portraits.  My students each made a self portrait and then we wrote I am _____. on them.  They loved it.  I took a long time to complete, but it was so worth it.  We first made the portraits and then one or two kids a day would write I am _____. on their portrait.  They are really spectacular.  Her are some examples.

 

Something else I have discovered is gonoodle.  Gonoodle is a website that you can use for brain breaks.  It works best if you have a smart board or projector of some sort.  I like that it is customizable.  For mine I added a bunch of Laurie Berkner Band clips from youtube that my kids love.  I do not have to search for the link and my kids love watching our character grow as we gain more points.  It is a must have for every primary classroom.

Update

I have been so busy lately at work and home that this blog has been neglected.  I am sorry.  We moved near the beginning of the school year, pre-k went from 1/2 day to whole day, my daughter started a new school.  It caused some issues that have been eating up my free time and leaving me so exhausted that I have not been able to update this blog.  We have done so many cool things and my kids are really taking off.  Some time this week I am going to take pictures of this really cool project we did in my class.  It took a long time to complete step 1 and step 2 is taking even longer, but it is worth it.  Check back soon to see what I am talk about.

Community Helpers

We recently read the book Trashy Town.  In Trashy Town the garbage man goes around the town to a variety of community locations. The book has a pattern that students love to repeat.  After reading we used shapes we know to create trash trucks.  They are so adorable!

Over Due

Wow, this year has been flying by.  I am sorry I have not been posting regularly.  As I mentioned, we moved.  Moving and working and having your child go to school full day for the first time and homework  was a lot to handle.  Life is finally starting to settle down a bit and so I thought I would share some of the wonderful, fun, exciting things we have done this year.

Many of my students enter the year not recognizing their name so the first several months we do a lot of name work in pre-k.  Below are just a few examples of things we have done.

At first we wanted them just to recognize the first letter of their name.  We have a resource center available to us in my county that has this 8 in letter cut outs, so I ordered enough to have the first letter of all the students in my classroom and then a few extra of each letter, just in case.  Then I would call students over during small groups 2 or 3 at a time with 5 or 6 letters on the table.  I would ask them to find the first letter of their name and then we would trace the letter, say the letter, and say their name.  Next they got to decorate the letter with dot paint.  The kids were very proud of their letters and started to see it everywhere; declaring that is the letter in MY name.

During the week we learned about R, we made rockets with our names spelled on them.  Some students wrote the letters themselves, some traced the letters, and some just put the letters of their name in order depending on where they were in knowing their name.

To address STEM when we read about The Three Billy Goats Gruff we made a bridge that would hold 3 billy goats.  Students worked in groups with a variety of materials.  the bridge had to hold all 3 billy goats and allow a toy car to pass under.  Here is a picture of one group working on their bridge...

This last picture was a surprise.  During free play in centers I am walking around making notes and observing what children are up to and I came across a this picture below, look at it and see if you can see why I was so impressed...

On their own they decided to sort the magnets by color!  I love it!  They worked together, talked it out and were just going to town on their project.  It has to be one of my favorite moments this year.  You should have seen their proud faces when they realized I was interested in their work.  These are the moments we live for people!

Daily Shared Writing

This year for a daily shared writing experience I am taking 5 minutes at the end of every day and having the kids tell me what we did and posting it to my wiki.  The parents can check it and when their child says we didn't do anything today they know what we did.  It doesn't take much effort and I have gotten some positive feedback on it already.  

Another thing I wanted to share is safe share.  Safe share is great, you take a youtube video and plug it into safe share and it take out the adds.  So you can show an educational video without a youtube add for something inappropriate for children popping up.

Getting Ready to Go Back to School

Even though we are not officially back to school I have been in to get my room together a bit.  While it is certainly not finished here are some pictures of the progress.

This is a picture as you walk into the door, the desk in the back is my instructional assistant's desk.  It use to face out the window, but I turned it around this year because we are switching to all day Pre-K and the kids have to take a nap so she will need to be facing out so she can see them while they nap.

This is a little further to the right, the 3 tables in the middle will be used during our small group time and the centers will be wrapped around the room.

This is the morning meeting, reading carpet, whole group area.  My desk is in the back corner.  The whiteboard on the right has a projector that makes it like a smart board, the rolling white board is where I write the morning message.

I will post more pictures when I am done.  I still have a long way to go, but at least all of my bulletin boards are covered and have boarders and my furniture is close to where I want.  I just need to go through all the boxes, finish setting up my computers and put up some decorative stuff.  

There is a small part of me that is having a panic attach though because I may not be able to pull my late nights at school during the first work week for teachers because we are moving.  The timing stinks.  We were suppose to move back in July, but delay after delay has put us into the end of August.  But I set my entire Pre-K classroom up in one day last year after spending 2 weeks getting my second grade classroom up and running (last minute transfer).  I will be looking forward to the day that I am moved in and the classroom is done and I am a week into this full day pre-k thing.  Wish me luck.