First week of school

Well, I've been MIA for a very long time.  Partly because my camera completely crashed.  I lost everything!  It was totally devastating.  The other reason I've just had a lot going on personally and didn't have it in me to do much blogging.  The good news is I'm on the road to recovery and I'm just going to use my phone to take pictures for a while.  These are not the best pictures, but will give you a peek into our class!  I will have to say this is a sweet little class, and I think we are going to have a fantastic year!

We keep it fairly simple the first week with centers.  They are more play based to help establish routines and procedures.  This is the puzzle center.

Art Center- We are painting the first two pages of our Creation books.

Housekeeping Center

Block Center- I added the school house and bus to go along with the theme.

The girls preferred the toys more than the blocks. :)

Our lesson on how to use markers-
This is Marker Happy all sharp and new
He can color anything, just tell him what to do!
His cap is on tight pushed down with all your might
Marker Happy will sleep so well tonight!
His tip is sharp and ready for art
Marker Happy is so lucky and smart!
This is Marker Sad, all grumpy and mad.
His cap is gone and is all dried out!
So all he can do is cry and pout
His tip has been broken with a pound, pound, pound.
Look at Marker Sad with his big frown.

I did not catch the picture, but after learning about how to use correctly use markers., we sorted them by color.  We also matched the correct tops to the markers.

We are going to make a class book with these cute cat in the hat pictures! :)

Learning how to use scissors

We had a giant pair of scissors that we used to demonstrate how to hold the scissors correctly, and then practiced cutting.

They had a few different sheets to practice cutting- straight line, wavy line and zig zag

I'm so excited about my new partner!   She is going to be a great asset!  We are already having a great time bouncing ideas off each other and planning.  This is going to be a great year!

     I'm off for the weekend to visit my son at college!  Hotty Toddy!

New Year, New Room

     I can't believe it is time for a new school year!  I loved meeting all my new friends at Open House!  They are super duper cute, and I can't wait to get started tomorrow.  I forgot to take pictures of several things in the room, so hopefully, I can get those up tomorrow (depending on how exhausted I am!)

I've had the privilege of attending a few of Pat Leonard's seminars.  She is a rock star in the preschool world here in Georgia.  One of the activities that she has up as a free center is a number line.  I decided to do an alphabet and number line on the back of one of my cubbies.  On the pockets are the upper case letter and the lower case letters are on sticks with a Dr. Seuss hat.  I'm planning on changing the letters out thematically.  On the bottom pockets are dots to represent numbers, and on the hats are the numeral.  I'm going to introduce this the first week of school, so that when they are finished with their work they are able to do this.  Eventually, they will also have the option of reading books, but we have to learn how to properly use books! :)

Each student has the opportunity to be the Star Bellied Sneetch of the Week.  They take home a poster that is completed and returned back to school that is then hung up on this wall.  Everyday they have a special activity to do.

The Reading Center-  I did not realize you could see my mess in the background when I took this picture!  I made the red crates last year that they can sit on while reading.  I'll try to get a better angle tomorrow!

Calendar Wall-  I was so excited to actually find a Dr. Seuss calendar at Michael's this year!  

Our Class Wish List-  They take a fish off the wall to donate an item to the classroom.

Can't wait to put up our first craft!  We did the first part at Open House and will finish it up the first week of school.

I do not have room for a Word Wall, so we have a Word Door! :)  

Yikes!  I realized my o fell off the wall!  It should read Horton Hears a Helper

I'm off to finish getting ready for our first day tomorrow!  Can't wait!

Busy First Week of School!

     Here are some of the fun activities that we did the first week of school!

We drew a picture of our self and then wrote on our name on the first day of school.

We read If You Take a Mouse to School.  After we read the book, we took a tour of our school and met all the important people in our school and took pictures of them.  I haven't finished the book yet, but I will post it when its finished.  We then made our own mouse and said what he would see, if he came to our school.

We made the buses from Deanna Jump's website.  This was a class favorite!  We sang Wheels on the Bus first, and then did it with our names.  They wanted to do this over and over again! :)

We made a book to help us remember the rules.  This is a book from an older edition of Teacher's Helper.  I like this one because they had to choose which picture was following the rule.  They then glued it in the box and colored the picture.

This is the first time (in a very long time!) that I did not do The Kissing Hand.  I still wanted to do a handprint, so we made pirate handprints.  I found the cute little poem at Making Learning Fun.

We made pirate faces out of paper plates. I saw this idea in a couple of different places, but I Heart Crafty Things  has very detailed instructions on how to make these.

We began our Creation books.  We are painting day one God made day and night.

Here is the completed page.  They painted over masking tape and then peeled the tape off to make light.

Here is our block center.  We added a play schoolhouse and bus to play with in the center.

This was a favorite with the boys!  The pirate ship!!!!

Puzzle center.  My little friends had to go potty, so I didn't get their picture with the puzzle! LOL

We are making Friendship Fruit Salad.  Each person brought in a piece of fruit and here we are chopping it and putting it in the bowl.  I've used this idea has been around for years, so I'm not exactly sure who to give credit to.  

Waiting patiently for their turn to add their piece of fruit.

I don't know why my camera is taking such blurry pictures!  Here I am getting ready to add the rotten banana.

Ok...this is absolutely the cutest, funniest story I think has ever happened while doing this activity!  We read a story about   friendship and discussed what it is to be a good friend.  Then we talked about how we all shared our fruit, we worked together, and how when we all contribute and do our part we end up with a yummy, fruit salad.  I was getting ready to add the rotten banana, so of course, they all told me to stop and not put that yucky banana in.  We then compared the Friendship Salad with our class and the yucky banana with someone that is not being a good friend and not doing their part.  We don't want any yucky, rotten bananas in our class!  I then asked them to raise their hand if they promised to be like the good fruit and be a good friend and classmate.  One little boy did not raise his hand, so I asked him what he was going to be if he wasn't going to be a good piece of fruit.  He responded, "A rotten banana!"  I asked him, "Why would you want to be a rotten banana?"  He said, "I don't want to get eaten up!"  How cute is that!!!!!  He wasn't saying that he was going to be bad...he just didn't want to get eaten up!  Gotta love those kiddos!
We did a few more things, but they are not finished, so I will get them up soon!  

Great Freebies

     I found a great web site www.teachfactory.com that has tons of free resources to help with setting up your classroom.  There are a few themes that have a small fee, but it is well worth it.  Some of the themes that are on the web site are: jungle, zebras, monkeys, monsters, movies, moose, and ocean.  There is even a pirate theme! There is more than that, but I can't remember everything! I printed off name plates, book bag tags, and a page that I'm going to use for my parent information packets.  She also had some pirate clip art that I printed off, but I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it yet!  All of her packets are very elementary and even preschool friendly.

     I'm still working on my large ship for job assignments and treasure box for 100 day count.  Hopefully, I will have these finished by the end of the week.  I also finished up my parent information packet, but still not sure how to upload it.  I'm hoping to have the majority of the room decorations and open house information finished by Friday.  Still have lots to do!!!