Our First Day and a Happy September!

Our first day of school went well... very few tears!  I have a great group of sweet kiddos this year - 9 boys and only 3 girls!  We spent the first few days just getting used to new friends, new teachers and new things to learn.  

Two of my favorite books to read at the start of a new school year are The Kissing Hand and Elmer.  We enjoyed reading the books together and doing a fun craft for each.  

For The Kissing Hand, we read the book, discussed how we felt on our first day of school, had fun with a coloring sheet and did our very own handprints for our parents.  The kids also went home with a special bag of "kisses" from us at the end of the day.

For Elmer, we read the book and the kids had fun making their own patchwork elephants.

We also began learning our September color, number, shape and letters.  I have so much fun teaching these with the fun posters I create!

We also do "First Day Handprints" each year which the parents will receive at Open House next week.  The chalkboard sign was used for each child to have their picture made on the first day!

Back to School

Well, better late than never!  For the most part this year, my room stayed the same.  I did spend a few days creating all new alphabet cards, number cards, shapes, colors, months of the year and days of the week in a giraffe theme.  No one out there makes giraffe class sets so I had fun making my own.  Here are a few pictures of my room...

The Growing Giraffes

Fun treats for Meet the Teacher:

Giraffe Donuts we gave the students

Let's Learn About Numbers

Okay, maybe I am one of few but teaching numbers to little ones seems kind of boring when you just teach what it looks like and how to write it.  I decided to make a little more fun with my new number posters!  Can you tell I like posters?!?!  Ha!

I cut out each number and because I am a bit OCD when it comes to my classroom and posters going with the flow of what I teach each month, the posters are all outlined in the color that we are learning that month!  :)

On each poster, I glued the following ways to show each number:

Word

Actual Number

Tally marks

Die

Cubes

Ten Frames

Crayons - showing the amount in objects

They turned out really cute and I am super excited to add these to my teaching each day!

Meet the Shape Family!

For several years, I have introduced my class to the wonderful Shape Family!  And every year, they love them and they learn all their shapes!

I use posters cut out like the shapes which each have a specific name.  There is also a poem that goes along with shape that we read daily while learning each shape and the kids quickly learn it to chant out all by themselves.  I also have created a worksheet for them to trace the shape and color it that matches our posters.

For my posters, I make each one the color that we are learning that month.  I actually am in the process of making new ones this year!  They are not all done because I have to get the other colors of poster board but I wanted to share the ones completed with all of you!  

I shared the link to my Meet the Shape Family packet in a previous post but will share it again here:

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Meet-the-Shape-Family-744276

Meet Cindy Circle & Tommy Triangle...

Meet Harry Heart, Opal Oval & Sally Star...

Coming as soon as I get the poster board tomorrow... Sammy Square, Ricky Rectangle & Danny Diamond

Back to School Time

Hey Everyone!  This week, I sent my son off to the 1st Grade and now I am gearing up for my school year to start!  I go back to work on Monday... just for my work in my room week and meetings.  I get to meet my precious class next Friday and then we start the Wednesday after Labor Day.  

Luckily, going to back to school for me means I will do MUCH better at my posting!  I have so many new things I have been creating and cannot wait to decorate my room this year!  

Here is a taste of some of my packs and bundles that I am selling on TpT!

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/2013-2014-

Monthly-Calendars-720479

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Back-to-School-Preschool-Pack-720840

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Environmental-Alphabet-Posters-792085

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Meet-the-Shape-Family-744276

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Monthly-Classroom-Newsletters-742599

Teachers Pay Teachers

I finally caved and joined the world of TpT!  I love it!  I have kept myself busy creating new work and fun packets to share with everyone.  So far, I only have about 20-21 items on there but am working hard on more.  If you are interested, head over to my store and check the things out that I have so far.  I have started selling the Alphabet Poster clip art and headers so I will not be sending those out anymore. Sorry!  Here is a link to my TpT store and I will add many posts sharing the items I have!

TpT Store

Pinterest

I have no idea why I have not shared this before but if you would like to follow me on Pinterest, I have tons of Preschool boards!  

I divided my Preschool boards up into the months and I pin ideas for each theme into their month.  Also, I created boards for numbers, shapes, alphabet, patterns, opposites, worksheets, behavior, organization, decoration, centers, colors and more!

Here is the link to my Pinterest:

http://pinterest.com/abk1030/boards/

So sorry... my crazy life and Alphabet Posters!

So sorry I have been MIA... again!  Life is crazy with teaching preschool, being on our city's baseball board, baseball and t-ball seasons, dance for my daughter, PTO Officer at my son's school and so much more!  I am not even going back to update the last of my school year but will definitely show off some fun things later this Summer.

I have noticed e-mails regarding my Alphabet Posters and no, I am not ignoring you!  I will definitely go and get all the names of those who have requested them and send them.  

You may also comment on this post with your e-mail and I will send you the clip art for the Alphabet posters if you would like them.  

Coming later tonight... I just got done making my brand new number posters!  They turned out so cute and I am so excited to use them next year.  Yes, I know school just got out a few weeks ago but I never stop creating new things for my class!  Up next... Shape Posters!

Spring is Here...

We try to change out my classroom door each month but when Spring rolls around and it is close to the end of the year, we try to find one that can last a while!  We decided to do a cute tree with birds and the wording, "Tweeting About God's Love".

All About Our Teeth

Of course, we learn all about Dental Health during February.  Again, I really like this unit!  I like teaching this and doing fun crafts.  We have these huge teeth models at school with a gigantic toothbrush that we use to teach the children the right way to brush their teeth.  They each get a turn brushing the big teeth!  We also talk about what foods are healthy and unhealthy for our teeth and use a fun activity on the felt board.

One of the children's most fun activities is making a model of their mouths using play-doh and beans.  I typed up a half sheet of paper that says, "How Many Baby Teeth Do I Have?  I Have 20 Baby Teeth... 10 on top and 10 on bottom."  They use light pink play-doh to roll out two sets of mouths/gums and we use hot glue to keep them on the paper (teachers do this part!)  Then the children get ten white beans for the top and ten for the bottom and add their teeth.  The play-doh hardens up overnight.

 A fun activity I found on TPT was a precious tooth and toothbrush with faces and all dressed up from A Cupcake for a Teacher.  We used this activity for the girls to dress up the teeth and the boys to dress up the toothbrushes.  Through the same purchase, she had a precious tooth brushing chart that I laminated, adding a ribbon to hang and gave an Expo marker for a reusable chart in their bathrooms.  The package includes a few other activities including some writing prompts.  Here is a link to the activity/craft on TPT: www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/sweet-tooth-dental-health

To end the week, my aide and myself gave each child a special toothbrush to take home with them!

A find a bunch of my dental health printables, games, activities and felt boards on www.kidssoup.com which you do have to be a member of!

Fruits, Veggies, Nutrition, Oh My!

I love teaching and talking about nutrition, fruits and veggies!  I enjoy teaching the kids all about the 5 food groups, the food plate, eating the rainbow and more.  They learn all about what foods are good for you and which foods are not and we do some fun exercises to energetic kid friendly music!  I have a few books I always read during this week including Lunch and The Little Red Hen Makes a Pizza.  We also do a cute craft to go with each of them.  

As I said earlier, we always read the book Lunch by Denise Fleming.  The book is all about a mouse who eats all these healthy fruits and vegetables and gets a full tummy.  Along the way, he also gets the food all over him.  The kids get to make a cute mouse craft and they use q-tips to add all the different colors of fruits and veggies on the mouse's body!

Another book we read was The Little Red Hen (Makes a Pizza) retold by Philemon Sturges.  I love this book and we talk all about pizza and the veggies you can put on your pizza.  The children make a pizza glyph to go along with the book.  FYI... I love glyphs!

We also always talk about how you should eat a rainbow of fruits and vegetables.  What craft could be more fun than to make a rainbow with colorful fruits and veggies all over it!?  For this craft, I had clip art of fruits and veggies that I printed out for each color.  We gave the children thin, small pieces of construction paper to make their rainbow and we did one color at a time.  When they were all through making a rainbow, they added their fruits and vegetables to it.  I typed up and printed the words for fruit, veggies and Eating a Rainbow and the children glued them on their craft.

Of course, all the children in my class are precious in my eyes so they all deserved to be kings and queens for a day!  So, we made fruit and veggie crowns.  I am a member of the site www.kidssoup.com and I use the templates from this site for this craft.

One more craft we do is is making our own plate modeled after the one for Choose My Plate.  The children use a paper plate and glue down cut out sections to make the plate.  They then glue on the coordinating foods for each of the food groups.  You can get some printable materials to use with your class at www.choosemyplate.gov/food-groups and another great site to get printables and teaching material from is www.nourishinteractive.com/nutrition-education

And lastly for crafts, this is just a quick and easy one to take up some extra time in class.  The kids get to make a vegetable garden.  I typed up and used clip art to make garden stakes with veggie names and the children can either glue wads of tissue paper or this year, we just cut foam squares with sticky on the back and let them place them down.

And last, I would like to share a great coloring/following directions worksheet I found while searching the internet.  You can find it here: www.camdenchildrensgarden.org/

Muffins for Moms

We love our Mommies and at our school, we host a Muffins for Mom morning each year.  We do ours around Valentine's Day each year.  I spend a couple of months before the big day racking my brain for the perfect centerpieces and table decorations for my three tables for my class.  Each teacher decorates her own tables in the way she wants to.  The children make placemats for their Mommy's seat and then we make a bunch of special gifts and treats.  This year, we made two keepsake gifts... tea towels with a poem and their handprints printed on transfer paper and then ironed on and also we did the picture frames with 3 different pics - one with the child holding M, then O and then M again to spell out MOM in three different pics.  I love getting prepared for Muffins for Mom and the kids get so excited to make gifts for their mommies!

My table decorations were my most time consuming to prepare than any other year.  I am a very crafty person so I thought I would go to the extreme on my centerpieces...Sweetheart topiaries!  They turned out great but wow, the time I spent on them - 2 hours per topiary and I made three of them.  I also made 24 small ones for place cards for the children and their moms.  Thank goodness for Dollar Store sweethearts because I used many bags!

The placemats the children made were precious.  I saw the idea on Pinterest - what a shock!  I always do something with handprints (I am a handprint crazy woman!)  The children made a flower with their hands from red and pink paint, we added green stems and grass and a few additional heart flowers from their thumbprints.  I cut the words Mommy, Love and 2013 on my Cricut from vinyl and added it to the placemat.  We are a church preschool, so what better way to show Love than by a beautiful Bible verse about Love.

We made a few other cute little things for our Mommies including a card, a bouquet of flowers and a portrait of each Mommy with questions about her answered by each child.

Of course, we have our gifts.  Somehow, I messed up and wrapped the frames before I took the pictures so I do not have that to share.  Here is our towels...

And lastly... a pic of me and my sweet girl sitting with her class at Muffins for Mom.

Winter Wonderland

We are bringing in the new year learning all about Winter!  We have been teaching the kids all about Snowmen, Igloos, Winter Animals, Hibernation and Winter clothes.  Living in Alabama, snow is not the most common sight but the kids lucked up this week with a rare winter snow day.  It did not last long but it was fun while it was here!  They were so excited to come to school the next day and tell me all about what they got to do in the snow.  

We are still learning all about Winter but I wanted to share what we have done so far.

As always, we love creating new doors for the month.  Plus, we love having a different door that no one else does!  This year, we decided to have the kids make a cup of hot chocolate.  We cut out mug shapes and they tore brown construction paper into small pieces and then added the paper and real marshmallows to a ziploc bag.  We taped them on the back of the mugs and added them to the door.  We used the saying: "Warming Our Hearts With Jesus."

Penguins on Ice: The kids painted bubble wrap white and pressed it on blue paper.  Then we glued aluminum foil for a piece of ice and added their handprint penguins.

The kids had a blast making their snow globes!  We traced the outline of the plate on the paper and gave them the snowman and snowflake stickers.  They glued cotton on the bottom of the circle and added their stickers to the scene.  Then, they glued their black base on the paper.  I hot glued the clear plates on top and added clear glitter and snowflake confetti so they could shake it up like a true snow globe.

Doily Snowman:  The kids glued two different shaped doilies to form a snowman.  Using popsicle sticks, the added the arms and using thumbprints, they made the eyes and mouth.  They finished it off with a carrot nose, pom poms for buttons and a bow for a girl and a hat for a boy.