We started back to school earlier this month and everything seems BRAND NEW! The students are all new to Pre-K and some of them are new to the school. My assistant and I are BRAND NEW teachers to the students, even though we've been in the school for several years. I've changed our class mascot from fish to owls, so there are new owl decorations everywhere! There is just something about things being new that seems to make life just a little more exciting! On the first day of school, I took pictures of the students that will go in a memory book for them at the end of the year. I posed them in front of one of the bulletin boards that will have seasonal changes, but basically remain the same. At the end of the year, we'll take another picture in the same place and be able to see how much they've changed and grown!
Also in the first week, I had each of them color a circle to decorate a large owl in our room. Later, these circles will be placed in their memory books, as well.
My classroom received a refurbishment grant this year to replace worn out materials and classroom supplies. One of the big things I got was a new rug! Isn't it bright and beautiful? It is humongous and has spots for everyone to have a little personal space.
We also got a few new bikes for our playground. I chose the "big wheel" style and they have been a big hit! There are always friends waiting for a turn!
I have wanted MagnaTile blocks for a long time, but frankly, they are very expensive and there are always so many other things I need. I was able to use some of the grant money to purchase a set. I am amazed at the creativity and imaginative things the children create with them. I picked the translucent blocks with the plan of using them with light box I'm making. They will look great when lit up, I think!
We got some new foam blocks that are great for building and perfect for use with the new animals we got for the block center!
Some of our dramatic play costumes had seen much better days. We ordered several new ones. This is the NASA astronaut uniform that we got! (It is especially nice paired with awesome cowboy boots! ;)
I love this little couch and chair set that we purchased with refurbishment funds! I broke the set up and now have a cozy spot to curl up with a book in reading center and added the sofa to our dramatic play area.
One of the things that was a combination of new and not-new was our old sensory table. It was so bulky that often I use big bins or a tabletop sensory table in the classroom. I repurposed our old bulky table to the playground for outdoor sensory fun. The kids are really enjoying having it outside!
Even the way the children are experimenting with familiar materials seems "brand new". Watching this new class explore in centers and try new techniques brings me a little joy each day.
I'm sure that as time goes by, these things will all become worn, well loved and lack their "new" appeal, but for now we are enjoying the discovery of "brand new"! I have a few more items that I haven't put out right away, just to savor the excitement of having something fresh for later on. Hope your "brand new" school year is off to a good start! If you'd like to read more about our first day of Pre-K, hop on over to PreK+K Sharing and read "On The First Day of Pre-K..."
In honor of Seuss week, we have lots of fun activities planned. This is the door to our classroom that welcomed our students last year. I plan to decorate similarly this year. The eyes sort of "float" on the window, attached to pleated paper.
I took pool noodles and craft tissue to make a couple of truffela trees to line the hallway.
The children will make lots of Seuss inspired art this week, I'm sure and our walls inside will be decorated with it, but I wanted to give them a little inspiration to get them started! Happy birthday, Dr. Suess!!!!!!!
I know that technically yesterday was Valentine's Day, but many in our part of the US have been without power and out of school due to fierce winter storms. Our holiday celebrations have been postponed until later next week. We've decided to go ahead with them, since the kids were so excited and will be really let down if we have to miss them altogether. Since I know many place will be doing the same, I thought I'd go ahead and share the posts I'd originally planned to post about Valentine's Day before we lost power.
We take advantage of seasonal materials when they come out--especially at the dollar store. I stocked up on heart shaped jewels, Valentine erasers, doilies, Valentine's cards, Conversation Heart candies and Valentine puzzles to put in the various centers in our class.
The kids love playing with the erasers and jewels that I put in our math center. We do patterning counting matching and a wide variety of games with them.
I drew a tic tac toe board on a few paper hearts and taught the kids how to play tic tac toe. It's easy to forget that with our digital age many children have never been exposed to it before. It'a a fun little game that is short enough to keep their interest, and can really hone those critical thinking skills!
We use Conversation heart candies in a variety of ways---we graph them, count the letters in them, sort by color, use them in science experiments and even paint with them! One of the ways we've used them this week is by using our magnifying glasses and doing letter hunts with them! The children have been busily writing their conversations from the hearts, comparing who has certain letters and finding letters from their names!
In our art center, we added some heart shaped paper and children free painted and practiced some new techniques, pressing the sides of the heart together to make symmetrical art.
Some kids just enjoyed drawing hearts and cutting them out with fancy scissors.
I bent some of our toilet paper tubes slightly to make heart shapes to dip in paint and stamp with. Some of them started stamping but ended up painting with the stamps as brushes.
Our one year old class made these cute hand and footprint cards for parents. So cute!
Of course we read lots of fun books about Valentine's Day! Here are some of our favorites:
I've added a new tab to the to of the page for books by theme. I'll be adding to this list as I go through the year! little illuminations: Books by Theme If you are interested in more of our Valentine's activities, here are the links to some of my previous posts about our Valentine activities! Valentine Bulletin Boards 2014
plus, look for the last 2 posts in later this week--one on Valentine Boxes and one about Valentine's Day fingerplays and flannelboards! Be sure to check out my Valentine's Day board on Pinterest!
I love to read your comments!!! Be sure to leave your thoughts below!
Need a way to decorate for an occasion with little prep work or materials? One of my co-workers (Morgan, an amazingly creative preschool teacher) made this absolutely adorable birthday banner for a friends' child's birthday party. She took some burlap, cut triangles and stenciled and painted letters on each piece. Simple clothespins hold the pieces on the string. I love that she added some pics of the birthday boy!!!
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It's beginning to look festive around our school! This is our door that I decorated to greet the children and help them get into the holiday spirit this week.
I'm thrilled to be a part of the 2013 Gardening With Kids Linky, co-hosted by Erin Dean from The Usual Mayhem and Amy Ahola from Child Central Station. Be sure to check out the links at the bottom of this post for tons of more garden and planting ideas! Already this year, we've learned about the life cycle of an apple tree, vegetables and farming and pumpkin life cycles, but Spring is the time where we "dig in" to learning about planting a garden. We've used the plants and flowers theme all across the curriculum and in our learning centers. Planting Seeds to make a Window Garden One of our small group activities was to wet a cotton ball and put it and a lima bean in a baggie to hang in our window. We will be able to watch the seed begin to sprout.
Making Flowers in Art Center I got out the collage box to make a couple of flowers for our Spring bulletin board. Watching me create with the materials inspired some of the children to make flowers of their own.
I also made a coffee filter flower, using coffee filters, markers and some leftover painted paper and before I knew it, we had a garden of those flowers, as well.
A few of the children drew their favorite vegetables one day.
Here's the Spring bulletin board so far. The carrots were leftover from another project, so we "planted" them in the dirt, and added the vegetables the children drew. We tucked the flowers in the grass and added the butterflies that some of the kids made while exploring with the coffee filters. We'll add to it as the children make more flowers or bugs.
Plant Experiments As often happens, things don't always turn out as planned. I wanted to show the children how a plant "drinks" water. We were to put cut flowers in water colored with dye and watch the dye as it traveled to the parts of the plant. When I shopped for cut flowers, I couldn't find carnations like I've used in the past. I picked what I thought was a suitable substitute. Things started off good, but a week later when Spring Break began, our flower petals still had not changed color. I did go back to the school mid week to try to take some pictures to show the children when they returned, but I was told that most of the petals had fallen off and thrown away. The few remaining flowers were STILL white! Oh well, we'll try again another time! As is often my luck, sometimes things just don't go as planned. In the photos below, you can see a bit of the color seeping into the flowers, but just in small areas.
We've also cut an avocado open and observed the giant seed. We put toothpicks in to prop it over a cup, so that half the seed is in water and half is out. We'll be watching this begin to grow roots and sprout into a tree.
Getting our Garden Ready For Planting We've started getting our garden ready now that the weather is starting to warm up. We'll plant seeds this week and see the first flowers just before summer break.
When school started, the garden was lush and filled with blooms from the previous Spring planting. The children have been excited to make a garden like the one last year's class planted.
Creating a Flower Shop in Dramatic Play Before we left for break, the children suggested opening a floral shop in dramatic play. I had planned on doing that anyway, but it is so much more meaningful to the kids when it is their own idea. On Monday when we return,I'll have them help me create the learning center. Here are some of the pictures from previous years of how I've transformed the dramatic play center into a floral shop.
Music and Movement We've been singing and dancing to "plant" songs. One of the songs we've sung is a song I've picked up somewhere along the way. I think Dr. Jean does a version, too. We touch our head for "flowers", our torso for "stem", hands out flat for "leaves" and feet and legs for "roots". We like to start slow and get faster and faster! Flower, Stem, Leaves and Roots (tune: Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes) Flower, stem, leaves and roots, leaves and roots. Flower, stem, leaves and roots, leaves and roots. All it needs is sun and showers And the seed grows into a flower! We love Deborah Stewart's (from Teach Preschool) song, "The Seed Begins In The Garden". The children curl up like seeds and start to grow and grow as the song builds until they are standing tall! Here's a little video of the song. The entire cd, "Simple Songs for Preschoolers" is great! Pop on over to Teach Preschool if you'd like to order a copy!
Reading about Planting and Gardens As I mentioned in an earlier post, the publishers at Scholastic sent over complimentary copies of "Clifford's My Big World" classroom magazines. In our small groups, we read the issue on plants and discussed plant life cycles. If you'd like to hear more about these magazines, you'll find information in my post, "Singing In The Rain: Learning About Weather in Pre-K".
We've also read some really great books about plants! Here are some of our favorites:
Thanks for visiting! Be sure to leave a little "comment love"---I'd love for you to share your thoughts! Check out the little illuminations facebook fan page and see what we're sharing today! Don't forget to scroll down and check out the great links below! If you've got a post about gardening, we'd love for you to add it to the linky below!
