A Visit with Miss Bindergarten

 Last year, I signed up to have the Miss Bindergarten doll visit as she traveled around the country. I met Lisa Collins, via the Miss Bindergarten Facebook page, thought it would be fun to send her to various schools and record her adventures on Facebook and in the blog,  Miss B Travels. When I heard we would finally be getting her last year, it was our last week of school and I had to let Lisa know that we wouldn't be able to participate. Lisa let me know that the response had been so positive, that she had decided to send her on more adventures as school as school reconvened in the fall. I admit I was excited as the kids to learn shortly before Thanksgiving that she was on her way. Here's the entry we posted in  her travel journal about her visit with us in Pre-K.

Greetings from Mrs. Ayn's Georgia Pre-K class at Oakbrook Country Day School in Evans, Georgia! In our class! We have 20 students, a lead teacher, Mrs. Ayn and a paraprofessional, Ms. Tiffany. Our town is on the outskirts of Augusta, Ga., home of the Masters golf tournament. People come from all over the world each year to see our town and watch the Masters. Our town is right next to the Georgia/South Carolina border.

We had a great surprise when we returned from our Thanksgiving break. Miss Bindergarten arrived while we were away and was waiting to greet us when we returned to school on Monday.

We enjoyed having her sit with us at circle time while we read about her classroom adventures.

She took turns sitting with each student.

During center time this week, we were able to sit with Miss B and read her books.

Miss B enjoyed visiting with our class mascot, Mr. Scruffy. Mr. Scruffy visits with one of our families each weekend. Mr. Scruffy has a travel journal like Miss B.'s for families to record adventures and pictures. Mr. Scruffy enjoyed hearing all about Miss B.'s travels, but decided that he's still not quite ready to travel that far from home yet.

 
We have really enjoyed having Miss B visit our class. We love to  read her books and have enjoyed reading her travel journal and looking at all her pictures. She is so AWESOME and we will miss her. Thanks for visiting, Miss B! You are welcome to visit Pre-K anytime!

Our last activity with Miss B was dictating our entry for her travel journal. We packed her up and sent her on her way to Alabama. We can't wait to hear more about her adventures as she travels around the country! We will be following the Miss B Travels blog to see more of her adventures!


Correction: Earlier, this post stated that Lisa Collins was the creator of the Miss Bindergarten Facebook fan page. I believe the creator is Ashley Wolff.

Gingerbread Friends

We have read many Gingerbread stories since we started our Gingerbread theme,  and are really enjoying Jan Brett's Gingerbread Friends over and over.

We have also been doing some team building. I planned a couple of  co-operative art experiences to further that end. To coincide with our gingerbread theme, I place a large blank cut out of a gingerbread person on each table. The children were allowed to decorate however they wished, as long as they did it together.

I admit ---  I was loathing, just a little, the thought the glitter would appear, but to my surprise it never did. Once the kids discovered the large buttons, it was the "cool" thing to decorate with!

We added a few foam stickers.

We even made up a couple of impromptu games with our new Gingerbread Friends.

It's a good thing these are made from art materials and not real gingerbread---they're too cute to eat!

Perky Picasso Penguin Circles

Although I teach Pre-K (4-5 year olds), I am frequently asked for ideas for younger children. When I taught 1's, 2's and especially 3's, I generally modified crafts to be workable for little hands and attention spans. As I was walking down the hall today, I saw these cute penguins on the window of our one year old class. They are learning about circles (can you tell?).

I especially LOVE that the teachers didn't try to "fix" the students' placement to make the penguins look perfect. This is the teacher's model (he lost and eye, but you can still get the idea).

Some of these have sort of a Picasso look about them, but each one is unique!

And proudly displayed for all our school and parents to see!

Super Fun with Shawn Brown

I have been to a LOT of trainings lately. One of the most exciting this year was a training with Shawn Brown. I was introduced to his music several years ago and have been sharing his music with my students ever since. They love the upbeat tempos and rhythms. Anyone that sounds that fun on a CD just HAS to be fun in a training, right?   Oh, yeah!

If you are not familiar with Shawn Brown, you can visit his Super Fun Show website or can get a little sample here:

I had the pleasure of speaking with Shawn Brown for a few minutes, and he is a very nice guy! I browsed the booths (there were only a few) and met a few old friends from other childcare centers. 

I do find it interesting that these conferences are a PRIME spot for a children's book vendor, yet at the last several I've been to, children's book vendors are conspicuously absent!

The conference started with a local step/marching band that marched in to greet us and get us pumped up.

 

We went to a couple of classes, then reassembled for lunch and the afternoon session with Shawn Brown. I love a conference session where you are up and moving --- not sitting in the same spot every minute fighting the "nods"! There was no sitting out of these sessions.

 The Grand Finale was doing the Super Fun Show with Shawn Brown! 

Of course, I bought a couple of the CD's to take with me and he was kind enough to autograph them for me!

We were given a CD of his chants as part of the conference, too!

                                


  
 

Thanksgiving.....Leftovers

I went back to school today and realized there was so much I wanted to post, that I just never managed to find the time. We were crazy that last week (but, really, we're crazy EVERY week) and Thanksgiving had come and gone before I 'd had a chance to post it all. Here's the leftovers~mostly for me so I won't forget to do some of these again next year!

Family Project
We sent home a blackline turkey on white cardstock for the families to decorate/disguise together. We have some really creative families! We had turkeys disguised as ballerinas, Santa, snowmen, Batman, Indian Chiefs, Angels and Devils. Some were just decorated so cute that they would never be found by an unsuspecting farmer looking for his turkey!

Make your own greeting card

Chart Stories
We wrote several chart stories related to our Thanksgiving theme. This one was called "We Are Thankful".

I also gave each student a Native American name.

Bulletin Boards
Thanks to my wonderful assistant, we had some neat bulletin boards, too! Our big bulletin board was about Healthy Food.

 And this one was one our art display boards.

This was our "Talkin' Turkey" lobby display.

Music
And finally...our favorite songs of the season:

Mr. Turkey
 (tune of: Are you sleeping)
Mr. Turkey, Mr. Turkey
Run Away, Run Away!
If you are not careful,
You will be a mouthful!
Thanksgiving Day,
Thanksgiving Day!


Albuquerque Turkey
(sung to the tune of "Clementine")
Albuquerque is my turkey
And he's feathered and he's fine
And he wobbles and he gobbles
and he's absolutely mine.
He's the best pet  you can get yet..
Better than a dog or cat.
He's my Albuquerque turkey
And I'm awfully proud of that!
My Albuquerque turkey
is so cozy in his bed,
'Cause for our Thanksgiving dinner...
We had spaghetti instead!



Happy Turkey Day!