The Centers Room

I have just posted a slideshow of my centers room on the "My Classroom" page.  Click to check it out! 

You Can't Catch Me!

It was a gingerbread week in preschool!  Every day we read a different version of the Gingerbread Man.  The preschoolers used our story graph to compare the characters from each story.  We also compared the story endings.  I photocopied the story covers to make our graph.  

We read the following stories: 

• The Gingerbread Man by Jim Aylesworth
• The Gingerbread Man by Jack Hartmann (audio story)
• The Gingerbread Girl by Lisa Campbell Ernst
• The Gingerbread Cowboy by Janet Squires
• The Stinky Cheese Man by Jon Scieszka

 (I originally got this graph idea from Vanessa at Pre-K Pages.)

According to our "Which story was your favorite?" graph, The Gingerbread Girl was the favorite of the week. (The boys votes were split between the other stories while the girls all rallied together for the same story.)

Hand Print Wreaths

This week in the Art Center, the preschoolers made hand print wreaths.  We helped them turn their paper to make the circular shape.  They sprinkled glitter onto the wet paint to give the wreaths that extra sparkle! We used Aileen's tacky glue to attach the pipe cleaner bows. They are super easy and add a little more of the Christmas spirit to our classroom!

Classroom Tour: The Main Room

Click on the "My Classroom" page to view a slideshow of my main classroom!  I am lucky enough to have two rooms all to myself so I will work on posting pictures from my Centers Room soon. 

Fingerprint Turkeys

I originally saw this Thanksgiving craft on Pinterest.  It did link to http://uniquecraft.info but the page says it is currently suspended.

Each of my preschoolers created their own fingerprint turkey card and picked a person to write a thank you to.  Most of my students chose to give their card to someone in their family; however, a few children chose to give them to people at school (e.g. counselor, principal, other students).  

Examples of Thank You's:

• (To counselor) I love you, Ms. _____!  Thank you for playing games with me!
• (To peer) Thank you for being nice and being my friend! Thank you for telling me to tell my mom to come to your house!
• (To mom) Thank you for cutting chicken and rabbits! (We are a small country school...enough said!)

Pumpkin Pie in a Cup

I got this idea from Vanessa at www.pre-kpages.com and decided to use it as a Thanksgiving celebration with my students.  I followed the recipe Vanessa provided but I also wanted a more visual representation that my students could follow.  I created this preschooler-recipe on Publisher and found the clip art on Google Images.  

Pumpkin Pie in a Cup - Recipe for Preschoolers

As a whole group, we reviewed what baking tools we would be using and what their functions were.  We also looked over our ingredients and read through the recipe.  We then split into two groups of 7-8 students with either myself or my classroom aide.  

The preschoolers took turns adding in the various ingredients.  Everyone was given a turn mixing the pudding with the whisk and using the rolling pin to crush graham crackers. 

The preschoolers all agreed that their favorite part was getting to eat the finished products!  We made a few extra cups that we then gave to our principal, secretary, counselor, custodian and lunch lady as thank you's for all the hard work they do.  It was the perfect way to end our week of giving thanks!

Up, up and away!

This is the bulletin board I created this year to welcome my new students into preschool!

I made my own balloon stencil on tag board and cut the balloons from construction paper.  I wrote a child's name on each one.  I then stapled white yarn to the wall as the balloon's string.  I made the cloud by strategically scrunching up white butcher paper for a 3D effect.  The bulletin board title was cut on my Cricut using the Cuttin' Up cartridge.

Welcome to Tree Stone National Park

Every February our entire school participates in a read-a-thon.  The theme this year was "Going on a Read Trip" which took the students on "tours" of various national parks.  The preschoolers used their knowledge of wildlife, nature and national parks to create this classroom mural.

The first thing we did was blot white paint on our backdrop with cottonballs to create clouds.  We then used construction paper to create the mountains, trees and our sun (which of course needed glitter!).  The preschoolers then honed their cutting skills by taking scissors to magazines to find animals for our park. 

The preschoolers came up with several name ideas for our park including Beautiful National Park, Butterfly National Park and my personal favorite, Super Awesome National Park.  The majority of the class voted for Tree Stone National Park, the only national park where buffaloes and polar bears roam the same mountain range!

 
I was so impressed with the preschooler's creativity!  They searched for dirt, grass and small sticks outside to add to our mural.  Several students used the art center to create signs (we wrote down what they dictated).  They also decided that we needed a road so people could visit the park.  I added the clip art cars driven by the preschoolers.  They loved it!

The Pixar Alphabet

I created these alphabet flashcards for a former student who loved the Disney Pixar movies.  He was three years old at the time and non-verbal.  He loved looking through his cards!  I also made him a Pixar Alphabet poster that I could hang on the wall or place on the floor so he could match up his flashcards.  The first words he ever spoke in my classroom were "Mo" for Nemo and "Dohy" for Dory.

   

 The Pixar Alphabet pdf

I store my flashcards in a quart size ziploc bag.  I used packaging tape to attach the alphabet title to the bag.