-
Crumpled Hearts
On Monday I posted that I have been having a lot of issues with empathy and children who are generally unkind in the classroom. One of the ideas that I had found was an activity where children crumbled paper to see how their words and actions affected others. This was an idea that I was really excited about trying with my class, so I wanted to share how it went. I wanted to make the meaning of this activity as obvious as possible, so I started by cutting each piece of paper into a heart. Then I wrote each child’s name on one of the hearts. During circle time I…
-
What’s in my writing center
I took a couple of weeks off from sharing my writing center, my students were really into my Easter options, so they stayed out for a little longer than I would typically keep them. If the children are choosing writing activities, I’m not putting those activities away! Here’s what I put out for this week: CVC Word eggs: Taking the hint from my kiddos, I found an activity that would continue the Easter fun without actually being Easter-themed. These are so easy to make. I chose a different color egg for each vowel/word family. On one side of the egg I wrote the word families, and on the other side…
-
Taking a step back
I can tell that my students have been spending too much time together (since I teach in a child care center my students can potentially be together from 7am until 6pm 5 days a week, and I am with them from 9am until 6pm every day) because of the ways that they have been treating each other lately. Little ones can be downright mean, and it breaks my heart the way that they talk to each other. I know that some self-centeredness is developmentally appropriate, that doesn’t mean that it is acceptable in my classroom. I do my best to encourage kindness and caring, but I too find myself responding…
-
Friday Freebies!
Happy Friday!It’s time for another freebie, and this one is very special to me! This freebie is one that I created to celebrate my 100 amazing followers on Teachers Pay Teachers. I am honored that so many think my work is valuable, and I wanted to share something special with all of you to say thanks! This freebie is designed to take advantage of the fact that summer is coming! Whether you get the summer off, or still work all summer like I do, your class can still enjoy these fun glittery bookmarks. You can enjoy the fact that your students think they are having fun and making a list…
-
Another Giveaway
Some of my favorite TPT sellers have been celebrating a lot of milestones lately. I have been lucky enough to get to celebrate with them, and here’s another one! Jessica from Mrs. Plemon’s Kindergarten is celebrating her 30th Birthday with a giveaway! Take a minute to stop by her awesome blog to enter the giveaway. You could win one of my All About the Numbers packs, along with some other great products. After you enter be sure to take a minute to check out the adorable pictures of Jessica’s new baby, and leave a comment to wish Jessica a happy birthday!
-
Happy Earth Day!
Do you have big plans for Earth Day? I’ll be honest, this one kind of snuck up on me, I wasn’t thinking that Easter was so late, and then boom! April is almost over! My class is going to spend the morning outside (crossing my fingers for good weather) cleaning up that yard around our school. Once we’ve picked up as much litter as we can find, we”ll graph it using my Earth Day Graph and Write Freebie – yay for freebies! But that’s not the point of this post. I really wanted to share this great quote with you, it puts Earth Day into perspective for me as a…
-
Easter Leftovers
I hope you had a wonderful Easter! I had a great time relaxing with my family, the highlight of my weekend was our amazing weather, I spent much of Sunday soaking up some sunshine on my parents back porch and it was perfect! I don’t know about you, but I have a ton of leftovers, and i’m not talking about ham, mostly, I mean jelly beans. Thank goodness I love them, but that usually means I end up eating the entire bag by myself. My solution to this is to take them to school. My kiddos did a lot of jellybean math last week – patterning, counting, tallying, graphing, but…
-
Happy Holiday Weekend
I am super excited about celebrating Easter this year. Not only did I have a day off yesterday (a beautiful and very rare occurance), but it is warm and sunny here and after the winter that we’ve had, this is a miracle worth celebrating! Because I’m so happy about spring, I’ve got two awesome opportunities for you: a giveaway and a sale! I’m participating in a giveaway over at Here’s an Idea by Lucy (it is amazing to me that she is celebrating 5,000 Pinterest followers, 5,000!). If I’ve learned one thing, it’s that when TPT sellers do a giveaway, they REALLY do a giveaway, she’s got over $200 worth…
-
Friday Freebies
Today is an extra special Friday because I am enjoying a VERY RARE day off! I have vowed to do nothing work or school related today, and am instead spending my day working on crafts projects and getting my house ready for spring (and sleeping in)! Today’s Friday Freebie is one that my students absolutely loved this past week. This one comes from Klever Kiddos, it is a snap cube activity (who doesn’t have snap cubes?!) that encourages children to follow directions and problem solve, and then throws in some math facts too. Students have to build Easter-related items out of snap cubes, following the included picture plans, and then…
-
Alphabet book keepsakes
I’ve started thinking about our annual preschool graduation, and I have a couple of different ideas up my sleeve, but one thing that I always like to incorporate is a keepsake that shows how much the children have learned. This year my kiddos are going to create alphabet books with their own illustrations for each letter. We started working on them last week, doing a couple of letters whenever we get a chance. So far they are absolutely adorable. They are really putting a lot of effort into their books, and some of the illustrations that they have come up with are hilarious. When they get stuck I pull out…
