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A new alphabet activity
I’m not sure if you have ever used these, but I am in love with alphabet pasta! It is cheap, and super versatile. With our toddlers we would use it to explore textures, introducing it raw the first day so that they could feel the rough, bumpy, tiny little letters, and then cooking it for the second day to see how they reacted to the slimy, and sometimes sticky texture – it was mesmerizing. Now that we have older children we have spent a lot of time focusing on letter recognition, and this was an obvious choice for a number of different activities. We did a letter hunt (can you…
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Name Recognition and Large Motor…Together!
This was a new activity for our class and it was such a huge success that we did it every day this week, so I absolutely had to share it with you! Each child got a balloon with their name written on one side, and their first initial on the other side. The children were told that they could do anything that they wanted with their balloon – they just had one rule to follow: They could not use someone else’s balloon. This meant that they had to recognize their name so that they were not accidentally taking someone else’s balloon as they played. The children threw their balloons, hit…
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One of my favorite blogs
I am always looking for new printables for the classroom, and you probably know how difficult it can be to find high quality artwork for free – or maybe I’m just a cheap graphics snob. One of my very favorite teaching blog is actually written by two moms who spend a lot of time with their preschool age (and younger) children. These two wonderful ladies have created some amazing themed preschool packs that I faithfully print, cut out, laminate, and use in my classroom ALL THE TIME! You have got to check out Over the Big Moon and their Pre-K Packs, here’s a photo of their autumn pack.
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New Year, New games
After using all of my wonderful games and materials all last semester, they aren’t looking so wonderful anymore. I know that if I feel this way about them, the kids must be too, so it’s time to find some new things. One of my favorite new finds is a game called POP! The one pictured above is for sight words, but it is also available in a letter recognition/beginning sounds version. Each child draws a “kernel” when the choose their kernel they have to say what letter is on it – for more advanced children they have to give the sound that the letter makes. If they are correct then…
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Easy Alphabet Match Activity
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I’m a teacher – even during Christmas Break!
Each year I am grateful for the weeklong break after Christmas, and as most teachers will tell you, it is nearly impossible to go for the entire week without working on school work in some way, shape, or form. This year I am taking full advantage of the brand new Cricut that my little sister got for Christmas and the two of us teachers have planned a full day of classroom crafts. Here is what I will be working on – I promise to post what I am able to finish! (all ideas are linked on my Pinterest Preschool Board)
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Baking in the classroom
I love to bake with my kids. It involves so many different learning experiences – sharing, waiting your turn, measuring ingredients, chemical reactions, temperature, vocabulary, and it is something that makes everyone smile. We are fortunate enough to have a fully equipped kitchen at our center, and we often bake things in the oven, but for truly special days I like to keep the excitement in the classroom. The last two weeks we have been baking up a storm to prepare for the holidays. One of our favorite recipes so far has been reindeer cookies. These are super easy to make – we used pre-packaged cookie dough (it is easy…
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Halloween Teacher Gift Inspiration
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Counting candy canes
Here’s a great activity for number recognition and counting – my kids were actually arguing over who would get to do this activity next – that’s a great teacher moment! Use a tray with seperate compartments (ours is a veggie tray left over from a class party) and place a different number in each compertment. I taped the numbers down so that they wouldn’t move, and so they would be removeable, therefore I can change them when my kids have these particular number down. Then give the children different objects to count into the numbered compartments – at halloween we used candy corn, today we used candy canes. The miniature…
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Cute Cards!
If you are anything like me, your classroom has probably become consumed with projects having to do with Christmas; gifts for parents, fun activities for the kiddos, cards, ornaments, decorations, you know the drill. Typically we go all out on our parents gifts – handmade gift, handmade wrapping paper, and a card to go with it all. I’m always looking for new card ideas, because I have a tendency to make things more difficult than they need to be. This year I found a super easy idea that the children love: Thumbprint reindeer Here is a picture of the ornament that I was inspired by: And here is one of…
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Parent gifts for the holidays!
Every year I make it my personal goal to help the children create gifts that their parents will appreciate. I have a couple of requirements when I am looking for ideas; They must be attractive, hold up well so that they can be appreciated for years, be useful yet unique, and they should be related to what we have been working on as a class. For example, 2 years ago the children were engaged in a rock project, so we wanted to do something with rocks – we found small, decorative landscaping rocks, glued them to pendants and strung them on ribbons for a pretty necklace that mom would actually…
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Welcome to our classroom!
The first week of school is in full swing (read: absolute chaos!). The first couple of weeks are always the hardest, for the children it’s the tears that come with missing parents and learning to share, for the teachers it’s trying to learn every one’s schedule and making sure all the necessary paperwork is completed. Luckily we have been blessed with a wonderful group of kids, many of whom are familiar with us as teachers, and even the new ones seem to fit right in. Of course, they always seem sweet at first, and then they get comfortable – so ask me again in a couple of weeks! Our lesson…
