Last Week

 Last week was crazy busy. I truly cannot believe its already May! My prekinders are so busy learning to read. I have incorporated The Moffatt Girls Ready to Read Units one and two into my curriculum.  I love it for a LONG LIST of reasons!  The best part is that my kiddos are loving it too!  We have been working on the "at" family, and the "an" family. They are MASTERING it, which obviously makes me so proud.  These Ready to Read Units are such a steal at $5 a unit! I use her activities in my literacy centers as well as in my project centers! My students just love decorating Sight Words with colorful sprinkles :)  We are having a blast.  Also, a huge thanks to Little Kinder Warriors because she recommended Sentos markers, which my kids are having a blast with!  I also "stole" another idea from Little Kinder Warriors.  The Dum-Dum Tree!  At the end of each day, my students get a sticker if their behavior was on the yellow or green traffic light.  Once they get five stickers, they get to choose a Dum Dum lollipop.  Upon The Little Kinder Warrior's suggestion, I put blue marker on the bottom of some (1/4) lollipops.  If a child gets a blue bottom, then he or she can also pick a prize from the treasure chest.  I just love reading other teacher blogs because I get such great ideas!  The best part about the Dum Dum tree is that it ends up saving me money, because my treasure chest isn't empty anymore by the end of the week, and the children are just as happy with their lollipop prize :)  However, why do they have to call them Dum Dum's?  As a teacher, I hate that name! Anyways, it's almost 1:30 in the morning so I better go to sleep. I'm just gonna upload some pictures of what we have been doing in my class this week. I hope you enjoy :)

Typical Tuesday

    It's so nice being back in the classroom after Spring Break.  We started a new sight word this week, "and."  The children love learning the new sight word poems.  When they finish at their literacy centers, they grab the fun pointers I created and review our sight word poems in small groups.  The kiddies love taking turns holding the pointer and being the "teacher."
   I'm enclosing in this post an Earth Day sample project I did tonight while I was watching The Real Housewives of Orange County (guilty pleasure).  It's a cute project because it's made from recycled cardboard and old magazines, but I'm not sure how great it is on the "cuteness scale!" Maybe the message of recycling overrides the lack of cuteness? I haven't decided.  Feel free to comment and let me know what you think! I'm probably going to continue surfing Pinterest for more cute Earth Day Projects.

    Today in class we planted seeds.  The week before Spring Break we did some activities with seeds including
sorting, seed mosaics, and a Tiny Seed project I created last year that's super cute (I'll take a picture of it and post it tomorrow to share).  However, I didn't want to plant the seeds until we came back from Spring Break because I didn't want them to die from lack of water while we were away.  The children loved planting! I bought these cute little cardboard seed pots on Amazon.com for just a few dollars. I bought two packages and that was enough for each child to have his/her own pot.  Also, I planted extra seeds in an egg carton.  With the egg carton seeds I will dig up a seed each day and compare differences with the children.  We made our first comparison today with the seed that hadn't been planted.  The children observed it had a curve to it, and that it was like a pebble.  Hopefully tomorrow when I dig the seed up they will be able to see that it swelled due to taking in water.  We also made a list on chart paper of what seeds need to grow.  Now that it is April the prekinders can write out simple words like "water" and "sunlight" if I spell it out for them.  I love seeing their handwriting on the chart paper as opposed to my own!
    This week I also started Math Journals. I got this idea from another blogger. Visit her site! http://www.mrswillskindergarten.com/  You can buy her math journal prompts for just a few dollars and they are great!  Plus, they build on one another each day which is nice :)  So far, the children are doing well with the journals, and it's a great way to assess their knowledge!  For example, today I noticed that a few of my prekinders still cannot draw triangles.  As a result, I had to make an executive decision and stray from my very strict lesson plans! At the end of the day I brought the kiddies back to the circle time area and we practiced drawing triangles on dry erase boards.  We also went over the characteristics of a triangle.
    During our end of the day circle time I also give out stickers.  The children have an opportunity to get two stickers.  I use the traffic light behavior system, so if their clothespin with their name on it isn't on the red light, they get a sticker.  The second sticker is based on knowledge.  Normally, I would hold up a letter or number and if they say the correct answer they get their second sticker (caller outters immediately lose their behavior sticker, is that strict lol?)  However, with the new math journals they are doing, I check their work when they're done with the writing in the journal.  Anyone who did the journal correctly earns a sticker.  I like this because my students cannot read yet, so part of the journal experience is me reading the prompt, and they must LISTEN and FOLLOW DIRECTIONS (such biggies in pre-k).  Anyways, the math journals are going great and I like the new system of earning that second sticker :)  5 stickers=prize.  The prize is a lollipop; however some lollipops have a blue tip on the bottom end of the stick.  If the child gets a blue tipped lollipop stick then they get to pick out an extra prize from our classroom treasure chest.  This idea I got from Katie Mense at Little Warriors. Check out her page to see her lollipop system, so you can get a better idea of what I'm talking about.  http://littlekinderwarriors.blogspot.com/2012_03_01_archive.html.  She has such great ideas!  Anyways, bedtime for me.  Night bloggers!

Excited to be going back.

    Tomorrow is my first day  back to work.  We were off for practically two weeks for Spring Recess.  I enjoyed my time off but I am looking forward to going back!  Tomorrow I will be introducing the students to the sight word, "and."  We will begin by reading the "Scholastic and Sight Word Poem."  The children love the Scholastic poems! During Literacy Center time we will be doing small group activities using the word "and."   In my last post I wanted to put in a picture of the box I made for them to use when they are finished with their Literacy Center work.  However, I was on my IPAD so I couldn't figure out how to add the picture, so I'm adding it into this post.  In the "I'm Done" box I included some books, a "Write the Room" book which I made using copy paper, and cut up a file folder to make the cover.  Also, I made some new classroom pointers because the children love using mine so much! The pointers are great because I find that during "free time" my students will use them to go over the Sight Word Poems I write on chart paper.  This is great for concepts about print, as they are learning to move the pointer from top to bottom, and left to right across the words.
     One of my Literacy Centers is "highlighting." I find my prekinders love using highlighters! In the beginning of the year they would highlight the letter of the week in poems.  However, now that it's April, the students are done with the letter of the week.  Monday will be the first day I try out highlighting a sight word.  Below, I'm copying and pasting the "and" poem I created.  The students will highlight the word "and" throughout the poem. I find that the children usually breeze through this center so I'm hoping they utilize the "I'm Done" box!

Name_________________

Directions: Highlight the sight word “and.”

I like dogs and cats,

baseballs and bats.

I like cars and trucks,

cows and ducks.

I like trains and blocks,

pencils and clocks.

I like learning and school.

I like the sight word “and,”

don't you?

Newbie

I have never blogged before in my life; however, seeing all the amazing teacher blogs out there inspired me to do so! I am currently on Spring Break, which is nice! I have been so busy with lesson plans. This is my fourth year teaching pre-k, but my first year implementing literacy centers into the classroom. I had no idea how much work it was going to be, but I'm sincerely enjoying every minute of it. I've found that my biggest problem so far is having students finish in their centers before the rest of the class is done. Some centers end up taking more time, right? So while I have been "spring breaking," I have been coming up with activities for my students to do when they finish a literacy center early. I created "write te Room" mini-books, and found a great Earth day game for next week as well. The Earth Day game I stumbled upon over at KinderPond http://kinderpond.blogspot.com/. I can't wait to teach my students the game on Monday, and see if they can do it independently in small groups when they finish up at their center. I will definitely let you know how to goes! Also, I'm including a picture of a box I made to put after-center literacy activities in. Actually, all I did was use wrapping paper to wrap a box top (I felt an actual box would be too deep and wouldn't remain organized and neat). I have a feeling the children are going to be excited by the new activity, I know I am!