Welcome to the School Year! Building a Classroom Community

The theme for the first week of school was "Building a Classroom Community". I wanted to really get to know my class and let them get used to the room and to our daily routine, so we focused on becoming friends and some fun activities.

This week we read: Llama Llama Misses Mama by Anne Dewdney
                                        Splat the Cat by Rob Scotton
                                        Miss Nelson is Missing by Harry Allard
                                        A Book of Friends by Dave Ross

Our question of the week was "What was your favorite thing about the summer?"

For our song this week we sang "The Wheels on the Bus". It was fun to let the children pick what parts of the song to sing each time.

The activities that we did this week really helped us to become a tight classroom community! Everyday we went over class rules that the children helped make. We sat in a group and I asked the children what they thought some rules to keep us safe and happy in the classroom might be. I fit in my own too! We also took tours of the classroom so that the children get used to where the centers are.

We played "Just Like Me" to help get everyone comfortable with each other. I start by modeling with a few statements, i.e, I like vanilla ice cream. If a child also like vanilla ice cream, they stand up and yell, "just like me!" After I model a few statements like that, each child has a chance to be the leader. It's so cool to see them thinking about what they want to say!

The kids drew "first day of school" pictures. These are fantastic to throw in their portfolios! I have mostly blank piece of paper that on the bottom says, "I drew this on the first day of school!" and the children can draw anything that they want. It's an easy project for them to complete, and it also lets me see how the kids draw, and how they hold the crayons.

To help get the children playing with each other we used puzzles and treasure boxes to partner play with. They get to take turns choosing what they play with and work/play with new friends. To learn more about my treasure boxes and other ways they can be used, check out this post from last year!

We walked on our school's nature trail in the woods. All of the new children to the school LOVED it! Since our school is so connected to the outdoors and we are always looking at and talking about the seasonal changes that we see, I started us off by asking the children to look for different color flowers as we walked down. They were so excited when they saw purple, white, pink and yellow.

At morning meeting one morning we played body drumming, another game that helps the children become comfortable leading the group. I model 3 or 4 different motions, like patting the knees, clapping, snapping, and stomping while the group follows the change of the motions. Then any child that would like a turn (I do not force children to do something like this if they really don't want to) leading the group.

The children made paper plate snakes. Such an easy and fun activity. Either the teacher or the child draws a spiral on the plate, and then they color it however they choose. When they are finished coloring, they cut along the spiral that they drew, and voila! A snake!

I traced the children's hands and they colored them in. Again, a simple project to help the children get used to coming to the table to do projects and following directions.

We played "I Have, Who Has" with colors. We played a few times because the kids loved it. I have these games on hand that I made simply out of index cards. I have a shape and alphabet version as well.

The children made lions out of paper plates. They drew faces and the manes, and then growled for me!

We also played Simon Says.

We had a great first week of school, how was yours? Leave a comment below and let me know that you stopped by!

CandyLand! (L, 9, Red)

So sorry for the delay in these posts, December always seems to get away from me. I hope everyone is having a joyful holiday season!

Our theme for the second week of December was "Candyland" and we focused on the letter Ll, the number 9 and the color red.

  

We read this week: Little Pea by Amy Krouse Rosenthal
                               The Berenstain Bears: Too Much Junk Food by Stan and Jan Berenstain
                               The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle
                               L,M,N,O Peas by Keith Baker

Our question of the week was "What is your favorite thing about school?" Everyone pretty much had an answer right away... it was great!

For our theme of the week, we did some "sweet" activities.
We counted and compared candy canes. I had one regular size candy cane and the kids had to estimate how many mini candy canes would equal the height of the regular one.

We wrote a recipe for hot chocolate, made it and then drank it. Delicious!

It does not really go along with our theme of the week, but to get ready for the holidays we decorated snowflakes with puffy paint for a classroom mural. I pre-cut the snowflakes out of poster board and painted a simple background of snow and evergreens. The kids colored their snowflake however they wanted and then added the puffy paint. We had some left from another project, so i used store bought paint, but I did find a recipe that someday soon I would like to try.

Our director purchased different kinds of ornaments for each classroom from Oriental Trading, we got these cute snowman snowflake ornaments. The kids and I put these together, and then I had each of them give me a blue hand print that I glues onto the backs of the snowflakes. These will be the kids' gifts to give to their parents. Next week we're doing a really cool project for the wrapping!

We talked  about the color red, and we sang "We Love Red."

"We love red, we love red,

That's what we said, that's what we said.

Apples and cherries, oh me, oh my,

Tomatoes to bake on a pizza pie.

Red is the color and that is why,

We love red."

When we focus on a color I love to do "color hunts" in our classroom. Each child takes a turn to walk

around the classroom and bring back something that they found that is red. The tricky thing is that they have to bring different things, no duplicates allowed! Here is what we found for the color red.

We made red collages with red paint, feathers, tissue paper and glitter. (No picture, sorry!)

When we worked on our number activities, we practiced writing the number and word for the number 9. (This actually went home for practice. We had a snowy day that day.)

I made these worksheets that reinforces the one to one concept. The kids practice writing the number and have to color a square for each picture that they see. (This actually went home for practice. We had a snowy day that day.)

We colored a picture using a "color by number key" that I got from this book.

For our letter activities, we used our handwriting sheet for the letter Ll from this book. (This actually went home for practice. We had a snowy day that day.)

We also did this worksheet that helps work on letter recognition that I got from this book.

The students also wrote in their journals for the letter L.

We turned a L into an Lion! This book is great.

We made a short book all about "Lizard's Lollipops" that I got from this Mailbox book.

We leaped every time I called out a word that started with an "L". This was a fun one to combine listening for letter sounds and physical activity all in one.

For our alphabet wall we made leaves with tissue paper.

Here are the words we came up with this week!

Up next week: "Merry Christmas," the letter Mm, number 10 and color green.

We're Wild About Preschool!

The first week of school was a mixture of exciting and terrifying. I have had to mentally go back to last year to remember what it was like, and readjust myself.
Our school weekly theme was "Welcome Back! We're Wild About Preschool!" and I didn't start a letter this week so that myself and the new class had a chance to get used to the classroom, focus on making friends with each other and adjusting to the classroom and school.

This year I'm going to ask the class a Question of the Week and at the end of the year I want to make a book for the class.
This week's question: What was your favorite thing about summer?
Here are some of the answers that I got.

This week we read: Curious George's First Day of School by H.A. Rey
                                Splat the Cat by Rob Scotton
                                The Quiet Book by Deborah Underwood
                                The Loud Book by Deborah Underwood
                                (Monday was Labor Day, so only 4 days this week)

We played responsive classroom games, The Weather Changed, Just Like Me, I have, Who has, and Body Drumming.  Great ideas from teachers here! I've used these games before and the kids really love them!

Other activities we did this week were to go on a Nature Walk on our school's trail,

Drew a picture on the children's first day of school (I tucked those away in their portfolios) and I got the idea here, 

I traced the kids' hands and had them color them and write the numbers 1-10,

 Paper Plate Lions, 

 Paper Plate Snakes, 

A School bus craft, 

and a paper towel roll giraffe.

The kids had a great week playing, working and getting to know their new friends! This year is going to be so fun!