End of Summer, the Start of Fall!

Here comes Fall!!! This month I have so many fun things planned, not to mention a great halloween day! Here are some things that we have been working on before the start of Fall craftivities. 

Here we have our B- Bear Letters. You can see that we are still figuring out which way the B goes, but they turned out super cute nonetheless. 

The last week of September, we learned about growing up and our families. Here are some handprints the kids got to do to remember how tiny their fingers are! I put their names and dates on each. The kids loved how the paintbrush tickled they hands. 

We had time to review color sorting. Here are our paper strips where the kids had to color sort, then glue the pieces on! They were great!

Then we tried sorting by size. The students had to glue down different sized straws in each section. I drew an example size in each to help them get started. Overall, I'd say this lesson was a great success. 

As one of our new math centers, I made these puzzle strips. Students have to put them in order from 1-10 to see what picture they can make! They thought it was so exciting to see what picture they were making once the pieces were in order. Just find an old picture, cut, label each 1-10, and then laminate!

They can go portrait-way as well!

C- is for car tracks. I am happy with the way the colors got to blend together too! I just used plastic cars, but I am sure any will do. 

Here are some family trees they made! I had them bring in lists of people who lived in their homes beforehand. Then I put their individual pieces in a ziploc with their names on it. The birds are the students! After glueing everything, they were allowed to draw a scene if they wanted to. It was a lot of prep, but they turned out super cute!!

D- Dot art! I challenged them and did mine (below) in a pattern. Students could try to do theirs in a pattern too. I'd say about 75% did a pattern, and the rest did what they wanted. 

Next week I will be introducing these reading journals. When I read them a story, I will have them recall what happened in the story by drawing a picture and using key words to describe them. We will do this once a week!

This is the greatest thing ever!!! My new bean sensory bucket was a huge hit this past Friday. I used red beans, black beans, and split peas. The decorations were all from the 99 cent store. My TK team want to keep changing the buckets at least once a month to keep it exciting. 

We just finished learning about "more", "less", and "equal". For our first fall project, I had them glue MORE leaves on the ground, and LESS leaves on the tree. Most of them turned out so cute!! Thanks mom for cutting out all these leaves!

This project was done with Q-tips. I wanted them to do MORE on the ground and LESS on the tree too, but I think most of them just needed practice dotting. Here are two examples. I am changing sleeping sally and hanging some of these next to her! Let fall begin!!!

Two more weeks down!

So I am starting my morning messages, and the kids love it! I decided not to do a full- blown schedule everyday, so this gives the kids something to look forward to. The beginning part is always the same, so they have started saying it with me! 

These are the first or 26 cute letter crafts. 

These apple prints didn't turn out too bad! I am collecting all if the 26 pages to make a book for later. This is the first one: A is for Apple prints. I cut the apple in half so it'd make a star print, but it didn't look like it in many. The kids loved it! 

B was the next week. Here is mine I did. The kids put their fine motor skills to work and loved opening each bandaid. Not even one ended up on their body! Success!

We had fire safety week too. These were finger painted. It was a two day project but the class looked so adorable in them. 

I found a parachute!!! They all went wild! I loved watching them go crazy with it. 

Here is one of the worksheet centers we opened up. Students need to sort lowercase and uppercase after cutting them out. 

And.... My school pictures! Haha! 

Many more fun activities are already in place. I will try to be better about posting! 

Glue+paper+crayons= happy kids

Where did August go?! I can't believe all of the activities we have gotten through already, and how much we seem to be a family now. Here are some highlights of TK lately! 

This is me. My first drawing that a little girl gave me one day. I know there will be many more, but I will always remember this one! Red hair? 

These books are awesome. We have been working on behavior and being friends in class- so reading these to the kids was perfect. 

One day we got to do this great mosaic name project. The kids were learning how to use drip glue (dot dot not a lot) and were able to test their skills on each little square. I chose colors to match my theme, but my neighbor teacher used more colors which came out cute too! 

One of the first painting projects ended up all over their faces/ arms, but the kids had smiles on their faces so I think it went well. This finger painting project was hilarious. I had two kids paired up and they were able to finger paint on the same paper each with different colors. I tried to pair colors together that'd mix well. Some kids didn't want to stick their hands in, while others decided to lotionize their arms in the remaining paint when they were finished!! I even had one boy put it on his face like war paint haha! In the end- they all were smiling so I'm glad I did it:) 

This was a friendship piece out of shapes. The max number if friends I allowed was four... But this one was so cute that I had to share. All of these were Pre-cut and stuck on with glue sticks (another exciting venture for them). 

That weekend I finally got around to dying my beans for the sensory bin!!! Just like egg dying- vinegar and food coloring. I added larger Lima beans later too, so they have plenty to color sort and play with now. 

This cutting collage seems simple, but they are all beginning scissor holders so it was cute to watch. They had to follow a line on each colored paper and cut them out. Then, with their glue sticks they glued them on to make a nice collage. 

I think every TK and K class should read the Pete the Cat books. They are so cute! Here are the Pete the Cats that they made out of shapes this last week. Since there were so many pieces, each one had to be pre-cut and places in ziplocs. Thank you Candace for your help!!! The kids had fun with this one. 

Pete the Cat graph was simple but great! In on book, Pete steps in blueberries and strawberries thus turning his shoes different colors. We read the book then graphed what our favorite colors were too. Looks like blue won! 

These letters are the first letters of each child in class. They used yarn and drip glue and they came out super cute! I think they really show the child's personality too, haha. 

Going along with our shape theme, we made grapes for Sleeping Sally the Tree. I let them out little faces on the grapes for fun too. Below is what they look like on Sleeping Sally!! 

Next week is the Letter A, and more shape fun! I can't wait! 

Lessons I've learned so far

1) I never would have known how many different leg muscles I'd be working out now that the year has started! I feel like I've been at the gym all day doing squats thanks to my 30 short guys that need me to get on their level throughout the day. It seriously is just more than mental power. 

2) For the record: routines are the hardest thing ever! The first day was so crazy that I caught myself just standing there at times thinking, "Oh geez, ok this is not working out the way I thought!" 

3) My Aide has quickly become my best friend. I appreciate the help so much more now than I ever would have known.  I should have thanked the aides in my classes as a kid more, they really are the best. 

4) I feel like I am surrounded by angels. I have such great support from all of the other teachers and staff that I never feel alone. I guess they are the ones that can relate to you the most since they are right there doing it all with you. It really pays to connect with anyone you can. 

5) The kids are learning so fast! Besides me adapting to the new routines, I have to say that I am super impressed with how quickly they are understanding school routines. We did our first watercolor activity today too and they were all so great with following the rules. 

The activity was magical paper that knew their name when they painted on it. It was the first time I used my document camera, and I think they really got a kick out of the live painting session on the big screen. Here is the example one I did for them: 

Tomorrow we introduce play dough!!! Let's hope it goes great! 

Almost time!

Yesterday I finally got the meet everyone at Meet the Teacher. There were about 70 people all packed into my class with big eyes and curiosity. All the little ones were so sweet!!! Everyone was on good behavior too. All the kids sat in their seat and everyone stayed off the blocked areas like I asked! here is what their desks looked like:

These were signs I put up for everyone to try to stay off of the toys etc. before the start of school. Thanks Jenny!

All things I couldn't get to in 30 minutes will be discussed on Back-to-School night or through email. I think they all were OK with this.

I am purposely NOT going to work today. I think its time for some pool and relaxing! But tomorrow I will get there bright and early to panic a little. 

End note before bed

So my co-worker Jenny has mentioned to me more than once that I need balance. I totally agree with her but still went home at 7 tonight. How can I sleep when there are booklets to cut out and crafts to Pre-make?? 

I love it all. So many fun ideas for my kids I can't wait to teach them. 

And I also can't wait to introduce this little guy to the kids: 

Good night! 

Back pain, but for a good cause!

I was on go go go mode today and finally feel like I'm at least a LITTLE prepared for everything coming up! Yes!!! Can't move though, so hoping Advil will do me right tonight but it was so worth it. 

Here I made a little sign for my hermit crab's arrival into the class later on this week! The easel will but used for art center things later, but so cute to show off the little guy now.

I got this awesome clipboard from my auntie yesterday. She modge podged it with her own paper- creativity definitely runs in the family! 

Here are some places where I will be keeping writing and number center work. My kids have to take the baskets and tubs to their tables since we don't have designated areas for these. Thanks to my  co-worker Candace again for the cute labels! 

My TK picture frame is done! This was way more work than I expected (I'm seeing a theme on things that take way too long to do lately). I had to paint like three layers on each piece and wait for it to dry. So tedious! Kids will be taking their first day picture with their precious faces through my frame. 

This next one was another time-consuming thing, but I'm just hoping the numbers will withstand the students' wrath. I took circle sticker labels, put their  numbers on them, stuck them through the laminator, cut them out, then hot glued them to little binder clips. Phew! I'm satisfied. 

I was able to invest in some bigger tubs for lunch and snack. Here they are with their themed labels!

This coming Friday is Meet the teacher. Students will get to meet me and look around their classroom. We also collect miscellaneous items the we had previously requested in the beginning of the summer (baby wipes, masking tape, Kleenex, etc). I made this station for the parents to dump their goods off! Simple enough but effective!

Last is just a picture of my playdough balls I had mentioned in the previous post. The poem is too cute (Pinterest idea, of course). 

Meetings start tomorrow! I can't wait to meet everyone and get this year started!