The Crazy Pre-K Classroom

Hello All, For those of us in the classroom this may be the craziest week of the year, the week before Christmas Break! In the spirit of the Holidays I have decided to throw a 15% off sale on TpT for my entire store! Enjoy some great teaching resources for low prices. Merry Christmas! Happy Holidays to all of you! Christine

Hello All, Happy Holidays to you all! I wanted to share this week a few of my time tested Christmastime centers. I don't have pictures of all of them but I will post the ones I have. So far this year my busy little four year olds are enjoying the (1)jingle bell pick up the most. I place a bucket of small jingle bells on the table with 4 ice cube trays and 4 pair of tweezers. The children fill up the ice cube trays with the jingle bells without using their fingers. They count, make patterns, compare each others trays and sort by color. They have begged me to play this every morning this week! (2) Candy cane counting center: I hang number cards across my cabinets on yarn. I then have them hole punched at the bottom to coorrespond with the number. The children then go along the row and hang plastic candy canes from the dollar store on each card while counting. (3) Christmas Sensory Bin: I have gathered bows, tinsel, plastic candy canes, jingle bells, small ornaments and all t...

Hello All, Sorry to neglect my blog this week but I took a much needed break with my family in Disney World! It was so nice to get away and enjoy my boys. I had evey intention of continuing to work on TpT sets and posts for my blog but little did I know that the time share did not have wifi!!!!! I think God had a plan to focus me on my famly, something I don't allow myself to do as often as I should. So to all of my loyal followers, Happy Thanksgiving! I hope your vacation was as joyful as mine, p.s. If you ever go to Disney and wonder if it is worth driving an hour to visit legoland, do it! Legoland was wonderful!

Hello All, Today while going through the dollar store for the hundreth time this year I found something I wasn't even looking for. I went to find pot holders for a school project and came across these super cute kid sized mugs. I plan on putting a packet of hot cocoa mix and a small baggie of marshmallows inside. You could also fill with candy or a small ornament. I will probably tie a cute tag around it so there will be no need to buy bags and tissue. Besides the snowman they also had mugs decorated for santa, reindeer and snowmen holding sports balls. For a class project or parent gift they also have blank ones to decorate yourself. They come apart so you can change the picture. Oh, I should have bought some for the kiddos to make for Mom and Dad! Maybe I will be going back to the dollar store again tomorrow. It is like my second home! I know you know what I mean! My local dollar store is the Dollar Tree here in Round Rock Texas. I would think if you have one of these parti...

Hello All, In my neverending quest to fit just as much as I possibly can into my small amount of classroom storage I have found a new Favorite!!!!!!! That's right 4x6 photo holders! Not only are they slimmer than the traditional pencil boxes but shorter and they stack nicely! I managed to fit a classic 8 set of fine tip crayola markers, a full set of crayola crayons, a few pencils, an eraser, scissors and a small gluestick. Everything my kiddos need at their desk, the only caveat is that traditional pencils are a little too long but once they are sharpened a couple of times they fit in just fine. I can think of so many more uses: flash cards, dice games, counters storage, matching cards sets, the list goes on and on! I found these particular ones at Michaels which had them for $1.49 and 40% off plus the everyday teachers 15% discount=$.77 each!!!! Not only practical but cheap when you find them on sale. And I even bought a few extra just because I know I will find ways to u...

Hello All, Sorry that I have been neglecting my blog this past week but I have been battling kidney stones and now I think I have the flu! But in all of this sickness I was so excited to check my Tpt store to find I now have 100 followers! It has been almost exactly one year since I started this blog and creating for TpT and I have to say it has made me a better teacher. I find myself planning ahead more, being more in depth in my lesson planning and being a more exciting teacher. Thanks to all of the great blogs and teacher sharing out there, I appreciate all of you!

Hello Everyone, Please welcome my first guest blogger, Toni from teacherlingo.com . She has written a great article for us on integrating movement into our letter recognition lessons! Enjoy! Christine Making Letters Move Author Bio: Today’s guest post comes from Toni, an elementary school teacher with a specialty in differentiated instruction and designing hands-on lessons that incorporate the multiple intelligences. You can often find Toni writing for TeacherLingo.com, where teachers can buy and sell their original lesson plans, worksheets, and more. She is married to a middle school math teacher and is a mom to a mystery loving 7 year old sweetie-girl and a quirky little light saber toting 3 year old. Have you ever made cookies with a preschool aged child? They want to feel, taste, and smell each ingredient before placing it in the mixing bowl. Young children use all of their senses when exploring a new object! This is important to remember when introducing children to their ...

Hello All, Today our curriculum (Handwriting without tears get set for school Pre-K) called for sentence building. Each child was supposed to dictate a sentence and we were to count the number of words in the sentence. This is a simple activity that would only take a few minutes had I not put my own spin on it. I decided to turn this into a sentence building, sight word, graphing activity! WHEW! Literacy and numbers in the same lesson, I love double duty lessons! We started by choosing a picture from a bucket. Each child took a turn and made up a sentence. We counted the number of words after I wrote the sentence on the large graph paper. Once our sentences were finished we identified and found each of our sight words. We circled each sight word and counted how many times we had used each word. I wrote the word and number on the right hand side of the sentence sheet. Once we finished counting each sight word we made a bar graph to compare how many times we used each word. The ch...

Hello All, I just wanted to share with you some great activities our department did this past week for Nocturnal animals and hibernation. We had so much fun exploring how animals live at night. We spent an entire day with no lights on, the kids brought small flashlights and one Mom donated finger flashlights (which are totally awesome, this was the first time I had ever seen them!). My class spent time discovering new animals that are nocturnal that we didn't already know about, like scorpions! My favorite part of the week though was our letter and number hunts. I hung the #'s 1-20 in my classroom and gave each child a clipboard with a recording sheet on it. They were instructed to roam the room with their flashlights and find each number. Once they found a number they were to color in the box that had the same number. We did the same with letters in my collegues room. The class had so much fun with this! I was surprised at how it kept their attention. They found all 26 letter...

So, in an effort to make life easier on myself I started jotting down and copying short literacy ideas to send home to my kiddos parents. I had a few struggling students that I wasn't ready to put in books but I wanted them to practice letters and literacy skills in a meaninful way.They have enjoyed this so much that I decided to type it all out on cute cards and make a unit for Teachers Pay Teachers. I fugure, like myself, there must be some other teachers with students like mine who are not ready for true reading groups but would benefit from some practice at home. The great thing about these activities is that they also do double duty when you use them in your classroom during small groups. 5 Minute Literacy 5 Minute Literacy has 22 different cards with an easy, fun activity for parents to do with their children. Each card is labeled with a number so you can use the included log to track which student has done which activity. (this also means you can print them out in cute c...

Hello Everyone, Thank you to everyone who linked up and visited my first linky party. All of the fall freebies were fantastic! I said I would giveaway my Pumpkin Patch Math and Literacy Unit to one lucky linker, drum roll please...... THE WINNER IS: Shuna Patterson @ Pocket Full of Kinders! Congratulations Shuna! Have a blessed weekend! Christine

Hello All, I am trying my hand at my first linky party! YEAH! Since fall is my favorite season I thought I would highlight it with links to fall themed freebies for our fellow teachers. Please link directly to your free item description on your blog or directly to your free item on TpT! To participate link up and please take a moment to place my linky party button with a short comment on your blog. I would sure appreciate you following me here at the crazy pre-k classroom and in my store on TpT. Here is my freebie for you: Corn themed mini unit I will be choosing a linky party participant at the end of the linky party (Oct. 13) to recieve my Fun in the Pumpkin Patch Math and Literacy Unit Have fun exploring some free fall fun! Link up below! You won't regret it! Till next time, Christine

After having a super fun week with my kiddos studying corn I decided to put everything we did down on paper and give it away for free! It all started with a pesky common core objective involving measurement but turned out to be so much more! My teacher freind Bev Fleming and I decided that our Autumn theme would be best served by studying fall veggies, which eventually lead us to corn. We decided to create a cornstalk that would "grow" all week long. I made a base out of wood and used an old lightbulb holder to place pvc pipe in. I bought 4 couplers to attach the pvc pipe together as it grew. Here is a picture of our cornstalk on day 3. It grew from 1 foot all the way to 9 feet, with 5 ears of corn on it. (this is my little boy, Collin) I used butcher paper and green paint to decorate the pvc pipe in sections so it could be easily assembled each day. I attached the paper with hot glue. For the ears of corn I glued 2 pieces cut into corn shape leaving a hole large enough t...

Letter name and Sound recognition is one of the key objectives of Pre-k and K instruction. We spend a majority of our day working on letters, including letters in every activity and talking about letters (and numbers for that fact!) Here are some strategies I use to help my little kiddos remember those letter and sounds! 1. I seperate my letters and sounds: When I want the children to focus on sounds I only use the sound, I say "this letter says a,a,a holding up or pointing to the letter a. this gives the child one thing to focus on versus trying to connect the letter name and the sound. 2. I follow my sound instruction with a practice sheet or activity: This helps the children solidify the letter sounds they have just worked on. 3. I only work on a few letters at a time: Overwhelming the kiddos with all 26 sounds at one time does not help them learn, breaking up the alphabet into small chunks helps the children to concentrate on the important letters first and then onto the ne...

Hello All, I had so much fun with my 5 senses unit this week at school that I decided to create a whole unit around it. I included some items that I have been using in my classroom such as the vocabulary building cards and the word wall/pocket chart vocabulary cards. Use this link to see the entire unit: My 5 Senses Unit I have also written a teacher big book, created a few worksheets and given my ideas for centers/activities that I have been doing for years with this unit. My favorite part though has to be the treasure hunt that I posted about a couple of days ago. My freind, Bev Fleming and I came up with this and it was so much fun! Check out the past post and get the recording sheet for free by scrolling down past this post. This unit also has a freebie of its own, I am giving away my hearing worksheet, you can find the freebie by clicking on the following link: 5 Senses Hearing Worksheet Freebie

This past week we studied the 5 senses. I was eager for something new to do that wasn't the same old lesson. My teacher friend, Bev Fleming, and I came up with an idea. We decided to create a 5 senses treasure hunt. We started with a plan to create 5 stations that the children would visit, each one dedicated to one of the 5 senses: 1. Hearing: We used a sound CD that came with an ABC sound bingo game and each child had a set of earphones. 2. Tasting: We used marshmallows and had the children shut their eyes and hold out there hand, then taste. 3. Touching: We placed smooth items inside a box with a small opeing cut out of the top. The children were told not to look into the box. 4. Sight: We used view finders, you could also use kaliedescopes or toilet paper rolls with pictures taped to the end, look through to the ceiling to see the picture. 5. Smell: We used garlic, pepper, pepperming extract and candy for the children to smell without removing the lids on the garlic and pep...

First for the freebie! Download a free sampler of my new Fall themed ABC and 123 worksheets here: Fall Themed ABC and 123 Worksheet Freebie Scroll down for more images and info on this entire set! You know it is a wonderful day when a teacher is recognized for their talent. Georgia kindergarten teacher, Deanna Jump, has earned $1,000,000.00 (yes a million) on Teachers Pay Teachers and is still teaching in the classroom! I think it is a wonderful time to be a teacher, when collaboration and technology can impact our classrooms for the better. Congratulations Deanna! Now onto my newest endeavor! I have created a set of Fall themed worksheets for my class to practice their ABC's and 123's with cut and glue, writing, matching and more. I have found that my group of fours this year needs worksheets that have a kinesthetic element. They are successful with the academic element but seem to be missing some of the basic skills necessary to succeed past Pre-K. Cutting skills, glue...

Hello All, I wanted to share with you one of my favorite days of the year. As you know fall is my favorite season, I can't get enough of it! This past Friday I made applesauce in my classroom with my kiddos. This was our final apple project :( It was such great fun and easy too! I did do some pre-planning by having some of my families donate apples and then gathering supplies the night before: What you need: Crock Pot with lid Apples any and all varieties Cinnamon Water Potatoe Masher Cutting board, peeler and knife(with cover for safety) Here is how our lesson progressed: We started by talking about the parts of an apple. I sliced one in half to show the star and discuss the life cycle. I then showed how you peel an apple and allowed the class to try the skin (there were no takers so I tried it myself, I personally love the skin!) We had a short discussion about kitchen safety, not touching knives and being careful of things that are hot. I then diced a few apples and p...

This week in our apple unit we joined with another class to have an apple tasting. We sampled red, yellow and green apples. We talked about their names, what they taste like and if we liked them. We then made a graph of our favorite apple and then counted how many of each we liked. You can see we ended up with a tie between the red delicious and granny smith apples. After our apple tasting we cut a pear, apple and orange in half. We showed them all to the children and then filled in a venn diagram for a compare and contrast lesson. The classes were so interested in these activities, they were great science lessons. I hope you can enjoy some of these activities with your kiddos!

Pre-K children often come to school with the ability to rote count to 10 or 20 but most of the time they cannot connect the counting to the number. In order to facilitate this connection I taught a very simple lesson during group time on the carpet. I took my apple number and graphic cards and also found some basket cut outs. I lined the baskets on the carpet and placed the numbers 1-5 in order on the baskets. I then laid out the graphic cards out of order. I called on a few children to come count the apples and match them to the proper basket. I then switched the numbers up and placed them out of order. This was a little more difficult but it showed me who knows their numbers and who doesn't. The little girl in the pictures below originally matched the 5 graphic with the number 4. I held her hand and helped her count. I then helped her find the correct card. Once I had taken her through this process she was able to do her next number without issue. You can find th...