The Crazy Pre-K Classroom

I have decided to have a giveaway of one of my TpT Units. I just finished an "All Star Spelling" Unit that would be great in any Pre-K to 1st grade classroom. I won't explain the whole unit here, please see it and download the preview via the TpT link to the right. I am planning to have a giveaway each month, you will be automatically entered every month from now on for completing the simple entry instructions! If oyu don't win this onth you are bound to win soon! TO ENTER: Join my blog and follow me on TPT, download a freebie and rate it. Three easy steps for the possibility of winning a unit worth $7.50. I will enter everyone who does this from now until January 15th and announce the winner on this blog. Please make sure when you join to enter a correct email address so I can send you the unit as soon as you win it. I can't wait to choose a winner! Please pass the word to your teacher friends and fellow bloggers! The unit is 45 pages long with 10 extens

Well sadness abounds in my house since Christmas is over and the excitement has worn off. My one saving grace: GEARING UP for the return to school on Monday! I have been racking my brain to try to figure out a system to help me with reading groups and general center organization. My school requires that just about everything goes back into cabinets at the end of the week so my system has to be streamlined. Last year I used a Carson Dellosa 12 pocket chart and this worked great with 9 students because I used the nine lowest pockets, one for each child and then used the top three for assessment sheets, homework sheets, pens and rewards. All was perfect until I ended up with a class of 14 this year. DILEMA! There are only 12 pockets and 14 kiddos! 2 could share, maybe, but I think I will try something different. I have connected 2 file pocket charts together which gives me 24 pockets. So that handles the daily books. Now what to do with the others while I am working in small reading gro

I have a great unit on Teacherspayteachers.com and thought of a few more uses for the materials included. These extension ideas can be used in centers and for lesson planning. Have fun with these activities: Place the position posters around the room and have the children read the room. Give each child a clipboard (I use binder clips on my student white boards for this) and a piece of paper. Instruct the students to walk around the room and write the words on the paper. Name and date for portfolios. Cut out the frames on page 10 and use them to make number, letter and word flash cards. Cut out the blank acorns and use them to make a letter, number, CVC word or sight word flash cards. Use the clip art of the animals to create a graph, have the children choose their favorite animal, have them add their name above the animal. After all of the children have completed the graph, count the numbers for each animal, write the number and then show the numbers in tally marks. Make anim

This is one of my favorite weeks of the year. I change up my normal routine and make sure all of our activities are centered areound Christmas. I found some great free printables on teacherspayteachrs.com and have gotten a few tricks up my sleeve over the last few years. I have listed a few activities that I think are the best of the season. Christmas Tree crayon resist: make copies of a black and white christmas tree on cardstock, have the children color with crayons, adding ornaments with different color crayons, once the coloring is done, go over the tree with blue watercolors. Gingerbread man geography: Decorate paper gingerbread men, have them run away, notify the parents to have friends and family from all over the world send postcards saying they saw the gingerbreadmen where they live. Use a US map on the wall to track where the gingerbread men have visited, look up the different cities and show pictures from them on your computer. On the day before school  ends for christ

Every Christmas I bless the families in my class with a picture ornament. My favorite ornament to make is a wreath that I saw made many years ago when my youngest brother was in Kindergarten. It is super simple and fun for the kids. Here is what you do: Shredded wheat crushed white glue mixed with green food coloring red ribbon for hanger wax paper Put crushed shredded wheat in a bowl, pour colored glue over and mix, place a scoop on the wax paper, have the kids shape the blob into a circle, allow to dry, glue hangar on the back and glue a picture of your studenton the back, label with name and year.

Thank you to Caitlin over at Kindergarten Smiles for giving me the Sunshine Award! I am so excited to get my first aknowledgment from my fellow teachers! Kindergarten Smiles I would like to nominate the following blogs for the Sunshine award as well: To accept this award the rules are: 1. Thank the person who gave the award to you and write a post about it. 2. Answer the questions below 3. Pass the award to 10-12 fabulous bloggers, link their blogs, and let them know you awarded them. Clutter-Free Classroom Pre-Kinders Teacher to Teacher Kindergarten love Creative Classroom Pre-K Paradise Here's my answers to the questions: 1. Favorite color? red 2. Favorite animal? Our new bearded dragon Maxwell, this little lizard is super cute and friendly! 3. Favorite number? 42 4. Favorite drink? Sonic Cherry Limeade 5. Facebook or Twitter? facebook 6. Your passion? teaching pre-kindergarten :) 7. Giving or getting presents?Giving 8. Favorite day? Sunday

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Woodland-Winter-Math-and-Literacy-Unit-Freebie

Just got finished posting my largest unit for TpT ever! I used the cute Woodland clipart from scrappindoodles.com, I just love their sets! I am so excited about their Cyber Monday sale I wanted to get this unit finished and posted. Check out my freebies page for a taste of this great math and literacy units with 2 full books, lots of worksheets and tons of extension ideas. Be sure to visit www.teacherspayteaschers.com tomorrow for cyber Monday sales with the company giving an extrs 10% off of the sellers sale price: use code cmstpt at checkout

I am going to be tracking everything I do for my five senses unit and tweek it for a TpT download. I love this unit, the song is the best... We all have five senses, senses, senses we all have five senses 1,2,3,4,5 Eyes are for seeing, seeing, seeing Eyes are for seeing 1,2,3,4,5 and the song goes on through the rest of the senses. One thing I have added this year is a senses hand, I am going to have the children trace their hand on a paper plate and then cut out some generic fingers, each day I will give them the finger of the sense we are studying and we will write what that sense is for and what we did with it. I am a verys sensory oriented teacher, anything I can get their hands into and exploring I do. I am developing a unit specifically dedicated to sensory activities you can easily incorporate with all of your themes. Stay tuned  for much more to come and freebies this week! Till next time, Christine

I just had another idea as I posted my new sunflower literacy unit to TPT. To extend your unit into art you could take a paper plate and construction paper, have the kids cut petals and seeds, glue it all together and then write the room on the plate and petals! I am going to try this with my group next week. I think they will enjoy it. They could also use the ABC sunflowers to make a bouquet by collecting them from around the room and gluing them onto a piece of paper with a flowerpot on it, they could then cut stems and leaves and complete the project. This could extend the bouquet spelling mats that are already included in the unit. I hope you have a chance to check it out, please follow my blog for more great ideas to come! Till Next Time, Christine

Thanksgiving Pumpkin and Turkey ABC-123 Pumpkin and Turkey cards used for literacy and math activities. Welcome-to-the-Jungle-Pattern-Teaching-and-Challenge-Center-Freebie Patterns for Pre-K to !st grade with challenge mats, the entire set is availabe, this is a freebie that will give you a good idea of what to expect from the entire set. Which-little-monster-comes-next-Pattern-Mats-Center This is the beginning of a pattern center, the one that I described in one of my earlier posts. This also has a larger unit availabe to go with it.

So, have you ever had one of those days at school that seems to go on forever because oyu can't take the children outside? I know most people would say just pop in a movie and grin and bear it. i'm just not that teacher, don't get me wrong I have shown short veggie tales and such before but I have decided that if I don't want my child watching extra TV at school than why is it o.k. for me to impose that on others children. Here are a few ideas I have come up with to pass the indoor time that have prooved more enjoyable for child and teacher than watching tv! - Art Centers : I love art and there is just not enough time in the day to have enough art, so last week when we had a rain day I set up four different tables and allowed the children 15 minutes at each table, they loved it: watercolors, stencils, stamps and punches and dry erase. The art was fantastic and the kids didn't even miss thier outside time. -Movement Activities: I bought a set of movement mats at

For whatever reason our weekly reader has hibernation now instead of the winter, so I decided to make the best of it since it is still 80 degrees here in Texas. The kids are coming to school in their pj's on Friday and we are going to spend some time learning under a sheet tent. My best idea though I think is to use a shoe box and french fry holders from Sams to create a bear cave, the kids are going to paint the inside blue for the sky and stick gold star stickers inside. The french fry holders are getting stapled together and painted grey for the cave. I have printed off some pine trees and bear cut outs on cardstock. We are going to glue cotton balls on top of the cave for snow. I will post a few picks as soon as they are done.

This next week is our Hibernation week. We are going to make a shoebox bear cave and have some class lessons in the dark with tiny flashlights. Anyone have any great ideas to add?

My class truly enjoyed working on the farm book I created, they loved following along with the story and making predictions for what would come next. They especially enjoyed coming up with other thins forund on the farm that were not in the book. We took some time to draw them in. It was geat!

I just created this great little Thanksgiving book while sitting home sick with pnemonia (sp?) Feeling a bit better today so making use of my rest time. This book is free on TpT,the link is to the right of this column. During my Thanksgiving unit I like to let the children act out the harvest feast. We make Pilgrim hats and Indian vests. Our school allows us to take a parade around the school showing off our period wear.  We of course sing 1 little, 2 little, 3 little Indians. We create a cornucopia, each student brings in a piece of friut or vegetable to fill then we take a picture of it with the kids for the parents. There are so many things you can do to make Thanksgiving fun for the students, I also like to show a picture of traditional Thanksgiving food and give each child a paper plate, It is amazing what they draw with just some crayons. You can cover your tables in brown butcher paper and let the children set the table with their drawn plate, have them outline plasticwear and c

I just created this great farm vocabulary book for my class, I can't wait for them to complete it tomorrow. This week we have been talking about the farm but nothing is like having your own book to take home! This book is available for $2 on my TPT site, you can find a link to TpT on the right side of this page. This book can also be cut and used for flash cards and used for guided reading circles.

I have created a great little monster center for my class. They love these little monster images and they are learning so much while playing with them. You can download a free preview of this set on teacherspayteachers.com. There is a link on the right side of the page that will take you directly to my store. I love to start out teaching my patterns to the kids on the carpet in a large group and then having self practice at the table. I use a digital camera with a small name tag to capture each students progress. This makes it so that I only have to print, laminate an cut one set and can use it over and over. I have also prined this set in black and white. The monsters are different enough to tell the difference and we can work on cutting skills. With this set I also included colors and intended this set for beginner pattern students. I have several other pattern sets that would be suitable for students up to 2nd grade depending on level.

My thirty-one and teachers pay teachers stores are up and running. If you like fun pattern centers and a good challenge for your pre-k to 2nd grade classroom check out the free downloads and full units I have available. With thirty-one remember Christmas is right around the corner and you can order straight from my sight, no parties to attend or hostess a catalog party and get products for free, your choice, Thanks for visiting!

In the beginning there was a girl who had no idea what she wanted from life. Then God sent her a man to marry and 2 children to raise. He called her to teaching in the Pre-Kindergarten realm. And now here we are, wife, mother, teacher, student, writer, saleswoman. Is there time to sleep tonight? Between mothering, wifing (is that a word?) lesson plans, college work, writing units for teacherspayteachers.com and selling thirty-one, can i find time to fit in anything else? Follow my blog to find out!