The Crazy Pre-K Classroom

Food allergies have become an every year, every class occurance in Pre-K over the past few years. We have all seen children with peanut or milk allergies, maybe a latex allergy here or there, but I would like to tell you about a little girl in my class who is anaphalactically allergic to 5 of the big 8! My Pre-K team and I have been able to keep her safe, with her parents permission I am sharing her story with you in hopes that you don't give up on Pre-K for your child because of food allergies. Any school worth attending will do everything necessary to accomodate your child no matter how severe the allergies are. My student is a 4 year old sweet, loving and intelligent child. She makes me laugh everyday and I can't imagine my class without her. She is deathly allergic to: milk, eggs, gluten, latex, all nuts and wheat. I know you are asking yourself what does this little girl eat? I will get to that, but first let me explain the safeguards my team and I put into place before ...

I have/Who has is a game I use in my classroom daily to build strength in the order of the alphabet and numbers. I have also used this to reinforce number words, sight words, color words and other key concepts for young children. I find it amazing how quickly the children catch onto this game and are able to translate it to other concepts without missing a beat. My Pre-K class of 14 can now order 1-30 in under 2 minutes. That is a feat when it comes to pre-k kids, they just love this game, and most can now tell me the numbers that are missing and number order which is essential for math skills in school. How to play: Either purchase a set of cards or make your own, the following image is given as an example and is from my TpT unit for St. Patricks Day. I try to include one of these sets in each of my math and literacy unit. Pass out the cards as evenly as possible for your group, have your students place the cards in order from lowest number to highest. When I first start each chil...

St. Patricks Day is right around the corner so in planning mode i created a mini-unit for my class. It is titled Shamrock Shenanigans and included you will find I have/who has to 100 and the alphabet. Skip counting by 2's, 3's, 5's and 10's to 100 and 4 worksheets for practice and assessment. Please check it out on TpT by clicking the following link: Shamrock Shenanigans!

My newest TpT Unit is titled "Spring is in the air!" Included you will find Number/number word matching, sight word snails with number of letter sort mats, color words, simple addition, patterns, counting, matching to number word, worksheets for beginning blends, a predictable spring vocabulary reader, fill in the missing number worksheets and so much more! Please check out this unit on TpT or Teachers Notebook and kick off your spring with fun learning activities! The Extension activities that are included with this unit are posted on this sight as well. View this unit by clicking on the link below: Spring is in the Air! TpT Unit Thank you for visiting, please join and visit often for great ideas in Pre-k! Christine

Spring is almost here and it is time to start planning those fun activities that we all love when the blanket of winter lifts and the sunshine of spring arrives. The following ideas are from my new TpT unit named "Spring is in the Air!" Spring Math and Literacy Unit Extension Ideas Sensory Play: Use the snail cards or number cards in a pot of dirt, have the children find the words, brush them off and then record them on paper. Allow them to have small plastic shovels, gardening gloves and a small empty watering can for pretend play. Silk Flower Colors and Counting: Have some silk flowers on a table, all different colors, have the children match the flowers to the color word card. Have them draw the flower in the correct color crayon and then write the color next to it. Large construction paper works well for this center. Then have them count the number of petals on the flower and write the number next to the word. You could also count and pattern with these flowers usi...

Teacher Tam is the winner of this month's TpT unit giveaway. She has won my Woodland Winter Math and Literacy Unit. This unit is filled with ideas for math and literacy centers as well as printables and a shared reader. Check it out on TpT at Woodland Winter Unit

I have just posted my newest TpT unit titled "75+ ways to learn with legos". This 140 page unit includes 18 pages of activities as well as over 100 pages of resources to go with! I love teaching with legos and have had great success especially with my boys on teaching concepts not only in Math but in Literacy, Listening, Visual Discrimination and many other areas. Each and every activity is geared toward  the pre-k to 2nd grade classroom. Please check it out! These pictures are just a few of the many resources in this unit. please take a minute to open the preview file on TpT to see many more resources. 75+ Ways to Learn with Legos Enjoy! Christine

Thank you to everyone who helped me raise $139.00 in honor of my former principle. This money will mean so much to our school. I appreciate everyone who contributed! Remember: Only 3 days left until I giveaway my Winter Woodland Unit! Visit the Giveaway page for more details, Good Luck!

Be sure to enter my monthly giveaway! This month is my Winter Woodland Literacy Unit. Visit my giveaway page for more details. Good Luck! Winter Woodland Literacy Unit Visit the link above to see more of this great unit! Till next time, Christine

Today was the 100th day of school and my class counted 100 legos, which got me thinking of all the great learning activites we could do with them: 1. Count: today we counted to 100, I passed out 10 sticks of 10 leggos, then we counted by ones to 100 and by 10's to 100. 2. Stack while counting: We stacked our legos while counting by 10's, once our tower was build we compared ourselves and common classroom objects to the height of the tower. Had I thought this out earlier I would have had a recording sheet with the items we compared. 3. Patterns: We then took our legos apart and created a few types of patterns by color and by size of legos. 4. Addition: you can add the legos themselves in groups or you can add the dots on different sizes of legos. 5. Non-Standard Measurement: Tomorrow I am going to give each child 10 legos stacks and a recording sheet. I will instruct them to measure and record how many rows of leggos long each object is. We will then also count them by 10...

10. Playdough(with ABC, number, word or name mats) 9. Wiki Sticks (with ABC, number, word or name mats) 8. Shaving Cream (in a bag or all over!)( draw letters or numbers in sharpie on a ziplock before filling with the shaving cream, get out as much air as possible and have the kids trace over your writing with their fingers, can also be done with hair gel, finger paing and glitter glue) 7. Finger Paint (or any type of painting for that matter) 6. Dancing (with scarves or without, there are some great kids Cd's out there with fun movement music) 5. Stamping and free art 4. lego competitions (who can build a lego guy fastest, who can build the tallest tower without falling over etc.) 3. Big book shared reading with creative activity to follow (for example, Eric Carle's Very Hungry Catterpillar could be followed with a rainbow, tissue paper catterpillar gluing activity) 2. Tent reading ( I keep extra bed flat sheets in my room and bring the pillows and stuffed animals form...

In a desperate attempt to store reading book packets I used binder rings and caribeeners to attach these two file pocket charts to my cabinets. My school requires everything to be packed away every week so I needed something that was functional and easy to pack away. These are working great. Each child has a pocket and the 4 signs have a different animal with the child's names for that group. I then have the classes seat work divided into file boxes be animal group. After their reading group is finished one student is assigned to get their file box and take it to the table for the group to work on quietly while I work with the next group. Our rotations are as follows: Work with teacher Work on seat work Work on writing Read to self Each rotation is about 15 minutes with a movement break of one minute in between. This is working so well for me this year. I hope these ideas can help with your reading groups. Till next time, Christine

I have a shelf outside of my classroom for lunchboxes and sign in sheets. I decided for Valentines day to put a bulletin board set on the wall above with mavelous tape. Each of the hearts has one f the fruits of the spirits on it (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, faith and self-control from Galations in the Bible) if you are a secular school you could put the name of your students on the hearts instead. I think this set is from Carson Dellosa. Also on my table is a cereal box covered with board paper and labeled love notes. There are markers and paper hearts there for the parents to write their kiddos a little love note. Then I read a few each day in class until Valentines Day. 

I have this awkward bump out in the back of my classroom that I never know what to do with. Untill recently i was not allowed to leave anything up over the weekend so this spot was always blank. So I decided to create a board that could be built upon week after week with the sight words we are learning. So far these are the ones everyone knows and hopefully next week I will add a fet more. I will also add a Popcorn sight word title to the suedo board in the morning after I cut some letters with my cricut tonight. You can find these sight words and much more in my popcorn Word Work Unit onTpT Popcorn Word Work on TpT

I just happened to have this stand alone chart that I have not used in quite a while. I thought how neat would it be to have a stand up center where the children are moving around while learning. So I placed a bucket of plastic letters and my vocabulary cards in the chart. I gave the children instructions, at first they just wanted to create rows of letters but since we have been working on this for a few weeks they finally have the hang of it and are enjoying it. Most of my TpT units have vocabulary cards like this that are used for read the room but this is also a great alternative. This week I am testing to see if the children can build the words and then record them on a piece of paper. So far so good. You can find these specific vocabulary cards in my Arctic Freeze unit, visit my TpT store via the link below to view. Arctic Freeze in TpT Store

Thank you so much to scipi at www.gofigurewithscipi.blogspot.com for nominating my blog for the Liebster Award. The Leibster award is intended to get new blogs with less than 200 followers the recognition they deserve. I encourage you to visit Go Figure with Scipi and the following blogs that I am nominating for this award. The purpose of the Liebster Blog Award is to assist up-and-coming blogs with less than 200 followers to get the attention they deserve. As with any award, there is a bit of ritual involved. Therefore, in order to accept the award, I must do the following : · Thank the Liebster Blog Award presenter(s) on my blog and post a link back to their blog. · Copy and paste the award on my blog. (see award on lower right hand side of blog) · Pick my five favorite blogs with less than 200 followers. Leave a comment on their blog to let them know they have received the award, and then become a new follower. · Encourage the five blogs ...