The Crazy Pre-K Classroom

Numbers-in-the-Ocean-1-10-booklet We started our Numbers in the Ocean booklet today with great success. I was a little worried that there would be too many instructions to follow but my kiddos did great! Here you can see that my children were able to follow 10 directions with a sample hanging on the board that they could see from their seats. 1. Trace the number. 2. Trace the number word 3. Read the sentencs and circle the number word. 4. Write the number word 5. Write the number 5 times 6. Color the correct amount of boxes to represent the number. 7. Color the correct box on the number line 8. Tally the number. 9. Color the objects. 10. Using small movements, color the bubble border!    This was so amazing to watch! They were so intent on doing each task and doing it neatly, I was so proud! My-Sea-Life-Sentence-Building-Booklet-Ocean-animals We also started our ocean themed sentence building booklet today. I used this as a literacy center d...

So yesturday I went with my 3rd grader to the Maybourn Museum on the Baylor University campus, this is a very nice museum and worth the trip if you live within a couple of hours of Waco TX. While going through our guided tour I came across this sign on the wall. I could read it without trouble but it got me thinking about a few things. My first thought was "Is this what it looks like to try to read as a young child, just a bunch of letters with no meaning?" My second thought was "Is this similar to what text looks like to children with dyslexia and dysgraphia and other learning disabilities?" Granted I know that dyslexics reverse letters and dysgraphics flip their letters but I am just thinking of the confusion these issues would cause during the crucuial points in which we learn to read as children. So, this is when I got to thinking about the importance of decoding words and letter/sound recognition. Without these two skills even reading this jumb...

Now that I am more than half way to 100 followers I figure it is about time to announce my giveaway! Now brace yourselves this is going to be HUGE! Once I have 100 followers who leave their email address in a comment attached to this post I will email EVERYMEMBER a unit from my TpT store. As a default I will send my Insect Invasion unit, however if this is not a unit you could use or you already own it leave a note of which unit you would like. If you are already a member please leave your email in a comment linked to this post!!! So now you are wondering what the catch is (at least I would be at this point): 1. Leave your email, blog address and name in a comment on this post with your desired TpT Unit 2. Follow me here and on TPT 3. Download a free TpT file and leave a comment 3. Post on your blog about this giveaway, spread the word to coworkers, homeschoolers and Moms of Pre-K kiddos That's it, this is my way of saying Thank You for being wonderful followe...

In my previous post I told you a bit about my organizational struggles and my habit of storing school items at home. I know I'm not the only one! Here is my starting point, these cabinets have not been truly cleaned out since the beginning of school this year and they are starting to drive me crazy. Since we end school May 25th I am just starting to remove items that can go home, freeing up some space for supplies. This is my largest cabinet that I spoke of in my last post. There is not much I can do about the bottom area except add a tension rod with theme bags. I have to be able to put the rolling carts in each week. I will however go through all of the filing drawers and tower buckets to see where the storage can improve. I am hoping that all of the buckets and supplies sitting on top of the towers will easily organize into the theme bags and make more space. In the top section I need to find a better way to store file folder games, my science center suppli...

I was able to finish my Under the Sea:Ocean themed math and literacy unit last night, it is jam packed with hands on learning fun for the class. With a teacher big book and 2 student completed books the literacy aspect of this unit is great. My students especially enjoyed completing the "what lives in the ocean" student book where they were able to write the name of the animal and then spell the name in stickers. You could also use small letter die cuts, stamps, magazine cuttings, foam letters and other letter supplies you may already have. I have/who has ABC, 1-50, 5's, 10's, 100's, sight words. 18 read the word pictures with 3 recording sheets. Page from the teachers 16 page big book. My ocean spelling book: write the word and use stickers, die cuts, stamps etc. to complete. Starfish sight word worksheets. Find the correct nubmer word cards. Can be done with clothespins or bingo markers.   Counting by 2's. 5's. 10...

I have just started putting together an Ocean themed unit and thought I would offer the first part as a freebie! This read the room download comes with 18 cards and 3 recording sheets. Look for my Under the Sea Math and Literacy Unit later this week on TpT and Teachers Notebook. Click this link to download for free from Teachers Pay Teachers: Under-The-Sea-Ocean-themed-read-the-room-freebie

If you are anything like me you have more in your classroom than you can store so you take the extra home and store it in the attic or garage. Well, my husband has not been so pleased with my school to home storage arrangement and has challenged me to a classroom storage redo before school ends! That's only 5 weeks to revamp my storage solutions and fit everything into my classroom! Yikes, this could be difficult for a person like me! This will require several posts since I started my cleanout today. My classroom has a wall of cabinets, 1/2 mine and 1/2 for the church that uses to room on Sundays. Every Friday I pack up everything I use for the week to then pull it out again on Monday. It is imperative that I put everything back in it's place because if I get lazy I won't be able to find my supplies on Monday. Here are my top tips to start organizing and I will post my progress as I discover more ways to store my classroom supplies: 1. IKEA: I love the Ikea ...

Hello Everyone,      It is giveaway time again, this month's prize goes to Christi Squires. She has won my Bug-Jar-Math Unit from TpT. She will enjoy 39 pages of bug themed counting activities including 1-10 bug jars for counting and one to one coorespondence, worksheets, sorting mats and more. Thank you all for being followers! Next months giveaway is: Frog-Fun-Math-Centers  (I changed it to a larger and more recent unit!) Frog fun math centers contains nine printable centers and practice worksheets for your pre-k to 1st grade students. Included centers teach and review: time, number words to 50, patterns, addition, subtraction, greater than, less than and equal to,non-satndard measurement and more. You can view some of my students work from this unit here on my blog under the posts: Tips for teaching number word recognition Clothespin color matching, counting and addition center Why teach non-standard measurement? Teaching time and clock concepts in Pr...

We all know that teaching number words can be a challenge, not only do most of them require memorization but the connection between the word and number can be a challenge for young children. Here are some tips to making your instruction of number words more successful. 1. Display large number cards that have the number word on each. These were a free set from 1-30 I found on teacherspayteachers.com, they are perfect for my jungle theme. (8.5x11) 2. Use cards with the number word only and flash them as you count. Practice this every morning during your number word recognition unit. 3. Create or find a center that practices matching the number to its word. Here is the one i am using right now and the children just love it! They are having so much success using this unit and being able to check their answers against the large number cards i have hanging on the wall. You can find this center in my Insect Invasion Unit. Click this link to view: Bugs-Math-and-Literacy 4. Use a cut and ...

This months giveaway is my Bug-Jar-Math  unit from TpT! Currently my best seller! Join my blog for a chance to win! Below are details of what is included in the great unit: This is a set of Math Mats that help kids learn numbers, counting, one to one correspondence, patterning, sorting, colors, number recognition and order, visual discrimination, math vocabulary and various other math concepts. Use groups of bugs to teach skip counting. Use the sorting mats to assess sorting skills. Use the skills worksheets for extra practice. This set includes everything you need to do a unit on numbers 1-10 with insects/ bugs. Included are: 10 jar mats with 1-10 bugs inside for counting and matching (one to one coorespondence) 10 jar mats with the number above for counting 3 pages of bugs for completing everything in the packet 1 page of extension ideas 5 sorting mats with 4 jars each with 1 bug in each jar 1 matching worksheet, cut and paste the correct bug 1 size order works...

Clothespins come in handy at home for this or that but in my classroom they mean serious business. This week I am using my new clothespin center to reinforce color recognition, color words, counting and addition/subtraction concepts. First I printed and laminated the color word cards on cardstock. I cut them out and used them for our read the room activity. I used wood clothespins and colored on them with markers, for white I used white tape that I had. I intentionally did not make any blue clothespins to practice adding/subtracting zero. This seems to be easy for some and hard for others. We then matched all of the clothespins to the correct card and counted them. We recorded how many clothespins were on each card. After recording the numbers we moved onto adding 2 cards together and filling in the addition problems on the recording sheet. The students did so well, I was impressed by how much attention they paid to the counting and recording sheet. For my lower students I know thi...

Non-standard measurement is using common objects to measure versus using a ruler or measuring tape. You can use just about anything, like legos, blocks, pencils. Using common objects and pictures make the introduction of measurement fun. I have found that using pictures of animals from the weekly/monthly theme to measure items in the classroom is fun and kinesthetic for my students. I have created several different worksheets that teach non-standard measurement: On this worksheet the children were asked to cut out a set of each of the bugs shown. Each bug is a different size therefore requiring more or less bugs to measure. I instructed them to start at the bottom of the tree and work their way up to the top. They were then to count how many bugs it took to measure the tree and record that number next to the proper bug. Even though this student's 6 is backwards she ended up with all of the correct answers. Once we were finished with the worksheet I had each child pick a pile of o...

I have found that teaching time in Pre-k can be a challenge but with the right appraoch children can learn to tell time. Standing in the way are the enourmous number of digital clocks that children see. So here is where I start: 1. The Clocks: I print each child a full sheet sized clock on cardstock and laminated. I code the hands by color with the hour hand being red and the minute hand being blue. I attach these with brads, hour hand on top. I make sure my clock hands are easily distinguished from each other in size so that children can manipulate them easily. 2. Initial Introduction: I start with time to the hour, i use a play clock to show them and also tell them the real time on our classroom clock. When I catch the clock close to a certain hour I try to get the children to look at the classroom clock and tell me what time it is. Generally they pick up time to the hour easily, it becomes more challenging as you break the hour up into minutes. 3. Experimenting C...

As a Pre-K teacher I approach math a bit differently than my Elementary Teacher Friends. While Elementary is mostly focused on numbers and operations the pre-k classroom is focused on concepts that will build math knowledge leading to the operations. Below I have posted some pictures of a math concept packet that my class has just completed. Here my students completed a matching worksheet that builds visual discrimination skills, a key concept in math. Counting, grouping, matching and sorting are all essential skills used in lifelong learning. Here my students have placed bugs in order from smallest to largest. Ordering by size, classification by detail and the concept of left to right are not only essential to math but reading as well. Here my students are classifying by detail, this in particular is by number of legs. Visual discrimination, counting and grouping are all used here on one sheet. Colors are also considered in early childhood math lessons. Patterns, matching, co...

Studying the Pond Habitat and all about Frogs is one of my favorite units of the year. We are lucky enough to have a pond close enough to walk to and take our students on the Friday our unit is over. I cannot wait to go! In the meantime here are a few ideas you can plan in your classroom to help children understand ponds, frogs, ducks, fish and all of the wildlife that relies on the pond as their habitat. 1. Create a pond center (with water or waterless whatever your school allows) You can do this 2 ways, either in a small bucket on a table or in a small kiddy pool. If you choose to include water you will need to make sure you find items for the pond that are made of materials that can get wet without getting ruined (ex. rubber duckies instead of stuffed ducks). Start by lining your chosen bucket with sand, add water if you so choose, make sure the sand is deep enough to hold up the flowers and pond plants you want the children to decorate the pond with. Gather the following supplies...

O.K. so you may be wondering why in the world I would be putting a post about Golf on my Pre-K sight. Well, I hate golf it is boring and long, I have had no interest in it at all until today, Easter Sunday as Bubba Watson and a guy from South Africa went on a shooting match for the win. It wasn't the adrenaline that got my attention but my dad saying, " If Bubba Watson wins it will be a popular win, he's and ADD guy like you and your brother." Just like my obsession with Michael Phelps at the summer olympics a few years ago I find enjoyment in seeing those who struggled in school find success. As my Dad stated before I myself am ADD and my brother is ADHD. I spent the last hour looking at interviews about Bubba Watson and not only found that he describes himself as a typical ADD kid but also that he is a Christian! I have to say I may be following his golf career from now on. This is just to say WE CAN DO ANYTHING to those teachers and administrators who said we c...

So, I was asked the other day how I could possibly manage reading groups with 4 year olds? Isn't that impossible? So, with all this disbelief I though I would share some thoughts on 4 year olds, what they are capable of and how I manage my reading groups. I start with my 3 C's:       Connect       Clarify       Correct 1. Connect: I make sure in the beginning of the year to get to know the learning style of each of my students and meet them where they are, this is especially important with 4 year olds who may be experiencing school and learning for the first time. This is also imperative because there is so much development going on in this period of a child's life. When I started this year I had 3 students who were still 3, 9 students who were various degrees of 4 and 2 students who were already 5. I know what you are thinking, how can I bridge the gap in development: differentiated instruc...

Here is a free set of Read the Room cards which teach the color words. This free file also includes a recording sheet. These are from my new Pond & Frog Math Centers Unit on TpT and Teachers Notebook. Click the link below to download this freebie from TpT or the link to the right to go to my TpT store. I would love to know what you think of this, please leave feeback and comments. Enjoy, Christine Pond-Frog-Color-Word-Read-the-Room-Freebie

I just had to post something for my hubby today because I have been thinking about this since a wedding we attended a few weeks ago. I know this has nothing to do with education but I also want to remember on this blog that I am more than a teacher, I am a wife and Mom. I will be posting a few of these "encouragment" posts as often as I think of them. This is what I want my hubby to know: When you say, "you look pretty tonight" I say "shutup" (blushing) this is what  I really mean: "thank you, I love you, you totally made my night, you still think i'm pretty after 17 years?, I love you always, you're the best!" For Ken with Love, Christine

Hello All, I have just posted my latest unit to TpT titled Pond & Frog Math Centers! In this unit there are 9 centers, ready to print and use. Addition, Subtraction, Time to the hour, Greater than, Less than and Equal to, Number Word matching to 50 and much more! This unit is $7.00, there are so many uses for the pages in this unit. The possibilities are endless!  Click this link to see the full description, preview file and to purchase. Frog-Fun-Math This is for my Pond Theme Unit next week. I will also be creating a bulletin board pond to help learn about all of the different animals that live in the pond. I will also be making vocabulary cards for these animals as a read the room center. I plan on using some of the worksheets from this unit to assess the children's understanding of addition and subtraction, time and color words. I will use the large clocks for group instruction and the pattern mats for small group math time. Enjoy! Christine

Welcome to my new design! The Cutest Blog on the block designed this great blog template and I just love it! This totally fits my personality! Please grab my new button, I am so excited to have this great way to share with others. Please let me know what you think! Don't forget this months giveaway! Join my blog for a chance to win a free TpT unit on the 15th!

I have just uploaded a set of 10 free math practice worksheets only available for free here on my blog. These worksheets are great for differentiated instruction because they can be used several different ways. Each sheet practices counting on dice to either add, subtract or multiply, asks you to draw the dots or write the number and then tally the answer. The last few sheets focus specifically on Greater than, less than and equal to using bugs, numbers and tally marks. Click on my freebies page to get all ten worksheets! I hope you enjoy them. These sheets were created as part of my Bugs-Math-and-Literacy-unit-110-pages-of-centers-and-worksheets on TpT, check it out for more great printables, centers, activities and worksheets. Enjoy!