The Crazy Pre-K Classroom

There is a GIANT giveaway going on over at Teaching Special Thinkers, there are 100 prizes including my Passport to the next grade in the 3-5th grade section. Click this link to enter: http://teachingspecialthinkers.blogspot.com/2013/04/final-countdown-giveaway-over-100.html I am also collecting donations for my next giveaway as well, I only need 5 more blog followers to go live with it! To contribute either see my post on the teachers pay teachers sellers forum or email me at christine_odonnell@earthlink.net

hello All, We have a winner of the giveaway....Stephanie louise has just won my read the room mega pack. Congratulations! Thank you to all who entered and all who contributed a freebie. be on the lookout for my next huge giveaway, I am close to 200 followers on my blogandI amgoing to do a large collection giveaway. Send your friends over to follow my blog so I can give more to you.... my loyal followers! Thank you!

Hello All, I am so excited to say that I have met my sales goal this month for the first time! I am so excited that I have decided to giveaway my Read the Room Mega Pack! I also thought this might be a great time to collect some free resources while you are entering the giveaway. I will announce the winner on Sunday evening 4/28! Good Luck! a Rafflecopter giveaway List and download as many freebies as you like! Enjoy, Christine

Hello All, I am so excited to share three of my most popular items with you at a 40% discount on Teachers Notebook tomorrow, Saturday 4/20. Read the room mega pack:27 sets with recording sheets Where do animals live? 11 habitat units Butterfly life cycle with anchor chart, craftivity, teacher book, minibook and more You can find each of these items in the daily deals box on the homepage of Teachers Notebook or visit my shop www.teachersnotebook.com/shop/cropingchristine Enjoy your weekend! Christine

So I will start with the motherload of books I found in the dollar spot at Target! There were 8 different level 1 and 2 readers and 4 class readers. The books are fun science an social studies books as long as just for fun level 1 readers. Now you know why I am so excited to get these for $1, because they are normally $4-5 at any other store! You can also see that I stocked up on sticky dots (150 per pack) and french fry holders (not sure what I am doing with these yet but I am sure they will come in handy for a center or game). The dollar spot also had spring themed BBQ stuff and gardening supplies.If you haven't been this week I would suggest a trip! And now for my Michaels score: I went in looking for a scrapbooking punch and came across this great set of perfectly sized alphabet stamps, can you guess how cheap they were? $4.99, yes that is right $4.99 for an entire set! I bought 2 plus got my 15% off for being a teacher what a steal! So of course I loath the Michaels waiting l...

Today we had a surprise day with no chairs. Our tables and chairs were moved out of the way from our flower project the day before so I just left them there. I had floor toys out when the children first came to school and had taped bulletin board paper to the floor. After circle time we all gathered around the board paper and created a garden which I will hang on my bulletin board for the rest of the year with the addition of their picture and some embelishments. I will post pictures of that when I am finished with it. It happened to be a rain day so we spent our playtime completing our garden and completing a plant parts worksheet on the carpet. We used our clipboards and yes this involved glue and scissors. I am lucky enough to have a class that can handle those tools properly on the carpet. After lunch we had or Math groups so while I was working with one group the other children completed a read the room activity quietly and once they were finished worked on their seat work whil...

Today we had a blast learning about the life cycle of a plant. My class invited another class to join us for a lesson and craft. We started off by listening to a book and answering some comprehension questions. I then went over the life cycle on an anchor chart, the class was very excited to have this concrete visual to look at and explain. My teacher freind and I moved all of the tables to the sides of the room since we weren't going to have enoug spac fro each child to work at the table. The kids thought this was fantastic! I showed tem a finished project and we began to work in stages. I had all of the construction paper pieces cut ahead of time but you can gauge how much your class is capable of. We started with the stem which I folded a 13x18 piece of green construction paper 5 times. I then had the children cut out the lif cycle pieces and lue them into the stem. We then glued the stem to a 13x18 piece of white construction paper. Once this step was finished I allowed the c...

Not only are life cycles fascinating but they have a way of showing small children the growth that occurs in nature. Most of my 4 year olds are fascinated by the idea that frogs, butterflies and the like were born from eggs and not like humans. I like to use anchor charts, teacher books, craftivities and read the room activities to help the children understand the sequence of a life cycle and have a chance to go over more facts about the subject being studied. Since anchor charts are my favorite way to teach life cycles I have decided to give away my Butterly life cycle anchor chart for free. It is listed in both my TpT and TN stores. You will find links under the pictures. This weekend I was able to list my Frog life cycle unit and my Butterfly life cycle unit I hope you will take a chance to check them both out. And soon to come is my ladybug life cycle unit, plant life cycle unit and chicken life cycle unit. Be on the lookout for those later this week. Teachers notebook link: But...