The Crazy Pre-K Classroom

We all know that being comfortable in your daily space is important. Having items that make you happy and are exactly what you want can help make your year go smoothly. It is also a real pain when you figure out you need something and have to beg, borrow and steal to get your lessons ready for the next day! I've been there 1000 times and now I am the teacher everyone comes to when they need something. (I guess it helps that I am a hoarder, but don't follow my lead on that end!)      I have come up with my list of necessities that I find make my days in my classroom a whole lot smoother and I do not spend time going to the store after school or groveling at my coworkers feet! I normally make one or two large Amazon orders per year to stock up on the consumables. I try to also buy everything on prime so that my shipping is free! I also keep and eye on Amazons lightning deals in case any of my necessities come up on an extra great sale price. The following list is in no...

Hello All, Today we had so much fun with our sight word from my freebie Snowflake Slap . First I laid out all of the snowflakes on the carpet. If the child could read me the word they could keep the card and crumple it into a snowball. Once all of the words were read and squished I told the class we could have a snowball fight! It was such great fun that we took our "snowballs" into another kinder classroom and attacked them. As the kids threw the sight word snowballs we made more snowballs and threw them into the crowd from leftover paper. It was great fun! Once we settled back into our classroom we placed all of the snowballs into a bucket and each child pulled a word. If they could read it they recorded it on the left side of the worksheet below, if they couldn't read the word they recorded it on the right. The ones most did not know were pretty consistent so I know which ones we need the most work on. So hop on over the TpT to grab your free copy of Snowflake Slap an...

WOW! This was about the fastest September in my immediate history! I can't believe that switching from Pre-K to Kinder has left me with no classroom reveal or new ideas for my blog! Thank you everyone for being so supportive and patient. I promise to catch up as much as possible over the next couple of weeks. So, my classroom, where do I begin? I went from a decent sized room with windows to a closet with none. Don't get me wrong, I am not complaining it just poses certain storage and space issues that I had not needed to address in several years. How do you fit a full classroom of supplies into a tiny space, how do you organize it and how do you fit anything new that you will need for your new grade? Well, I started by clearing my entire classroom into my living room over the summer and doing a serious purge (which was very painful since I hoard all things school related!) then I went shopping! My Michaels' teacher discount, a coupon and other sales helped me to purchase q...

When I think about the word bundle I think about the cold winter and being all curled up under blankets on the couch watching a good movie. For Drew however being all bundled up on the couch is not possible, he is spending his winter days in the hospital. Drew was diagnosed with Juvenial Rheumatoid Arthritis a couple of years ago and when he got strep last year it went to his brain causing intense pain, pressure and an inability to walk. The Doctors have tried everything and Drew was able to live at a tolerable pain level for a while. Now he is back in the hospital in a great deal of pain awaiting a much needed surgery on his brain. Because this surgery has never been performed on a child the families insurance has denied coverage. The Dr. has waived his fee however the family is still looking at $20,000.00+ out of pocket. This surgery is a last resort to try to get Drew a pain free, normal childhood. http://i1311.photobucket.com/albums/s677/prekchristine/drew2-001_zpse0ad3925.jpg I ...

Hello All, Here is a follow up to my most recent post about the importance of math in the pre-k classroom. Today we worked on Graphs and Patterns. My class has been exposed to both of these several times in group teaching and number centers but this is the first time the children filled in the patterns and graphs on their own. I knew which ones would do well and which ones might have some trouble folllowing along. I will show you what both look like. I walked them through the patterns by first having a group pattern lesson on the carpet and then brining them to the table for the worksheet. We assigned each letter a color for the entire sheet so that there was no confusion in the switching of colors and so that I could use the colors to help them understand the pattern. A=orange, B=yellow, C=green, D=white. All typical colors of pumpkins; I even showed them pictures of each color pumpkin that I took at the pumpkin patch over the weekend but that is a different story. Back to the pattern...