The Crazy Pre-K Classroom

I finally decided on my theme for next year! I am going to use nautical and ocean themed decor to decorate my new classroom. Yes, I am moving again this year so new room, new theme! I do not have access to my room over the summer so I took these pictures over my kitchen table which is approximately the same size as my large board. The first picture shows how I plan to use one of my boards as my calendar/ math focus wall.  I will be placing magnets onto the letter pieces and have them next to the calendar on my whiteboard. I have not decided where I will use and place all of the other pieces except the word wall which will be on a board on the adjacent wall and my number line above the calendar/ white board. There are quite a few pictures of the pieces included in the file and there are also editable pieces so you can customize your classroom.  If you would like to see the Christian file or the secular file scroll through the pictures and click on the link at the bottom. I wil...

Tonight I reached 500 followers on TpT! I am super excited so I am throwing a Valentine's Day Giveaway to thank all of you for your support! Enter below as many times as you'd like for a chance to win my Valentine's Math and Literacy unit , Valentine's Print and Go Worksheets and my Dollar Store Valentine's Centers unit ! Check them out in my store for more details! The winner will be chosen by rafflecopter on Monday, February 10th! a Rafflecopter giveaway

Hello All! I truly hope you are enjoying your winter. I know many of you have had several snow days, here in Texas we have had 2 ice days, which is unheard of down here! This week my class started working intentionally on addition and subtraction concepts. While I always try to connect simple addition and subtraction concepts to my numbers lesson it is very informal. I am now planning the majority of my number lesson on addition and subtraction concepts.I know my class is ready to begin these concepts when they can count to 50 forwards and backwards, can pattern easily, can put numbers to 20 in order and can easily sort by color. With all of this in place teaching the basic addition and subtraction strategies should be easy! (Well, we will see!) So, we started this week with 10 frames,you can easily make your own or print out free sets through a google search. Each child then has 10 objects to use to count. I start with addition problems to 5. I instruct the children to "place 1 c...

Debbie Diller and other succesful educators have said that children can distinguish between objects when they have a frame to seperate them. This would be why word walls, number walls and many educational posters frame there content so that children can concentrate on one space and not get everything all jumbled together. This is especially important when learning how to decode words and counting. One to one correspondence practice where a child places one object in one section of an egg carton is the same idea. This year I have been working diligently with my pre-kers on using 10 frames. I am seeing this tool used more and more often to help with counting, one to one correspondence, identifying amounts and grouping. There are endless possiblilities for using these in the classroom. This week after practicing with the ten frames from my Hibernation Unit we completed the following worksheet. You can see that the child who colored in red understood the concept pretty well but the child ...

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...

Hello All, With fall in full swing and parent teacher conferences on Monday I have not had much time to create or blog however for all of my loyal followers I have decided to make it up to you buy bundling all of my fall worksheets at a discount and adding a 5 worksheet freebie to my store! My kiddos have been enjoying my newest sets of worksheets that are all interactive and keep their attention. I have taken out all of the centers and other printables in order to give you an entire unit of useable worksheets with 22 exclusive worksheets for free. You will not find these 22 new worksheets in any of my other units, they are only in the bundle.All of the worksheets are interactive withmore than one way of learning on the page. The students have really enjoyed all of the cutting/gluing, counting, coloring the correct number, matching the correct letter etc. These have been working so well in my reading group rotations. I have hardly been interrupted and this early in the school year that...

So, you want to use the Daily 5 with your 4 year olds but you are not quite sure how you are going to get them ready or if they can even do it. I can tell you after implementing the Daily 5 in my Pre-K classroom for the past 3 years I am confident that not only can you teach it but they can accomplish it! Not sure what the Daily 5 is? You will want to get your hands on the book "The Daily 5" by: Gail Boushey and Joan Moser. My school used this book and accompanying videos as a professional development study three years ago and my classroom has never been the same. Tailored to elementary students who can already read I had to tweak it to meet my classrooms needs. I wait until the class is acclimated to school before even thinking of teaching the 5 areas of the Daily Five. Each day the children are supposed to: Read to self, Word Work, Read to someone, Listen to reading and Meet with the teacher. I always start with teaching read to self. I have the whole class bring one book t...