The Crazy Pre-K Classroom

Hello All, Happy Holidays to you all! I wanted to share this week a few of my time tested Christmastime centers. I don't have pictures of all of them but I will post the ones I have. So far this year my busy little four year olds are enjoying the (1)jingle bell pick up the most. I place a bucket of small jingle bells on the table with 4 ice cube trays and 4 pair of tweezers. The children fill up the ice cube trays with the jingle bells without using their fingers. They count, make patterns, compare each others trays and sort by color. They have begged me to play this every morning this week! (2) Candy cane counting center: I hang number cards across my cabinets on yarn. I then have them hole punched at the bottom to coorrespond with the number. The children then go along the row and hang plastic candy canes from the dollar store on each card while counting. (3) Christmas Sensory Bin: I have gathered bows, tinsel, plastic candy canes, jingle bells, small ornaments and all t...

Hello All, Sorry to neglect my blog this week but I took a much needed break with my family in Disney World! It was so nice to get away and enjoy my boys. I had evey intention of continuing to work on TpT sets and posts for my blog but little did I know that the time share did not have wifi!!!!! I think God had a plan to focus me on my famly, something I don't allow myself to do as often as I should. So to all of my loyal followers, Happy Thanksgiving! I hope your vacation was as joyful as mine, p.s. If you ever go to Disney and wonder if it is worth driving an hour to visit legoland, do it! Legoland was wonderful!

Hello All, Today while going through the dollar store for the hundreth time this year I found something I wasn't even looking for. I went to find pot holders for a school project and came across these super cute kid sized mugs. I plan on putting a packet of hot cocoa mix and a small baggie of marshmallows inside. You could also fill with candy or a small ornament. I will probably tie a cute tag around it so there will be no need to buy bags and tissue. Besides the snowman they also had mugs decorated for santa, reindeer and snowmen holding sports balls. For a class project or parent gift they also have blank ones to decorate yourself. They come apart so you can change the picture. Oh, I should have bought some for the kiddos to make for Mom and Dad! Maybe I will be going back to the dollar store again tomorrow. It is like my second home! I know you know what I mean! My local dollar store is the Dollar Tree here in Round Rock Texas. I would think if you have one of these parti...

Hello All, In my neverending quest to fit just as much as I possibly can into my small amount of classroom storage I have found a new Favorite!!!!!!! That's right 4x6 photo holders! Not only are they slimmer than the traditional pencil boxes but shorter and they stack nicely! I managed to fit a classic 8 set of fine tip crayola markers, a full set of crayola crayons, a few pencils, an eraser, scissors and a small gluestick. Everything my kiddos need at their desk, the only caveat is that traditional pencils are a little too long but once they are sharpened a couple of times they fit in just fine. I can think of so many more uses: flash cards, dice games, counters storage, matching cards sets, the list goes on and on! I found these particular ones at Michaels which had them for $1.49 and 40% off plus the everyday teachers 15% discount=$.77 each!!!! Not only practical but cheap when you find them on sale. And I even bought a few extra just because I know I will find ways to u...

Hello All, Sorry that I have been neglecting my blog this past week but I have been battling kidney stones and now I think I have the flu! But in all of this sickness I was so excited to check my Tpt store to find I now have 100 followers! It has been almost exactly one year since I started this blog and creating for TpT and I have to say it has made me a better teacher. I find myself planning ahead more, being more in depth in my lesson planning and being a more exciting teacher. Thanks to all of the great blogs and teacher sharing out there, I appreciate all of you!

Hello Everyone, Please welcome my first guest blogger, Toni from teacherlingo.com . She has written a great article for us on integrating movement into our letter recognition lessons! Enjoy! Christine Making Letters Move Author Bio: Today’s guest post comes from Toni, an elementary school teacher with a specialty in differentiated instruction and designing hands-on lessons that incorporate the multiple intelligences. You can often find Toni writing for TeacherLingo.com, where teachers can buy and sell their original lesson plans, worksheets, and more. She is married to a middle school math teacher and is a mom to a mystery loving 7 year old sweetie-girl and a quirky little light saber toting 3 year old. Have you ever made cookies with a preschool aged child? They want to feel, taste, and smell each ingredient before placing it in the mixing bowl. Young children use all of their senses when exploring a new object! This is important to remember when introducing children to their ...

Hello All, Today our curriculum (Handwriting without tears get set for school Pre-K) called for sentence building. Each child was supposed to dictate a sentence and we were to count the number of words in the sentence. This is a simple activity that would only take a few minutes had I not put my own spin on it. I decided to turn this into a sentence building, sight word, graphing activity! WHEW! Literacy and numbers in the same lesson, I love double duty lessons! We started by choosing a picture from a bucket. Each child took a turn and made up a sentence. We counted the number of words after I wrote the sentence on the large graph paper. Once our sentences were finished we identified and found each of our sight words. We circled each sight word and counted how many times we had used each word. I wrote the word and number on the right hand side of the sentence sheet. Once we finished counting each sight word we made a bar graph to compare how many times we used each word. The ch...