The Crazy Pre-K Classroom

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...

Hello All, I have just made my Dollar Store Centers free in my TpT store. I have found the dollar store to be an invaluable resource for classroom centers. If your local dollar stores are as great as mine you will have no problem finding the basic tools needed to use these center ideas. Do you like to have your students use bags or make mailboxes? This year I have a parent donating tin mailboxes with the children's names on them. I think they will be super cute! In years past I have done love notes where the parents write their kiddos a little note at the door for me to read them each morning leading up to Valentines day. I also have enjoyed having parents "sneak" me a teddy bear and a card to greet their child the morning of Valentines day and then having a teddy bear picnic. Since I have moved to Kindergarten at the same school I can't very well steal the Pre-Kindergarten activities so I am looking for some new favorites to make traditions out of in Kindergarten. Wh...

As a Mom of 2 dyslexic kiddos I know it can be heartbreaking to watch them struggle to read and learn. It has been especially difficult with my 2nd son who is 7. He is repeating Kindergarten so that he can go through Dyslexia therapy without missing new concepts at school. He has already given up on reading, hates it and cries over every word. To say he is a severe dyslexic is an understatement. So a few weeks ago we had a talk about how to make reading easier, he loves to color, cut, glue etc. With that in mind I made a few worksheets after searching for some to buy and coming up empty. We did one worksheet a night for the last month and he was happy to do them. Little did he know he was truly learning how to see b,d,p and q without reversals. I think using large type with a very simple font also helped. I know there are specific fonts out there that SLP's feel are best but I wanted to use a different one to see if it truly made a difference. I personally think the simpler the fon...

Hello All, I am so excited to share with you that I have just started a new blog just for Kindergarten. I often talk about Kindergarten here at The Crazy Pre-k Classroom and now Kindergarten will have it's own home over at The Krafty Kindergarten Teacher  I will continue posting on both blogs and keep my TpT sore under the same name so there is no confusion. Be on the lookout for freebies, giveaways and new resources. I hope you will join me in this new endeavor! Thanks, Christine

Hello Blogging friends, can you believe in just a few short hours we will be in 2015? Where has the time gone! I know I have not been as present online as usual so I put together a little freebie as a thank you for your following. I also have my entire store on sale (20% off everything!) from January 1st-January 4th, just in time to stock up on resources for the second half of the school year. Click the links below to go directly to the freebie and to my store. Thank you for a wonderful 2014! Snowflake-Slap Freebie: Dolche Primer Sight Word Games The-Crazy-Pre-k-Classroom TPT Store Have a blessed 2015! Christine

Well, my post really begins in August of 2013 at the start of school with 14 pre-kers and a new school year full of fun and uncertainty. The excitement of new friends and families to serve, the start of a new class of kiddos, so incredible! However, if I had known the whirlwind I was about to be on I may have curled up in a ball in the corner! That is not to say all was bad. The one thing that kept me sane was my kiddos at school and the wonderful staff I was surrounded with. My class was wonderful, my Teachers Pay Teachers store was growing and all was well with my family and I. August and September were wonderful but for some reason every year October seems to be the month something hits home. Without question the first week of October we got a shock, my husbands Grandmother had died suddenly, which meant a trip from Texas to New Jersey for the funeral, That would only be the first 2 days I was away from my kiddos. You see I was out more than a month in the 2013-2014 school year, bet...

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...