Thanksgiving Experiments, Sensory Table & a Giveaway!

Happy Sunday! It's just 7 more school days until Thanksgiving Break! I can't believe how fast this year is flying by! We've been packing in a ton of fun and learning this November, and I have lots to share:

In our Sensory Center we have corn cobs and seeds. 

I'll be adding acorns on Monday - freshly harvested by my own children lol!

The kids loved taking the corn off the cobs - those will be recycled in our Art Center as a paint "brush"! They also used the sieves to separate the seeds and corn. After this picture was taken I added a wire basket whose holes were just big enough for even the corn to fall through! As the week progresses we'll be adding measuring cups, more sieves and containers. These help us work on concepts of volume as well as size. Plus, taking the kernels off the cob is great for fine motor muscles!

Corn is elsewhere in our classroom too! 

We're attempting to have our Indian corn grow in both a container of water AND a container of soil. 

We watched this time lapse video of a seed growing to help us learn about roots and shoots:

At home, the students are working on their "Disguise a Turkey" projects. and yes, often the parents do the bulk of the "work", which doesn't bother me AT ALL. To me, this project is more about sparking conversation between children and parents. Having the family plan together which disguise to do and what to make it with. Maybe shopping for materials, or scrounging in drawers and cupboards. The parents NEED to be active participants in this project - for me, the whole point is to get the parents involved in something their child is doing for school. Giving them a topic of conversation: "Did your teacher like the Turkey Disguise we made? What did you friends make? Which one is your favorite? If we do this again next year, which disguise will you choose?" so that they're children realize that mom & dad (grandma, whoever!) care about their education and want them to do well! The turkey project is low risk too - there's no right or wrong answer, the child is going to be thrilled with whatever help they get, and the teacher is going to welcome any disguise!

You can grab this freebie in my TPT store!

We're also working on letters and sounds of course, and my students are blowing those out of the water! Kids that came in not knowing even one letter of their name now know 20 letters! Everyone is making progress, and it is so heartening to see it! So many times we as teachers get bogged down in the politics of teaching, the long hours, the workload that seems to get bigger each year etc. Yet seeing the growth in my students, that they are learning so much and reaching their potential, while still loving school and rushing to hug me in the morning, well, that makes it all worthwhile!

Our main resource is this:

My Alphabet Sounds pack contains center activities and no-prep printables for each letter of the alphabet! There are so many pieces that you can use in whole group, small group lessons or one-on-one too! Since we don't have a reading curriculum, this is what I use to teach letters and sounds, and it works!

Want to win this pack? Enter the Rafflecopter drawing below!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Fall Activities in the Classroom

Fall in the Pre-K Classroom Means Red Ribbon Week, Leaf Collages and Lots of Turkey Activities!

We won our Red Ribbon Week Door Display!

The kids painted their paper towel rolls and helped make the wheels. Then I took pictures of them holding a paper "steering wheel" and printed them on cardstock after removing the background on my computer (tutorial here). I cut a slit in each cardboard tube and inserted the picture and hot glued it into place. The "track" was just a free-hand drawing (by me! I am slowly getting more artistic as I age somehow!) that I cut out of black paper and then I painted the stripes on by hand. It is so stinking cute and I love seeing it every day! During a recent parent conference, one of my students kept insisting that his mother "Come see my car!" and practically dragged her into the hallway to see it lol!

We had a pumpkin in our sensory table for a few days. The children were fascinated, but most were reluctant to really dive into the "squishiness"! We did have a few takers though, who helped collect the seeds for roasting and used sporks to scrape out the insides!

We took our first walking field trip and it was so fun and easy I'm kicking myself for not doing it before! My new partner had the idea and seemed confident that we could walk 40 four year olds over 6 blocks away to the pond on our local University campus. We used shower curtain hooks tied to jump ropes to help corral everyone, and once we got to the campus, we collected leaves, acorns and seed pods in paper bags.

When we got back from our trip we made Fall Collages by gluing the leaves to big sheets of paper!

We have dived right into learning and I am so proud of my kiddos! We are working towards being in the "Math Club" which means they get their name on this bulletin board:

Each grade level sets their own criteria  for "Math Club Membership'. For pre-k it's rote counting to 20 and writing numbers 0-10. We do so many counting songs and activities, plus write our numbers on dry erase boards once a day, that I know most of my kiddos will have their names on this board before Christmas!One of our favorite counting activities is Roll & Cover, which also helps with subitizing!

We've also started working on letters and sounds and I am so blown away by this group of kiddos! Even my ones who came in with 0 letter recognition now have made huge gains! Again, we do a lot of singing and dancing, plus a lot of games. During free choice centers, I have language arts activities available like:

 Thanksgiving Alphabet Match-Up

Turkey Rhyming Match-Up

On Friday, one of my higher kiddos was already blending sounds together! It really is amazing how much they soak up, especially since most of our day is spent playing and singing/dancing! I'm breaking out my Terrific Turkey Pack again next week - my kiddos last year loved all the different activities, so I'm sure it will be a hit this year too!

Next week I'll also send home our Turkey Disguise Homework Projects! These always turn out so cute - and the parents always surprise me with their creativity. Some may quibble because the parents end up doing a lot of the work, but I figure the time spent together and conversations as they're creating the disguise are the real value of this project! You can grab my Turkey Disguise letter for free here!

Also, all of my Thanksgiving packs are on sale this weekend 11/7/15 - 11/9/15! Check them out!

Have a great weekend!

Adorable Turkey Hats & Positional Words!

Woot! I'm on Thanksgiving Break for 5 days! Now, I love my pre-k kiddos - they are the 20 most adorable, funny AND fun children and I enjoy every day spent with them, but I am REALLY looking forward to spending time with my own 5 children!

First though, I have to share some major goodness with you:

We made Turkey hats from paper plates (I saw this pin and just winged it). I was able to make this a math assessment as well since the children painted their feathers in a pattern. I'm happy to say that ALL of them were able to sustain a pattern for the whole plate - some created an AB pattern, but I had a couple of over achievers who went for the ABCD pattern and rocked it :)

In the interest of time, I gave them pre-cut pieces for everything but the head - I figured they needed a bit of circle cutting practice. I considered going with googly eyes, but figured they'd have more personality if I gave the children black markers:)

Here's a picture taken at the end of the day - as you can see quite a few kiddos left early yesterday! The hats were adorable and the kids loved them. They even wore them while working:

We created our "Where Is Turkey" reader yesterday. I ended up laminating the turkey pieces to make them extra durable and the kids were sooo excited! I have 2 home laminators - one is actually at home and the other is in my classroom for those emergency laminating jobs like this. Our school laminator is out of lamination and has been since about the 2nd week of school. We won't be getting any more until next August, so my home laminators come in handy and its nice that I can help out Sam's Club with my lamination purchases  ;P

This is a positional word book, so when the students "read" each page they get to place Turkey in the correct position. Huge hit and I'm already planning a gingerbread version!

In the afternoon we headed down the hall to the 4th grade class, wearing our turkey hats, and sang  "5 Little Turkeys" from The Learning Station. My class is the cutest bunch of singers - they really ham it up and perform, so I try to make sure we get a chance to do a little something each week. I usually just use my cell phone to play the song, but, even when I turn it up as loud as possible, its hard to hear. I also use my phone in the hallway a lot - during bathroom breaks or when there are unexpected delays in the breakfast or lunch line. Expecting 4 and 5 year olds to stand quietly for more than a couple of minutes is just asking for trouble, so I pull up a song or video on my phone and keep them entertained and learning. Again though, it's usually hard for everyone to hear properly.

Imagine how excited I was when our music teacher showed me this:

It's an HMDX Wireless Speaker! I just set my phone to the bluetooth setting and it automatically picked it up. It had a clear sound and it gets plenty loud enough for using in the hallway or the classroom or even for performances at our assemblies! It works up to 30 feet away and has a 4 hour rechargeable battery life! I am in LOVE! It's only $19, so it's one of those little purchases that I can justify because it will make my life so much easier - I'd much prefer my kiddos be learning and singing while waiting in line than have to harp on them to keep still and not touch the person in front of them etc. (Just so you know, if we get stuck behind certain classes in the breakfast or lunch line it is a GUARANTEED ten minute wait! I'm not sure HOW they manage to stretch it out that long, but for some reason certain classes take 3 times as long to get their trays than other classes. Ten idle minutes is a lifetime for pre-k kids!)

Alright, I have to go put my turkey in the brining solution (my husband wanted to fry our turkey this year and since I don't want my house burning down I convinced him to try brining the turkey instead) And yes, I'm aware that frying a turkey can be done safely and easily, but  most likely not with my husband present (as much as I love him I have to be honest!) Please cross your fingers that it turns out well, then we can set the yearly turkey frying argument to rest once and for all :P

I'll leave you with this: the cutest Thanksgiving outfit ever! Why don't they make these for adults?!

BragTags, Milk Carton Turkeys and a Freebie!

Good morning! Are you gearing up for next week or are you off the whole week? I have school on Monday and Tuesday and then I'm off for 5 wonderful days to spend time with my kiddos! I'm iffy on doing the whole Black Friday thing - so far I haven't seen anytrhing I truly need to wake up for, and of course, Sullivan wakes me up quite frequently still. I'm thinking if I have to wake up early I'd rather spend time cuddling with him:

I finally get to post about my BragTags! Since I had a substitute at the beginning of the year, I didn't bring out my BragTags at first, so I was excited to debut them this week and my students love them!

This is my board - I stretched the fabric and stapled it to the back. My husband painted the letters and stars and tacked them on and added the hooks. It is perfect for my Cowboy theme!

So far I have awarded tags for our Character Pumpkins as well as our Sight Word Stars (3 kiddos out of 27! We have so much work to do!) I had 2 sweeties turn in their Turkey Disguises early so they received their tags for that too - I'm hoping the other 25 remember theirs on Monday! I can't wait to see the creativity! I have  tags for "Falcon of the Month" as well and it is sooo hard to pick each month! And of course the yellow boot tags are just for being part of my class :)

Here's what the board looks like with the necklaces hung on it. I am ordering more this weekend - have to think of a fun one for a holiday homework packet - my new teammate wants to send one home over the break, so instead of taking a grade on it I will give a BragTag for anyone who completes and returns it. imagestuff.com is an awesome website - it is so easy to get the free proofs and order the BragTags. Our Student Council is looking at these as a whole school motivation tool for next year!

Oh! We made our Thankful Milk Carton Turkeys this week too - how cute did these turn out?!

 This year we used Mod Podge to attach strips of brown tissue paper. Some just layered the strips while others crumpled theirs into balls for a puffier look. I love how different they all are!

 

For the head I just had the kids "draw a circle with a rectangle for the neck". I love how this one is so skinny! He was also proud of his patterned feathers :)

Our turkeys are going to roost in our classroom tree until we write our list of things to be thankful for and stick them inside. Then the kids will take them home as centerpieces for their Thanksgiving tables! Oh! And we are getting so smart about turkeys! When I was talking about the turkeys roosting in the tree one of my kiddos said "Oh, these must be wild turkeys since domestic turkeys are too heavy to fly!" Love it!

Last week I shared some of my Math games and had a few requests for the Scoop & Tally recording sheet. Click here to go grab it for free!

A Peek at Our Thanksgiving Plans Plus a Freebie!

Good morning! We've had a huge change in weather here in Oklahoma this week. We actually had to wear jackets to school! Can you believe it got down to 32 degrees? And then jumped right back up to 75! Of course this means that all the nasty little bugs are going around. I managed to get a stomach bug and had to stay home on Thursday - apparently 9 of my kiddos had the same bug as they were also absent! Luckily no one else in the family succumbed, at least so far (knock on wood!) In fact, Sullivan has been the most cheerful little guy and is really enjoying the Jungle gym we got him. This morning he was cracking me up with the noises he was making so I thought I'd share:

Even though we only had 4 days this week, we managed to pack in a lot of fun. One of the things we are doing is practicing standing at attention and saying the Pledge of allegiance because the local news channel is coming out to film us! My kiddos are sooo excited to be on tv, and its a great motivator because you know only those kiddos that make good choices can be on tv, right?  I have no idea when they're coming to film or when it will air, but I will try to share it when it does!

My student teacher came up with some fun math games this week, plus we recycled a few others:

This was a shake and add game that the kids loved. They shook the pennies in the egg carton and added the numbers that they landed in.

 They love Read and Write the Room activities and this Scarecrow Addition one is a favorite! I've made one for missing addends and one for telling time in my new Turkey Math pack.

They loved this Scoop and Tally game - they used the ice cream scoops to grab some coins. Made me hungry though lol.

They also did some coin rubbings and then labeled the rubbings with the coin name and value. We figured out that in order to do this properly we really needed to stick the coins to the table with a little tape, otherwise they slid around too much.

 We also did a Spin and Graph game with scarecrows from my Fall Graphing Pack. I like to include at least one graphing activity just to keep the skill fresh.

Next week we start our Thanksgiving study in earnest. We'll be using activities from several of my packs:

We'll be using magnifying glasses to find and record the addition sentences from my Thanksgiving Addition Search pack.

My Turkey Math pack is full of fun activities, including this fact family matching game.

My kiddos need some help learning the difference between questions and statements so we'll be using my Thanksgiving Questions Vs Statements pack.

We'll be doing ending sounds, vowel sounds, syllables and alphbetical order activities from my Thanksgiving Skills pack.

We'll be working with measurement and telling time with my Turkey Time pack.

Finally, we'll be reviewing word families with this FREEBIE! Head over to my TpT store to grab it!

I'm off to cut and laminate in between feeding and playing with Sullivan. Have a great day!