Gingerbread

 This week we kick off our gingerbread unit. Most of the printables come from Pocket of Preschool (PoP)

Here is our play dough bin.

The decorate the gingerbread one is supposed to be a math game where you roll and add gumdrops to the house.  We are going to use play dough to decorate :)

Gumdrop spin and color

Spin the spinner and color that many gumdrops that color.

Trace and make from PoP

Use play dough, or Wiki Sticks or mini erasers. 

Puzzles from PoP

there are two different levels

Candy building set 

Build the number from PoP

I used mini erasers

Extend the pattern from PoP

I used different gingerbread and candy mini erasers.

I don't have house mini erasers, so I printed out the houses. 

My GB House sketch from PoP.

Color by number

I always make a guide and color

the crayons, so the children know which to use :)

I put it in a sheet protector.

Beginning sounds from PoP

We will use a pocket chart.

The two sheets (on the left side and bottom) are found at From the Pond.

The blank one is from PoP.

Gumdrop shapes from PoP.

The gumdrops and toothpicks are from Dollar Tree.

Color Letter from PoP

Children pull out a fabric letter and find that letter on 

their sheet and color it that color.

For the blocks area.

I think all the painted GB and houses are

all from Bullseye's Playground.

I am not sure where the plain GB come from.

Color by Number from PoP

roll the dice and color that part

of the GB.

Hot Cocoa Count.

I used white pom poms,

brown fun foam for the chocolate

and mugs from dramatic play.

December in Kinderpond

This month in the Kinderpond: 

We always start off with a letter. Read about those here. The children take turns at opening each letter. Then I put the letters in a binder in our library center.

And now our days are even shorter with having the 23rd off as well. It was typically a shortened day for the district now that most of the district is virtual, they cancelled classes that day.  In a new unit from Pocket of Preschool, there are 8 holiday celebrations to learn about. My plan is to intro a new celebration every day. We will cover Christmas, Diwali, Chinese New Year, Kwanzaa, Hanukkah, Saint Lucia, and Los Posadas.

Bowling Alley

 All of the printables came from Pocket of Preschool.

A panoramic of our bowling alley and snack bar.

Here is some of our snack bar.

The games for our arcade 

were bought from Walmart (I think lol) 

I turned things around backwards or sideways.

When I was planning this and instead of me doing ALL of the work,

I pulled out all of the tags of what I thought we had,

and at one morning circle, I sent each child to our home living center to 

gather the materials.

I started a list of things that I still had to find or buy.

I made pretzels our of Magic Model- and it was a total fail :(

I used a TON of brown liquid color... and they turned out purple.

I mean, I'm not mad at the color, 

but they didn't survive :(  

Have you made food for the classroom?

What medium did you use? Help a girl out!

November Nutrition and Thanksgiving

 Our month finishes up with talking about nutrition and Thanksgiving. Do you ever start planning your lessons and then go see what you have??!?!?!?!

I want to be that teacher that is super organized that can just pull out the labeled box or boxes and be ready to go?  That is my goal this year!  So far so good. :)

I am still buying new materials, but I also need to use what I've used in the past.

Food related ;) 

You try to pick out the spaghetti without dropping the Yeti in the bowl.

Donut erasers and counting cards

and patterns

Cookie letters and letter matching sheets.

This blue fabric stove goes over a chair.

Pop the Pig game

you pick a hamburger and read that number

and mush (is that a real word?)

down his head until his belt flings open.

Magnetic Center #1

This is a My plate.

In the green container (from Dollar Tree)

The children match where the foods go. 

Letter stringing M&M's

This felt picnic basket: I hand out foods and 

make up a story to go along with the foods.

When I get to that piece of food, the kids put 

them where they go.

Sometimes I have had some children

tell the story instead of me! 

Popcorn letters

Pick a piece of popcorn 

and say the letter.

Magnetic Center#1

My fridge phonics

Mr Potato Heads of course!

I think these are Melissa and Doug

sandwich pieces.

I also have cards on a ring,

for the children to try to build that 

sandwich.

Here is one of many balance toys from Target.

This one is missing the grapes (if you were a 4 year old, 

where would you hide them???)

Here are some lacing cards also from Target.

Lacing foods :)

More felt sets from Target.

Here is the sorting pie.

You can sort by food type or color. 

There's a guide on the bottom.

But wait!!!!!!!! There's more! lol

3 part puzzles from Target

3 balance toys from Target

Here are all the centers we had-

we also have the library and blocks open too!

All hands on as well!

Books available

more books lol

On day 1 that I introduced these it was during circle time.

The children got to blindly pick a magnet and place it

in the correct part of our plate.

When I brought this out again, 

it was for journal time.

We drew our favorites from each food groups.

In our science center

all about our bodies