Morning Bins for February

Scissor Skills

I use these as part of our monthly assessment.

I do these and a monthly draw yourself and write your name.

On these, I have them trace the line with a high-lighter.

I tell them not to cut picture.

My students think it sooooo funny to say that they cut their hearts lol

In January, they cut to a cup I called it hot chocolate, they called

it coffee. I was like don't cut the cup, it will spill the coffee lol

I have this product.  I chose some for each month.

In my assessment binder, I have all of my monthly sheets:

reading homework, monthly portrait, and scissor skills.

Seuss lacers

I find that my students pull the lace a bit through, and then have a very short lace to thread with... more explicit teaching is needed :)

Letter game-boards found here.

Children put on hearts from Dollar Tree if the letter matches.

So these fabulous cards found here.

I tell them to trace with their fingers, 

trace with a marker,

write the number/letter.

The whole set is awesome.

Sometimes, I copy on colored cardstock, 

but sometimes it's white :)

February Centers and Morning Work

Here are our morning work bins:

Filled muffin cups with heart beads.

Used a pipe cleaner for the bracelet part :)

I used red, pink, and white bands and craft sticks for 

number practice and fine motor work.

The sticks have numbers written, words and dots on them :)  

Snap cube sheets and pattern blocks are from Pocket of Preschool.

Here are our centers this week.

Play dough tray.

Cookie Cutters- bought on clearance last year lol

red hearts from Dollar Tree

and the things with the red handles in the lower left side, 

were stamps from Target.

Cup stacking

Light table accessories

bought from Dollar tree and Target.

Here are more ideas for the light table.

I have two headbands and some funky glasses for 

Write the Room.

(Wonders where the glasses were? lol

well, they were there for the students to use!)

Tic Tac Toe boards.

From Target.

Side note: do you let them win?

We had a few games of CAT and some games where

they beat me.

One gal, told me where I should put my pieces. ;) 

Roll and fill the ice cube trays :)

Traveling writing center.

Stickers and stamps.

I teach my students to clean the stamps by using 

a baby wipe.

My Pampered Chef tool turn about,

is perfect for our writing center!!

When you need to try to see if all the pens work lol

Rice is in our sensory table.

Cupcake liners and erasers :)

Writing trays from Target.

I take out the lacing toys and use them elsewhere.

Heart pointer is from Target too lol

The red sand is from Dollar Tree.

Grab your sets here:

Letters

Numbers

My student looks for this letter each and every time....

can you guess what his name starts with? :)

Morning Work Feb week three

It is a short week, we have off Monday for President's Day.


Our theme is still friendship and kindness, but our morning bins change.

We will be using mini dominoes from Dollar Tree and these awesome frog numbers.  Students will count the dots on the dominoes and match them on the frog.


We will be using the shapes and number lacers from Target:
I just picked up these felt sets, check out what else I picked up at Target here.

We will use these stacking toys from Target:

We will play this gumball game from Target:


So I don't really like how the game was designed, so I am making it my own!
I printed the gumball gameboards.  My students will take out a gumball and if they know they number on the gumball, it will go into their gumball machine.
If they don't know the number, it goes back into the box.
I am wondering if the gumball machines I got at Dollar Tree would work instead of the box.  I will check and let you know!

This would be a super easy center to make yourself.

Punch out different colored paper and write numbers on it.

Some of the gumballs say "POP" where you have to put back all of your gumballs.

Beginning a new unit

Beginning each of my units, we begin with a letter addressed to the class. The kids get to open the sealed envelope. Then I put them in a binder and the kids can read them anytime. I have one letter for each unit I teach.

The letters introduce the new theme and key vocabulary words. As I read the letter, I hold up the word cards.  Those word cards go into my writing area.

Shortly after that, we look at the new books for the theme. These are only some of the books we have in our classroom.  I have another

When I taught higher grades, where they could read, I would have them share a page of their favorite new book with the class. Now my students are 4 and 5 year olds, so we find our favorite page and they show the picture on that page to the class. My goal is to see that they see different books that they might not pick up and look at.


By having them share their favorite books, I am trying to have them start the conversation about books. Yes, they love to read the books that I read too, but a recommendation from a friend, is so amazing!



So far I have letters for:

• All About Me

• School/alpha

• Fall

• Monsters

• Transportation

• Thanksgiving

• Nutrition- covers each food groups

• gingerbread

• Christmas non-religious

• snow/polar/winter

• space

• weather/GH

• friendship/love

• teeth

• Seuss

• Leprechaun

• Vet/pet- intros different pets

• Rain Forest  layers and animals

• Community Helpers- intros different ones

• Spring

• Insects- intros different insects

• Zoo- intros different animals

• Ocean- intros different animals

• Dinos- intros different 

• Apples