Monday, March 16, 2020

Seuss Centers

We celebrated Dr Seuss for two weeks.

Here is a floor puzzle.


We stacked mini red cups and index cards to make a pattern.


We sorted wacky alphabet letters on our magnet board.


Tracing sheets.


Sensory bin-
teal pasta (It starts with a "C" and red bow ties
and rice.


These letters were from Bullseye's Playground at Target.
The clear buttons were from Discount School Supply (I think)

Tuesday, February 25, 2020

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 :)


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


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 :)


Monday, February 24, 2020

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.


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:

My student looks for this letter each and every time....
can you guess what his name starts with? :)


Monday, February 17, 2020

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.

Monday, February 10, 2020

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




Monday, January 20, 2020

January Morning Bins Week 2

Here are this week's morning bins.


Ice Cube Patterns from here.




Pom-pom snowmen
there are pinchers/tongs in there too!
find them here.


Here the children place pony beads on the polar bear's belly.
There are several polar bear cards.
This is from a bundle, with books included.


Tracing cards from here.


Monday, January 6, 2020

Morning Work: January week 1

Last week we had ONE day of school... ummm what??? Insert pajama day and a hot chocolate party!! We put chocolate milk into a crockpot and turned it on low... yep that's it!!!!!!!!!!!!  We added marshmallows, whipped topping, and sprinkles.
Each year I give my students personalized mugs. Read that post here.  


We only had three days of school before break, so we had an extra bin, so we did that bin on our one day back lol

Here are the bins this week:

I went old school and wrote on a craft stick, numeral, number word, and dots.
Children will slide small rubber bands onto the stick matching the number of
ands to the number on the sticks.
I challenge my students to see how many they can fill up.
It makes them actively engaged in the activity.

I got those bands at Oriental Trading
I got a multi-pack, but here are links for

This empty drawer is not really empty lol
It has design a mitten from 
Working on fine motor with q-tips and paint!
I thought the kids would care about the letters on top,
but yeah, they don't lol



I grabbed these winter pony beads here.
Lacing with a pipe cleaner is much easier.



String snowflakes also from Oriental Trading.
I bought them on clearance at the end of the season.
Thankfully, we have snow until at least March lol