Preschool Pizza,Pizza, Pizza!

I am so excited to finally share the unit I did with my up and coming kindergartners in our "Rising Stars" program in my district.  We began our week using the awesome book, Pete's a Pizza, by William Steig.   We then branched out and created many fun activities and learning games from pizza.  

Our first one was to teach the class how to act out the story with a partner.   This was probably the best part of the week.  They begged to do it as soon as it was free choice time and giggled the whole time no matter who was partnered together.  

To make this, we used our large roll bulletin board paper.  You could use a roll of packaging brown paper too for the crust.  We then made the sauce and glued this all together as seen in the picture.  We wanted to laminate it, but we had not planned for that at first and it was too wide.  I will laminate my next sauce and crust for sure.  We created the cheese and pepperoni out of fun foam and this is still in use and will last for a while.  Then we placed it out each day on the floor for children to use.  

                    

                  

Here are two kids laughing their little hearts our getting cheese sprinkles!  

This was our completed pizza.  A few days in we added a Parmesan cheese shaker with a real Parmesan cheese container and beads in it, however, I didn't get a photo of that.  When we did it as a group I had a small bottle of "olive oil" that I sprinkled on our first volunteer child, but I didn't give that to the kids so our paper did not get all wet.  

We also talked a lot about shapes this week, and we made these little shape hunt clipboards and walked the whole school to find shapes.  This was a tally mark count activity and they also wanted to repeat this every morning!  

                                

Throughout the week we also did other pizza themed activities you can see below.  

This play dough pizza tray game is sold on my TPT store.  Click this link:

My Pizza play dough game on TPT

  This game is a math game.  You pull a topping and a number card and then get your toppings made.  

Out last activity was Pizza Smack!  We made numbers on little pizzas and strategically placed them on the large pizza mat we made and gave each child a fly swatter.  The teacher and then later a child would call a number and then the group had to find it first and smack it!  This is a great game.  Sometimes we have more than one of each number and sometimes you have to be quick to get the number smacked first!

We ended our week with this book we I love.  Our final activity was organized by my teaching partner, we made candy pizza cookies and used frosting, candy, and coconut for the cheese!  Hope you will have fun trying these!  

Holiday Math Activities

Just found this very old blog post I never posted, but a cute activity so here is the post!  

Christmas in JULY right?!...

We have had so much fun this month learning numbers.  My studetns ahve been given multiple activities and opportunities to use dice and also tally marks.  They ahve learned so much and I am proud to say that almost all of my 4's and 5's know numbers 1-10 by site!  They are so excited to tell people too!  In our district, often an administrator may walk in and say what are you learning today, and preschoolers don't always know.  But this week is different, mine actually do!

WIth just a simple set of cute numners and erasers from teh Dollar Tree we made this math activity and my students love it.   They are really liking coutning and also sorting the erasers.  12 erasers come in a pack and they are cute and very colorful.

This little girl wanted to be the first one to show me she could lay this out all by herself.  She is moving onto her teen numbers next week!  

I Am Back!

I have not bloggd or posted for a very, very long time and I am working hard this summer to ge the things I have done this past school year posted and up for you to enjoy and find inspiration from!  Please pin this blog now because you won't want to miss all my activity posts coming!  I am currently creating a new dramatic play area this summer at our summer retreat on the Greenbrier River.  Because this area of the country was devistated by floods in June, we are unable to swim, fish, tube, or kayak with the kids.  That means more crafting time for me!  Stay tuned...I am taking pictures right now to upload.  Check back soon!

Back to School and Loving it!

We are back to school and my classroom has had a transformation.  Over the summer by principal wanted our walls cleaned so everything came down.  Of course I was unhappy about it, but I am thanking him now.  I redid my color themes and I am almost done!  I have worked very hard to make everything tie together.  I will give you a taste....here's a peek!
Above is my book corner.  We have added book buddies to read to and the kids love it.  Below is my new alphabet with barn wood paper background.  We love how our alphabet matches our chevron/chalkboard boarders.  We tied in black polka dots too.

We also made some valences to warm up the place.  We always have tons of great plants for our room too and they have been gradually returning from my assistants home.  

We are working on a "compliment collection" too as incentive for our class to all bring in their supplies, walk quietly in the hallway, use kind words with their classmates, etc.  Each time we receive a compliment, we put a baby Hawk in our nest.  When we get ten, we get a special treat.  The first treat will be popsicles.  

The Hawk is our school mascot and they even make a real Hawk sound when you squeeze them.  I love them!  

I also created new place mats for my art center with yards of black vinyl.  It was so easy and was on sale for $5.99 a yard.  I used this cool white Sharpie I found that was like an old school grease pencil but when dry it is totally permanent.  It gave the appearance of chalk on the black.  I made squiggles that matched the wall boarder.  

Lastly, we spray painted all of the black paper trays in the room which all now are bright!  I will post some activities soon to share!  Hope your rooms are coming along too!  Happy new school year!

I Am Back with Holiday Cheer!

Well, it has been a busy school year and I have been unable to blog!  So sad!  The things they are having us do now have just had me booked up when I would normally blog!  I want to thank everyone who has purchased some of my new products on Teachers Pay Teachers.  If you have not had a chance to head there I will leave a link!  I am creating things that I use in my room and that have direct link to learning and fun!  My students are really learning a lot from the things I have created.  I hope you will find them fun too!
This month I am featuring holiday fun!  Most of the units incorporate math.  I am finding my little ones really know their numbers by site now and I can move them onto counting things!  SO much fun!
Had over and grab my new math counting game for numbers 1-10.  It is so cute thanks to Krista Walden at Creative Clips!  She is amazing.  I also created a mini math unit that is easy to get ready!  So what are you waiting for- go grab something fun and new for your students for this holiday season!

Here is a little sneak peek!

Click here to visit my store!

New Activities to go with Pete the Cat!

I have finally finished some great colored shoe theme, math, language and art activities.  I think everyone is going to like them!  I got great high top converse looking shoe clip art from Ashley Hughes!  She is awesome if you have not checked her out.  You can find here on TPT too!

Here are a few samples of what you will get if you buy my activity bundle.   Since the author of the blue cat book (we all know which book that is by now I hope!) does not want us to use his book name, I will refrain!  I titled my games, "FOLLOW MY FEET!"  That way no one gets upset.  Personally I would be happy if teachers all over were reading my books and making activities to go with them!  At least we have Pinterest to share them right!  I have a huge Pete board there if you would like to stop by and grab some inspiration.

                                                    

Click here for: Pete the Cat PINTEREST Boards

So back to my games included in the Follow My Feet Games...I created a very basic game that will expose your young students to how to match and how to play a clothes pin clip game.  If you feel they are not read for that you can use a math counter or chip to mark the correct color match answer.  

I am going to cut these cards apart, laminate and then use clothes pins.  I like my students to start getting their fingers strong for writing.  This game can be used for color assessment too.  After completion, we ask the student to rains their hand or come find a teacher to show.  They practice naming the colors and then I can easily see if they can identify colors, match colors, or even if they can name color words at all.  It gives us a good sense of what a child knows coming into our class for the first time.  It is also a good way to teach following directions with our materials.  This activity will be out when we begin school.  I am looking forward to seeing how they do with it!  I have included a blank card that is all black line so you can print it 3 times and color it yourself to save on ink!  Trying to think of everyone!

This activity is for my returning students who already have mastered colors, can name some letters, and are ready to work on basic sounds.  This activity is to be used with clips and in clear plastic sleeves with dry erase markers.  I think having it in two places gives more students a chance to work on letter sounds.  Both activities with these cards will give fine motor strength too.  I have found these sleeves to be pricey at Lakeshore and Amazon, but I have also used regular, clear page protectors and they work great too!.

The counting clip game is going to be on my math shelf.  Our classroom has shelves with activities that we use on small rugs on the floor.  I have gone from 1-12 for this activity to extend it for kids who already know 1-10.  I have found preschoolers sometimes have a hard time going higher all at once so we work on 11 and 12 for a while and then add the teen numbers in other ways.  This game too could be in a plastic sleeve with a dry erase marker,  or cut apart with clothes pins.

My new favorite game is having my students up and looking for things, whether it be a letter or number hunt, science finds, or in this case hunting for colors.  I have created cards with the color words on them for your students to find and record in two different ways.  On the recording sheet, younger students can make and "X" or a tally mark and then color the shoe to match the color they find.  Older students who are writing, can find the shoe, and write the color word on the line and color the shoe.  I know kindergartners have to read color words very early on in my district to participate in worksheets and homework activities.  this will help them on their way and get them a little fun writing practice!  These get cut apart and hidden in the room!  I have included one page that just has black line to save you on colored ink.  I got that great idea from many hours of researching what types of thing I wanted to create for other teachers!  Have a parent take them home and color them in for you!

I saw the last activity on my Pinterest hunts and I cannot remember who to link it to.  I loved it so I make shoes for your students to design.  After that, Take photos of your class with their legs spread apart about a foot individually.  Print them on a full sheet and add the shoes to them to make a funny picture, or up in the hallway as meet my class!  It is funny to see them in huge high top shoes!  

I hope this gets you wanting to stop over and buy some of my new products on Teachers Pay Teachers!  If you have never gone to the site...WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?!!  Go and grab some easy centers or activities to start your year off right!

New Activities and Centers for Your Classroom

New activities are now ready!  I have stayed up many late nights and I am now getting better at saving, down loading and creating fun things for us all to use with our students!   My Photo Find games are much like the very popular Write-the Room.  My games are based on basic science for now.  I am in a school where animals are not something people teach their kids.  It is very sad.  I created these games to get my students started learning right away!  These also tie in nicely if you are a Montessori 3-6 teacher.  I am currently finishing up some more of these and all of the continents will be represented.  Much more exciting than just coloring the animals from Asia in the old-school animal books.    Give these a whirl!  You won't be sorry.  They are designed to help those students who need to be moving and learning!

Click here to see all of the Photo Find games!

I have also created a few fun units and a bunch of very exciting play dough math games.  Be sure to hit those too!  And please send me some feedback!  Happy shopping!  

BIG Sale at my TPT Store!

Head over to TeachersPayTeachers today!  We are having a huge sale and now is the time to save!  All of my products are 10% off!  Most of my stuff is already pretty inexpensive so you will be able to buy a bunch!

I have made many cool things for your preschool and kindergarten classrooms.  I know you will love them!  Most of my products turn into a center or activity for a few children to do together and they only need cut out and laminated!  There are many fun things to do.  Many activities will help teach following directions in a fun way too!  Your students will want to head to these centers and want to get started right away!  Photo find would be perfect for the first week of school and all of the play dough mats are awesome.  I am having a hard time deciding which ones to begin my year with!

Grab a few new things and get your year started right! I would love some feedback too.  I want to hear how they worked for you and any suggestions you may have!  So go on and get started!  Time to get planning!

CLICK HERE TO HEAD OVER TO THE SALE!

Sneak Peek at my New Photo Find Games!

I am so excited to unveil my new preschool/kindergarten activities for science that I am working on.  I can't get them done fast enough!  They are write the room science hunts and they are going to be so cute!  I have awesome graphics from Erin Bradley Designs and after huge searches for wild animal photos that don't come with HUGE price tags I have almost finished my first one.  I have to print it out in the morning and add photos to the directions and it is a go!

Just to give you an idea of how these science "Photo Finds" will work...I have created cameras with animal photos under them.  The activity will be a little like hide and seek.  You will hide the paper cameras around the room with animal photos underneath them and your students will hunt, and record what they find on a cute clipboard you will provide them.  There are 3 levels of writing this will cover too.  My recording/hunting sheets include just making an "X" by the animal photo, tracing the name of the animal, and independently writing the name of the animal next to the photo on the clipboard.  I know my students are going to love this.  They are always jumping in to be in pictures.  I  also know that write the room is one of their favorite choices during our "centers time."

I am heading to bed but this will be up on Teachers Pay Teachers tomorrow so check it out and let me know what you think!

Celebrating 83,000 Views of My BLOG!

Thanks to all of you who have read and followed my blog.  I have thoroughly enjoyed doing it and love sharing my work with all of you!  I have not had as many followers as I thought I would have by now (hint, hint!), but still happy!  I encourage you to follow me through Bloglovin' or by email.  It is a great way to keep updated when I make new posts.  I am trying to post at least 3 activities I create in my room to share with you each month this upcoming school year.  That is my goal anyway!

I have just finished creating some great number play dough mats.  I am working on the letter version to go with the GUM BALL theme!  Many of my other play dough mats are rolling "worm" shapes, so for my latest game I used the ball shape.  I made a few at my table tonight.   My twin girls were asleep, so I could not try it out on them yet!  They love all of my other play dough games so I know they will try it out when they wake up!

Here is a preview and I hope you enjoy.  This set comes with games to use with play dough and pompom "gum balls" too!  It can also be laminated and used with dry erase makers.  

Click here to view my TPT store!

As summer comes to and end, get out and enjoy your last days!  I know I will.  Heading back to our house on the Greenbrier River!  More to come so check back or follow me to stay updated!  

White Board and Easel Games

I have tried very hard to use my great easel in my classroom, but I struggle.  We cannot always have paint, although all the students would love it!  It is hard to have enough space to use the easel since it is so big!  So I began trying using it it for various things.  In the beginning of the school year I use if for "Look Who Is Here" with their pictures and their name card.  In the morning as my students arrive, they hang up their picture or their name matched to their picture.  

I use the back side for painting weekly but, not every day.  I use it for drawing too, but we needed something new.  Below are the games I have began using and I am in the process of creating more.  My easel is a magnetic white board.  If you don't have this type, setting aside space on your white board will work.  Buying a  smaller white board may also work.

The cards seen here are laminated and have magnets on the back.  I use the sheet magnets from Oriental Trading Company.  They have a stick side to adhere to the cards.  I add the cards to a bucket on the shelf and give the students a few dry erase markers and they are ready to write!  I have now added a number line to put at the top of the board so that my students had a number to look at or copy if they needed a model.    The first one I made is Count and Write Dental!  The one below is Count and Write Bugs.  My students love finishing all of the cards and then getting their photo taken with the work they did.  I print it out and place it right in their portfolio!  So easy!  I can also assess them using our Teaching Strategies Gold documentation for their final assessment for each quarter.  It has become a favorite activity!  We hang up their picture on our door when they finish this too!  It is quite special.  Their parents love it!

Stop by and grab one of these Count and Write games at my TPT store.  

                                                         Count and Write on TPT

Play Dough Mats for Preschool

I have worked all year long and never got the time to get my activities up on TPT!  I have tweaked and researched and I am finally ready to share my stuff!!!  I make things that I want to use and that I know other preschool/kindergarten teachers will use.  I love all of the cute things I that I have seen and I thought to myself, you know, I can do this too!!!  I have included a preview of the product with some pictures of my students using them.

I began the year by making play dough activities.  I wanted to change up my play dough and make it a bit more educational and meaningful.  I had kids in my class who were using their creativity, and they were strengthening their fine motor, but seemed to need more.  I started with the play dough mats.  Here you can see how much fun these can be!

My students love rolling out the "worms" for the numbers and then using a real plastic knife and cutting off cylinders for the marshmallows in the mugs!  I have also had fun using these during teacher evaluations.  My bosses love that I can sit and assess as they are learning!  Shocking, right?!

Here is a sneak peak into my other great play dough mats...

                                                         Flower Play Dough Counting Mats

This game is my favorite one... Play Dough Pizza Math Mats!!!  I found the greatest clip art from the 3A.M. Teacher!  It was calling my name.  I have not used this one yet but I cannot wait to try it.  I am going to print it and try it out with my twin girls!  I know they will love it!

                                                       Play Dough Pizza Math Mats

 I hope you love these.  I know your students will!  Enjoy!

DR. SEUSS CELEBRATION WEEK!

It been a wild week of rhyming, counting, and reading our favorite Dr. Seuss stories!  We started off with the Cat in The Hat.  It was fun!  We made Thing 1 and Thing 2 "hair by cutting paper strips and gluing them to a sentence strip.  I made them each a Thing 1 or Thing 2 shirt signs and took great "photo booth style" pics for the kids to share with their families.  We are making frames and giving them to our moms and dads at the end of the week.  Day 2 we read the ever popular Green Eggs and Ham!  It was so much fun.  We made platters like this one below.  This was a cutting activity.  We are working on cutting pre-drawn shapes to get ready for the cutting and gluing activity worksheets our 5's will have to do once they are in kindergarten.  These too provided us with a photo opportunity that we are going to surprise our parents with on Friday.

We added fun foam eggs and hams for our water table.  This was a hit with many kids.  Our ham's were so good looking 2 of them had bite marks in them after the first day! 

We needed many more frying pans and after taking the photo here I finally found them!

Cooking came next and the drama that came with green scrambled eggs could have been worthy of an Academy Award!  Many of them were convinced they could not eat green eggs!  The faces were hilarious!  All liked them except one!  And they loved the heated up sliced ham!

The Lorax was next!  This story is so cute and I love reading it!  My students were very focused on listening and really got into it.  Once done we all had a great conversation about trees and where things come from.  Many of my students continued to comment through the end of the day about where animals would go if we bought more blocks for our classroom!  It was too funny!

These turned out great, but the conversation was even better!  Some drew animals in their pictures and were talking about how happy they will be by the trees they made.  

The rest of the week includes reading more fun Dr. Seuss and making some adorable FOX IN SOCKS!  I will post those soon!

What are you doing to celebrating Dr. Seuss?

Dental Week in Preschool

We had a prospective donor coming to our program so we spiced up our dental activities.  We began by talking about things that keep our teeth healthy.  We gave all of out students floss and got to practice what it was like to use it.  We had this tray to practice as well.  The students had green play dough to use as food stuck in between our teeth and then plastic lanyard to use as floss.  Our mega blocks were the teeth.

We made my favorite art project too!  The pink play dough and white Lima beans for the teeth is quick to set up and funny to photograph!  We let each student make it and then take their picture next to their art.  I left out this student's face but we created a book of our funny faces with teeth!

I have recently been trying to find new things to do with my easel.  It is hard to use it for painting with so many things going on in the room.  It usually takes an adult to monitor it.  So her dis what I have come up with of this week.  We made it a math station.  The picture cards are lamina tined and have magnets on the back.  There are dry erase markers and each student comes, counts the objects on the cards, and writes the answer.  Then we photograph them so that we have it for their file and we even send it to their parent over my cell phone.  I had great responses from the parents who received the picture of their child's accomplishments.  They were very proud.  

We also jazzed up our tooth brushing table but we had trouble taking a picture that made it look as good as it does in person.  The kids love it.  As they come out they have picture cards of foods that are good and bad for teeth.  They place their food card on this table and then sit down to brush!

 We are trying hard to make our students learn as much as they can about teeth care!  I think they love going out to our fun table so I know we are making an impact.  They get to brush now to music thanks to one of our co-workers.  I know they love that!

Fun Winter Counting Activities-Come Enjoy Them Now on TPT!

I have worked hard on these winter activities and they were a big hit in my class.  I finally have an entire winter unit on TPT for you to use!  Come on over and check it out!

Click here to come and get this fun activity pack for winter.

My latest obsession is making new games for my students.  I have worked hard on  my winter math games and I want to share them with you.  I have tried to make something for every level student I have.  This first group of pictures is from the lowest level math game which is one to one correspondence up to 5.  I found these supplies at Michael's and made the rest on my computer.  I went to KPM Doodles for the adorable clip art!

I made many levels of math fun, including these that I used cute Dollar Store green and purple containers to hold them.  I added very easy and basic classroom supplies to put these together.  

                                      

My favorite new activity is to make mats for learning with play dough!  This month we made the number in play dough and then added that many marshmallows to the hot chocolate.  This was very popular. You can buy the Play Dough Hot Chocolate Mats by themselves or in the Winter Activity Bundle.  Use the ink at the top of this blog entry.

We recently purchased these dry erase clear plastic sleeves.  They are a new center for our tables.  We put various papers in them.  This one seen here is count, tally, and write numbers.  It was great counting practice!  It had many levels and all of my students could practice.  We have been using this style of activity for letter and number formation practice.  I have 17 students who will be going onto kindergarten and they seem to love using dry erase markers so why not!

 We are also working on putting numbers in order.  This link game is easy and we partner two students up to use it.  This game goes up to 12.  Below I made a snowman match.  Students had to use a magnifying glass to find the matching snowman.  This game was quick but fun!

 Out math/art project was making a mug of hot chocolate.  We added real mini marshmallows and then counted them and wrote the number of marshmallows on the mug.  Here you can see number cards for the students who needed a model to look at used.  We drizzled hot chocolate powder on it when we were done to make it like a scratch n' sniff!  We hung these in the main hallway of the school and let's just say everyone enjoyed them and some a little too much.  They did not come down with the same amount of marshmallows they went up with!

My last math game was a snowman counting game.  I made this game woo and used these great Dollar Store items.  These we used on a rug on the floor and we counted up to 10 with these.

I hope your month finds lots of fun winter math happening and that these ideas inspire you to make something fun too!