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!

Letter Activities Everywhere!

Letters have taken over my preschool room and my children are really great at writing letters!  We have taught them many different ways and the amount of letter recognition happening is so wonderful I thought I would share it!  We began sorting letters back in the fall and above is a sorting activity my class did on the easel.  The green line in the middle is for letters that have circles and lines.  

Dry erase boards are one on my class' favorite wiring activities!  Here is an example of a child who just began recognizing her name and she is now working on trying to write some of the letters on her own.  She did this activity all on her own with out being asked (which really made me happy).

This child has been with me a year and he loves the dry erase board because he can fix his "Z" each time until it is just the way he wants it!  

This letter hunt is one of my class' favorite centers.  We set this out on a lunchroom tray at a seat and put different colored bingo markers out to dot the letter.  There is a pencil and bingo marker on the try so that they can do the letter hinting and the letter writing.  All of my students love this and we do too!  I found this on TPT.  Click here to grab this product! It is only $3!

We have places for all of our students to get as much name practice as they can throughout the year.  Here a new student practiced his name by matching the letters on his card.  The letters are blue if they are a consonant, and red if a vowel.  We begin with students matching the colors on their name card. 

I also tried out a basic "write the room" style letter and number hunt for my students.  Some just like writing on the clipboards, but some really like hunting for the letters.  We have a number hunt too!  Here is the station we have set out.  Usually the students partner up and hunt together.  This month to make it more interesting for the students, we will be hunting with lucky "letter glasses!"  They are shaped like shamrocks and are from the dollar store.  I think they are really going to enjoy hunting wight he glasses on!  

This next photo is of the letter cards that I hid around the room for my students to find.  The number sheet they traced the number, and the letter sheet, they circle the letter.  I then have them bring the sheet to me for informal assessment.  They have to find at least 5 of each and then identify them with me.  IT is great fine motor and they love using the clipboards.  All of the numbers had a snowman next to them to help the students find them.

Apples, Apples, Apples!

This month we focus a lot of science and things that tie into anything having to do with FALL!!!  Last week we finished up our apple unit and we had tons of fun!  We began by cutting up apples and talking about our observations.  We had fun looking at the seeds and the "star" in the center of the apple.

We used these apples and added some popsicle sticks to them and went straight into apple printing.  Unfortunately I did not get a photo of this because painting is something we all get really into and we needed all hands on deck!  It was busy!  While apple printing was going on at the art table, I was in charge of the great APPLE VOTE!  Three students at a time came to taste green, red, and red and yellow apples.  Then they took a voting ballot and colored the apple they liked the best.  They folded up their ballot and waiting to see what apple was the winner.

 At circle time we unfolded the votes one at a time and my students took turns tallying the votes.  

 At the end, we counted them up and the GALA apple won!

Around the room we had apples everywhere!  My awesome student teacher set up the writing table.  Everyone enjoyed making apple books and reading Ten Apples Up On Top!

We had a math game for one to one correspondence and pom pom for apples!  These were loved and even thrown around the room!

 At the writing spot we found these great letter hunt pages on TpT!  We set it up with bingo markers.  When done if all the A's are found, the green markers form the letter "A."  I actually did not even know this was going to happen!  It was a cool surprise even for me!  You can find this great product by clicking here:  Teaching Products

In the end it looks like this...  I did this one of course for you to see!

We also did a very cool sensory bin that was just for two people to use at a time.  I wish it could have been in the sensory table, but the beans were pricey!  I got them in the international isle at our grocery.   These beans were everywhere but they are getting some serious play time!  Next week there will be spiders and rocks and some fake flowers and webs!

Our apple pie play dough was also a hot station.  Our play dough trays had traditional cooked play dough with cinnamon, all spice, and cloves blended in.  It smelled good enough to eat and I know some did get gobbled!  Each day we had a little less on our tray when we began our day!  Unfortunately I took the photo without the play dough in the container but I am sure you get the idea!

We had an apple farm in our dramatic play and we finished off the week measuring our bodies with apples.  It was a great unit!  We covered many of our Ohio Early Learning and Development Standards and we had fun doing it!

My kids loved wearing the apple aprons and bandanas!  They were $.99 at Hobby Lobby!  Just a simple bandana and they were off to being apple farmers!

Apple measurement with our student teacher was very exciting  We set up in our extended learning area and they could not wait to head out and do the counting with her!

Our last math game was inspired by Ten Apples Up On Top.  My pictures of the kids were not cropped like I would have liked but all of my kids loved putting the "apples"(beads) up on top of their photo in the frames!

I think this could be one of my longest posts on my blog yet!  Hope that you get inspired to do apples too!  We had a great time!  Now off to plan for our skeleton unit!  I will add that post soon!

Wacky Wednesday Celebration

Wacky Wednesday was on my to do list all year.  We finally had all the details planned out and had our day set!  We read the Dr. Seuss book and got started right as our "wacky students entered.  They were greeted by me in my wackiest creation I could manage...

It began with my students coming in through a tunnel!  This was the best part for my 3 year olds.  They walked past the writing table, but it had puzzles and they were all upside down!

Around the room things were a bit strange and shoes were everywhere!

More shoes!

We create crazy hats to go with our "wacky" theme and our crazy outfits!

There were eyes looking at us in the water beads and we even added shaving cream for extra fun!

With our snack we added ice cubes with plastic flies in them!  This was the best part of the day!  No one wanted to try fly water!

Drawing upside down with markers attached to rules provided entertainment all morning!

We began and ended by reading this book and everyone loved our celebration!  We will definitely be doing this again next year!  

Our last activity, I did not photograph but outside we had hidden the letter "W" all around the playground.  We had each child see how may they could find and they were hidden everywhere.  We just write them with sidewalk chalk all over.  

Pirate Unit Ready To Purchase on TpT

I am finally done getting my TpT (www.teacherspayteachers.com) store up and running!  I have the hang of it and I hope that all of you will enjoy the things I am making to put in your classroom.  I worked a long time practicing and getting all of my ideas together.  My students love the games already!  I think they will never get tired of the clothes pins and clipping the right number on the counting cards!  Thanks Erin!   I use that idea all around my classroom and they never get tired of it!  Below is the link to my gigantic pirate unit of fun!  Check it out!

                                         

                                                Here is my link to my TpT store and first unit!

Holiday word wall alphabet freebie!

Click here to download.

Hi everyone!  I have been getting my room all ready for the holidays and the month of December.  We have made a new word wall.  Grab this fun candy cane alphabet for your classroom too.  We are planning on adding all of our students pictures and names first and then add holiday words and words that begin with our weekly letters.  We are also adding little note pads around the room to allow and encourage more writing.  We have done this in years past and kids love going to the word wall and writing down words that are posted.  It is a great way to help young ones understand that when letters are next to each other they form words!  Hope you get a chance to use these letters in your room!  Enjoy!