Conscious Discipline in your classroom

I have been reading on Heather's Hearts and it has really made me think about discipline and how it should be handled, especially with at risk children.  The thing I think has impacted me the most, is that all kids should feel good about themselves at school and it should be safe.  My classroom is that way for sure, but I want to impact others, the way the articles on Conscious Discipline have impacted me.  I am going to work hard this year treating every child the way I would want my own children to be treated.  I am going to keep reading Heather's Hearts too.  She has great ideas.  The first job I am going to put into place is the CHEERLEADER.  I am going to hunt for small wedding bubbles this weekend to start celebrating behaviors!  I cannot wait to get started.  I will let you know how it goes.

Great first week station activity

I was working on activities for my new students in my kindergarten prep class and found this on Pinterest.  It was perfect for making writing fun!  And as you know..I am all about making it fun!  So for one of my first writing activities this fall, I am putting this out.  I used an old foam die I had and just used card stock an a glue stick.  I put out 2 dry erase boards and 2 of these cute new half sized dry erasers.  It was easily the most popular activities we had out last week.  Try it and watch them enjoy!  Our dice included circles, straight lines, curly lines, zig-zags, and more.  You can be creative!

It is almost back-to-school time!

Most teachers are getting ready to head back and get ready to set up!  I am already teaching in a special kindergarten prep pilot program.  We have of curse been reading Pete the Cat and talking about him, colors, and of course the rooms in the building-the lunchroom, playground, etc.  We made my Pet out of paper and were practicing listening and following directions.  After we finished, we put the cats in the hallway.  Many of my students were upset that their cats did not have shoes.   I told them we would add them the following week.  I had some very distressed artist who felt they needed shoes on the cats.  So on Friday we got out paper and practiced cutting just circles to add to the feet of our Petes!  Some of the kids really were not happy with our basic shoe shape and they made adjustments.  But then came Joe (name is changed of course)!  Joe loves art and wanted to make the shoes for all 4 feet, draw laces, and the backpack, AND then the LUNCHBOX!!!!  I just had to post it.  It was so detailed!  And I almost forget the GUITAR! 

Don't Miss This Great ECE Pinterest Party!

A Pinterest Linky Party Just for ECE Educators!  This is one of the neatest ideas yet!  Debbie Clement at Rainbows Within Reach has a link on her blog to see other teachers pinterest pages.  This way if you are not a big hunter/gatherer on Pinterest, you can still take advantage of all o f the great teacher boards!  Better yet it,it is special to early childhood educators.  When I linked up there were 157 teachers who had provided their links!  This is a wonderful resource and if you have not yet seen it click above and try some of the links out!  I am slow to find out about some of these things, so I am #157 on the list.  There you can link to see my pins on Pinterest!  I think this is one of the best ways to find great blogs too so hurry up!  What are you waiting for!  Link up!

It's almost school time again and Pete is waiting!

I cannot believe it is almost time again to begin another year!  I think along with the excitement of planning new things I have been most excited about the new Pete the Cat ideas I have been working on for the summer.  I hope everyone knows that Amazon is taking pre-orders and the new book about Pete comes out in September!  I did this for the last book and my class held a count down.  We used the count down as a math project.  I am going to do this again.   I will post the photo of what I have mad latter this week when I have my classroom more put together!  We had a picture of Pete and he held the count down numbers and we tore one off until the new book arrived.  It made it very exciting.  And now since there is a new one coming again, I think we will do the same!  I posted this picture just to get others as excited as I am about the new book!  More later this week as I get things ready!  My summer class kids are really enjoying Pete and we have only read it once!  I have one student who calls him Pat the Cat!  Tomorrow we are going to read I Love My White Shoes and make shoes for our cats we made last week.  I will post some action shots of their creations.

Chocolate Play Dough

MAKING CHOCOLATE 

PLAY DOUGH!

I cannot believe I have been a teacher for now 17 years and this is the first year I tried the chocolate play dough recipe.  It is sometimes crumbly, but always so much fun because the chocolate smell that comes from this recipe is wonderful!  Kids will actually think they are making real chocolate things from this dough.  Of course many will try bites, but who wouldn't!  I put out an oven for the play dough to be "cooked!"  Add real muffin tins and rollers and other small kitchen spatulas and let them loose to create and cook!  Try it!  It is awesome!

Chocolate Play Dough

2 1/2 Cups Flour

1 cup cocoa powder

1 cup salt

1 T cream of tartar

3 T oil

2 cups water

Mix dry ingredients in a pot.  Add water and oil and stir together over low heat until it forms a dough.  Remove play dough from the pot.  Knead it after it cools by hand until it feels ready to play with!  Store in an air tight container or zip lock freezer bag.  

GREAT Pete the Cat Lesson Plans!

My favorite book for the beginning of the year is definitely Pete The Cat!  If you have not read one of the three books in this series, you are really missing out on being a cool teacher!Get out there and buy them today!  The books are by Eric Litwin and James Dean

• Pete the Cat I Love My White Shoes
• Pete the Cat Rocking in My School Shoes
• Pete the Cat and His Four Groovy Buttons

Rocking in My School Shoes is a great way to start off the school year.  It would be appropriate for preschool and for kindergarten although older kids are very into these books too!   We read Pete the Cat I Love My White Shoes.  Below are things that can be done with this book.                    

1.  We all began by reading the book, learning the tune and then watching some of the great YouTube videos on the Internet! 

2.  Then create your own cats and decide what color shoes he should wear.  The pattern you see here is how to cut out a cat that stands up.  Just fold a piece of paper in half and then cut the pattern.  You will end up with 2 tails and 2 heads and we just put the extra in the middle of the table for someone who may not cut as well as others.

3.  We created a class video with children reading parts of the book or singing parts of the book. We did this by creating small videos on an iPod Touch and them piecing them together.  It was simple.

4.  One day we had Pete the Cat Snack and ate everything that he stepped in during the story.  We had a plate and had strawberries, blueberries, mud (chocolate pudding), and water.  The kids loved it and then graphed what they liked eating the most.

The last book is Pete the Cat and His Four Groovy Buttons.  For this book subtraction on a very basic level is introduced.  My class decided to "act" out this book for their end of the year performance for their families.  We had sound effects made with instruments, a child with a Pete mask and yellow shirt on with buttons we created with fun foam, and children with number signs.  It was great!  I narrated parts but the students had most of it memorized.

**Note to teachers who plan to do this...have several copies checked out of the library for your book shelf.  We had 2 copies of each book and that wasn't enough.  This was by FAR their favorite set of books and they fought over them up until the very last day of school!
I just heard a Christmas Book is going to be released September 25th!  I know we will be pre-ording this on amazon.com.  by doing this it will arrive on September 25th for you to share in your classroom.  
We ordered Four Groovy Buttons by pre-ordering on amazon and we held a count down in my classroom on our circle time calendar.  This kids were really excited doing this.