Apple Pickin' Fun!

It's Friday! Yay! So, you know what that means.......it's time for another 5 for Friday!

 Our theme this week was "Apples" and we had some apple pickin' fun! To celebrate all we learned this week, we enjoyed an 'apple fun day'. 

We picked apples from our "apple tree"!

We had relay races with bug catcher tongs and mini apples.

We played baseball with apples!

We played hockey with apples!

We made some delicious apple taffy pizza.

Other apple activities from this week included:

 sorting apples by color

and size.

 Weighing our apples with blocks and counting how many blocks heavy our apples were.

And, completing this apple investigation page freebie offered by Julie Lee.

We also apple stamped with paint and then added die cut apples to spell our names.

During circle time, we rolled dice and then stamped that many apples on our trees.

At the end of the week, we tossed all our old battered and bruised apples over the fence to feed the deer and other animals!

If you would like a copy of our sorting apples by size activity, click HERE or on the picture.

Thanks for reading!  Have a great weekend.  :)

Puttin' the Hammer Down!

Whew! This school year is wearing me out.  My afternoon group of sweeties are very social a.k.a......very talkative.  They talk during circle.  They talk during snack......non-stop so they are not eating.  They talk during story time.  You get the drift.  This is not my first rodeo, so I understand how the beginning of the year takes time to get everyone in the routine.  However, I was not seeing any improvement.  I decided to take action.  I told my sweeties that I had not really shown them what I expected of them.  I made charts with visuals.  We went over my expectations.  And, then we practiced.....and practiced.......and practiced.  It was A.MAZ.ING!  Duh, why hadn't I ever done this before?  Here are a few pictures of my charts.

 

I also made a treasure box chart for my class.  In order to get treasure box, my sweeties have to get happy faces on their daily notes.  At the end of the week, if they have had acceptable behavior, they get to choose one item from the treasure box.  This year I have one little who was having trouble understanding why he wasn't getting treasure box if he did not have a good week.  I wanted him to make that connection, so now at the end of the day everyone checks their notebooks to see if they have a happy face.  If they do they get to put a sticker on the chart, making it tangible more immediately rather than waiting until the end of the week.  At the end of the week, we look at the chart to see if treasure box was earned.  This has helped tremendously. If you would like a copy of my treasure box chart, click HERE.

Thanks for reading!  Have a great day.  :)

5 {Senses} for Friday!

This week was fantastic!  Our theme was the 5 senses.  We tasted, smelled, listened, touched, and looked to complete our activities.  Of course, we used shaving cream and scented playdough to help awaken our senses.

 Mr. Potato Head helped us label what body parts we use to discover the world around us.

To learn about our sense of smell we soaked cotton balls with different oils/extracts/flavorings/powdered kool-aid and placed them in baby food jars.  We had corresponding pictures for our little ones to choose from.  Once the scent was identified, the little learners bingo dotted the square next to that picture.

In the afternoon {our older pre-k learners} we also played a matching game with different scents.  We paired up two of the same smells by placing scented soaked cotton balls in snack size baggies.  One group of learners had to compare the different smells and find the partner with the matching scent.  It was great fun!

If you would like your own copy of  'What's That Smell?' Click HERE or on the picture.

You can find the patterns to make your own 5 senses potato peep HERE.

We also taste tested lots of different kinds of food, which isn't always easy for little ones!  We were so proud of how brave they were!

I found this idea on Pinterest and thought it was a great way to reinforce what we learned this week.

We added textured wallpaper and/or sandpaper hands to show the sense of touch, bells for ears to show  hearing, wiggle eyes, licorice mouth, and a scented cotton ball for smell.  

Boy howdy, did we learn a lot this week!

Link up with Doodle Bugs Teaching to show what you did this week.

Thanks for reading!  Have a great day.  :)

Monday, Monday!

Last week, we did a Laundry Theme and had a blast!  There was so much to do with this theme.  Along with all the art projects {you can check them out here}, we did lots of sorting......sorting socks by size, color, patterns.  We even sorted by more than one attribute (which is big stuff for beginning pre-k!)  We also sorted clean and dirty clothes!  We practiced our names by gluing items of clothing with letters in our names on matching letter clothespins.

We practiced counting objects to 4 by gluing the correct number of socks on the clotheslines.

I also made a color page to help us with identifying colors and recognizing color words.  You can get both pages by clicking on the pictures below.  :)

The adorable graphics are from 

Be sure to check out Lucky to be in First for some other fabulous freebies!

This week, we will be exploring our five senses.  We have some very fun things planned!  Check back at the end of the week to see all our activities!

Thanks for reading!  Have a great day.  :)

Laundry Day!

It's time for another Five for Friday with Doodle Bugs Teaching.

This week's theme was one I had never done before. It ended up being so fun!  My good friend, Miss Beth {Laughter and Learning in Room 139} had done this one a few years back.  When I saw all the great things that could be done with it, I knew I wanted in.  Beth had made these little machines out of cardboard boxes.  Her little ones love playing with them in the 'house center' of her room.

 

Some of our activites included using bubble paint to show 'clean' shirts.

We painted with mud, brown paint, and wood chips to show 'dirty'.

 

 

And, then we ended the week outside washing clothes in our water tables and hanging them up to dry.

Other random things from this week include:

 

We painted initials of our first names by using masking tape and liquid watercolors.

I initiated something new with our centers. My sweeties in the afternoon tended to all want to play together in the same area.  To alleviate the congestion and encourage playing appropriately with friends, I developed this center rotation.  I kept the same friends together all week, but changed the center each day.  Knock on wood, but it worked like a charm all week!

I had one little sweetheart bring me roses all week long!  I am one lucky teacher.  :)

I hope you had a great week, as well!  

Thanks for reading.  Have a great day.  :)

The Day the Crayons Quit!

I am linking up with Tara from 4th Grade Frolics for her Monday Made It to share a few things I have made recently to use in my classroom.

Have you read this book?  It is a must! After we read 'The Day the Crayons Quit', we made our own crayon people {pattern provided by Cara Carroll}.  Each little one chose his/her favorite color and then added a face.  The yellow one is unhappy because he was used too much {cracks me up!} Originally this was going to be an art project to be displayed, but then I decided to laminate them and turn them into a class book.  It is a favorite read, plus helps reinforce color identification and color word recognition.

I made this PowerPoint Presentation of Essential Questions to use after reading the story.  It is free at my TpT store.

I read the book and then play the PowerPoint on my Teamboard.  We take turns answering the questions by touching the correct picture on the interactive whiteboard.  My little ones love it and it helps me keep track of who is comprehending our stories and who needs a little extra help.

If you can use this, I hope you enjoy it!

Thanks for reading!  Have a great day.  :)