Sunday, October 26, 2014

Monster-iffic Fun!

   It has been a little quiet here because Fall assessments are underway, and thankfully almost done!! It really is tedious and time consuming, even though it does provide me with a general snap shot of where my munchkins are. However, by my own observations and working with them in small  groups, these assessments are only reinforcing where I believe each child is in terms of their own development and skill level.
   Anyhow, that has taken over classroom time and fundraiser & school events at my own munchkin's school has kept me busy for the past week or so. But now,hopefully as the month winds down, things will get back on track... only to get all shook up again when the holiday season hits!
   Last week, we did some fun Monster activities after reading fun books like Where the Wild Things Are and Go Away, Big Green Monster! Little munchkins always love Go Away, Big Green Monster... It is one of my favorites too!

    They created their very own monster, and some of them looked pretty scary and creepy, while others looked funny and cute! They each glued a sentence onto their paper and we added the color word of their monster.
    I added some fun little props (googly eyes, straws, beads and ghost & pumpkin cookie cutters) into the playdoh area so that they could get creative and make their own playdoh monsters. This was such a fun activity for them. We had the activity during our learning center time and when it was time to switch, many of them were too involved with making their monster, they gave some resistance in having to leave the table! 
Check out some of the awesome creations:
    I really enjoyed watching their creativity come through and the smiles on their faces as they were doing this... it makes me smile when I see how much they enjoy the activities that I put together for them.
    We also worked on print concepts, as the munchkins learned how to track words in a sentence. I created sentence cards with the predictable text in Go Away Big Green Monster. And they put a smile on my face at dismissal time, when some of them proudly showed their mom that they could "read" the monster sentences!!
This is only the start to all the Halloween themed fun we plan to have... and I say "plan" because my time in the classroom in limited until the Fall assessments are all completed and so, anything goes... !

Wednesday, October 15, 2014

Falling in Love with Fall!

   I must admit that ever since we moved from Chicago to the suburbs of Buffalo, I have fallen in love with Fall... I had never really seen the beauty of Fall until we moved here. With tree lined streets and a huge backyard, the scenery is gorgeous. Fall has since become my favorite season, hands down!
   And I have come to look forward to planning and making Fall themed activities for my little munchkins. A few weeks ago, I stopped at Michaels and caught a great sale (and had a 25% off entire purchase coupon)! I picked up two of these fun craft foam party trays.  Once I walked out of the store, the ideas started coming!
    I feel like I haven't posted much about what my little munchkin has been working on these past few weeks. She is determined to master her sight words so that she can start reading and writing! Those are her two biggest interest areas right now. 
I made two different Sight Word Activities for her to review and practice writing & spelling sight words.
Read & Write the Sight Word
Spell the Sight Word:
And of course, I found ways to use these in the classroom, as the preschool munchkins are currently learning how to Make Sets and how to Match Number to Set:
 And I used this exact setup to teach the concepts of More and Less:
    There are so many other ways that I plan to use these throughout the month for math activities, such as making patterns and graphing and counting.
    The kids love to use them, they save on having to print anything and they can be used over and over, for so many fun kinds of learning activities!
    AND if you are reading this blog post, I have a little secret: Tonight I am hosting a Fall Giveaway and will be giving away my Fall Literacy Pack:
(Here are samples of what is included)
    There will be 2 lucky winners on my Teaching Munchkins Facebook Page... I will pick a winner tomorrow afternoon! So if you are not a fan, head over there now and become one... I will be posting within the hour!