Steppin' on The Letter Bus!

   So I have been working hard to make my learning activities a little more organized for my  little one. Things have been busy and hectic and I have been very disorganized in getting things together for her. And I find myself scrambling for things when she says, "Mommy, I want to do work."
   We have done Alphabet work before, but I have been searching for a more organized way to do things, so that I could plan ahead and have things ready and available for her.
    So I put together a LETTER BUS!

   Every few weeks, I am going to focus on certain letters and make, create or find fun activity ideas that revolve around these letters. 

   Since we have been working outside trying to clean up the garden bed lately, I figured we might have some fun learning about the letter Gg. 

    In the next few weeks, we will be focusing on letters Gg, Ff, Ss, Rr.

    I have pulled it together (a little) and created baskets of learning activities for her. For now she has a Math Basket, a Writing Basket and an ABC Basket. (I am still collecting fun art materials for an Art Basket.) I have gathered activity ideas and materials to put in each basket.

Math Basket:

Dry Erase Books, Counters, Counting Mats  (Actually, I am still collecting things for this basket)

Writing and ABC Baskets:

Writing Basket: Name sheets, Letter Writing sheets, Notebooks, Different Writing Tools (pens, pencils, markersm crayons), sentence strips

ABC Basket: ABC Chart, Dry Erase books, ABC stickers, Alphabet Flashcards, Letter/Sound sheets, Writing Tools, Alphabet Games

   

   Here are some of the printables (both available at Teachers Pay Teachers) that I am using right now in her baskets:

    And here are some store bought things that I am also using in the baskets:

Beginning Sounds Phonics Train by Lakeshore

Wooden Alphabet Puzzles by Melissa & Doug

 Beginning Sound Puzzles by Scholastic

   I figure that by having things in baskets, she can pick and choose what she wants to work on at any given time. Of course, there will also be fun activities that we will do together, but the baskets will allow her to do some activities on her own, if mommy is busy cooking or whatnot.
   I am hoping that this will help keep activities organized a little. There is SO many fun ideas out there, sometimes I get a little overwhelmed... Hopefully this will help keep me a little focused so that I can plan ahead... just a little. Because I know there is always going to be a fun idea that comes from out of nowhere that we just HAVE to do....

Cc is for Construction!

 YAY! I received great news today!! I got my test results! 

 RELAX!!! NOT those kinds of results!!!  

   I passed my 2^nd New York State Certification test! 

   Two down, one more to go and then I will officially be a certified teacher in TWO states! (Illinois and New York)

   Anyhow, it has been a short time since I have posted about what is going on in my classroom!! Well, my preschoolers have been "At Work and Under Construction"!

   After our Dr. Seuss unit, I was sensing that the kiddos needed a fun unit! Our curriculum called for a unit on City vs. Country. Last year when I tried a unit like this, it was a big flop. So I turned it up a notch and began the unit by first discussing the city and country and going through the differences between the two. And then I turned the focus to the different types of vehicles that can be seen in both areas.

   THAT’S how it started! And then it took a slight turn. And so I went with it.

   It took a big turn towards a mini Construction unit, once I threw some trucks and tractors into the sand table!
   Since I have a classroom of 14 boys, I knew this would be a hit!

   And it was...even though it was a fairly brief unit.

   I whipped up some Alphabet mats and made a Matching Uppercase to Lowercase game. Some children needed some extra help in matching, so I brought out our Letter cards for them to reference back to.

I also made some Alphabet matching puzzles.

Our art center activities were pretty fun and engaging too!

We created different types of trucks and vehicles using different shapes.

   And we threw some construction tools with our play-doh and they had a blast sawing and hammering their play-doh.

  After just 2 days of doing activities centered around trucks and construction, I wished I had time to do more with it! 

   On that note, I am still working out the details on My Blog Birthday Giveaway! I was hoping to go BIG with it but with my readership still being low (even after a whole year!!), I might hold off on a big giveaway until I hit the 100 Follower mark! Giveaway details will be posted by Friday!!

Falling in LOVE with Names!

   Wow, these past few days, I have seen so much growth with my little one and have been reminded of just how much of a sponge kids are at the preschool age!! AND how much of a positive influence and impact I have as a parent!

   I really don’t mean to brag but- wow! This little girl sure is starting off on the right foot when it comes to her Preschool/Kindergarten Readiness skills! She can correctly identify about 75% of the letters in the alphabet (mostly uppercase though), she can spell & write her name, she can rote count to 25, count up to 15 objects, and identify her numbers up to 12. Her patterning and graphing skills are impressive too!  All of this and she is just turning 4 years old next month!!

   I GUESS it DOES help that I am a preschool teacher huh? Every day I find teachable moments with her and I roll with them. Parenting and teaching an eager little sponge is SO much fun!!!

   So on Sunday, I took some time while she was napping to create a few activities for her, centered around names.

   I wrote everyone in the family’s name (including the pets) on a sentence strip. I used a heart punch to make several little hearts and wrote the letters of our names on each one.

   She worked on identifying and matching the letters of our names. By the way, this Was a GREAT activity for her to do while I was starting dinner!! =)

   The other day I saw her going through my desk drawers and she used up half of my envelopes! She was “Writing” her friends’ names on them and distributing them all around the floor!

   So I created a fun sorting activity for her. I wrote our names on envelopes, including our four pets (8 in total), took some heart and cupcake notepads that I found in one of my zillion teacher boxes, and I wrote our names on several sheets, several different times.

   I pulled out this cool little mailbox that my mom had bought her for Christmas and told her that she had to fill the envelopes up and put them in the mailbox when she was done.

   When I showed her the envelopes, she was able to read off all the names!!! I was shocked because I just showed her everyone’s name in print yesterday!! She must have been really paying attention!! (It was that sponge magic at its best!)

   As you can clearly see from the photos, she was very serious and focused on sorting and filling her envelopes! She REALLY enjoyed this activity and when daddy came home from work, she was so excited to show him all the envelopes and read off the names on each one!

   She asked to do other family members names as well, so I will be working on those envelopes and names later tonight. I might even put a little math twist on this too! My brain always seems to be in constant motion..... 

   I think I might extend these activities to the classroom next week. She enjoyed them so much and I am sure my preschool munchkins will enjoy them as well.

   And now, here is a Love Letters ABC Matching Game that I am posting tonight on TPT!  Click on the picture to get your copy today!

Enjoy!!

Gobblin' Good Fun with the Letter Tt!

Lots of Letter Tt fun going on this past week!!

And most of it has been centered around TURKEYS!!!

    Before all the Gobble, Gobble fun began, the preschool munchkins made the letter Tt with toothpicks.

    Then they had to make their very own turkey by finding feathers with the letter Tt and pasting them onto a turkey’s body.

Check out these lovely turkeys!!

    
    We had a little bit of textured art fun, using feather, felt, tissue, sandpaper and other fun materials to make feathers for our new friend- Tim the Turkey! 

    You see, I had a "turkey" named Tom, who I created during my very 1^st year of teaching, and I had invited him into my classroom to meet my kiddos every school year, BUT unfortunately, the years have taken a toll on him. L 

    And instead of trying to patch him up, one of my assistants volunteered to make a new one! She is currently is working her way to her CDA certificate, so I enjoy having her take part in the classroom and encourage her to make things and develop activities, so that when the day comes where she is on charge of her own classroom, she can already have things in her Teacher File!

   Since we have been working hard at learning letters for the past 2-3 weeks, this short week is serving as a Review Week. Here is a Turkey Letter Game I created a few years back. 

This is a differentiated activity that addresses the different levels of ability in my classroom, in that children can find feathers with the same letters on it OR they can pick a letter (in this case, it was S,P,T) and find feathers with the letter and feathers with a picture of the letter sound.

   And of course, there was the lovely hand print Turkey that my other assistant wanted to do with the munchkins! 

 

     I must say that I am very thankful for my assistants this year. I love that they are both so involved in finding and implementing their own activity ideas with the children. It makes lesson planning for me that much easier and it gives them an opportunity to do activities that they want to do with the kiddos!

On the Road to Literacy!

   So I know the last time I posted anything about my classroom, I mentioned that things were under construction. Well, things are still under some construction as I continue to find ways to meet the needs of my munchkins, who have been a challenge for me thus far in the school year.

   The past few weeks have been both stressful and hectic, yet somewhat inspiring at the same time; as I have been able to reflect on my teaching practices and express some of my concerns and challenges with my director who has given me some direction and further insight on how to manage my classroom of boys! 

    I think I now have a clearer sense of where I need to focus my attention & energy and where to start. It is basically back to the drawing board!! 

    I know, it is already November, but I have to start somewhere right?

    In our preschool curriculum, we have just begun our Letter of the Week series.!  Although I have been implementing literacy activities since Day 1, it is now time to focus on one letter and sound at a time.

   Learning the alphabet alone provides SEVERAL different fun and engaging learning activities for my kiddos. And thank goodness for Pinterest and  my wonderful collection of The Mailbox Magazines (which have always been a valuable resource for me) which highlight many different hands-on letter activities that I plan to use in my classroom this year!

    So, we are on the Road to Literacy! J

    Here are a few things we have been doing to get ready to learn letters:

    The most appropriate way we began our study of letters has been through name recognition activities.

    The munchkins have done name puzzles and have matched  and counted the letters in their name.

    I created a dry erase card for every child to use, by gluing a sentence strip onto white construction paper and then laminated it. I made sure the writing section contained no lines at all, giving them the confidence to write their letters as big and round as they need to!

Some kiddos are working on writing their full name, while others are practicing their first name.

    I pulled out a set of alphabet flashcards and have provided several opportunities throughout the past 2 weeks for the children to explore them and practice writing letters on blank dry erase cards.

    And we are still getting some good use out of our old Apple Pie PlayDoh by using letter cutters to spell names!!  (This is definitely the last week of it and then  it is getting tossed in the trash!)

    And… our sand table has become an Alphabet Digging Ground.

    There are so many fun and engaging ways to introduce and learn the Alphabet, my mind is in over drive! 

     What are some of YOUR favorite Alphabet activities???  

     Please share.! I would love to hear comments and/ or suggestions! =)