Some Leaf fun with my little one!

   My little munchkin has been patiently waiting for more leaves to fall from the trees so we can rake them up and have tons of fun jumping around in the piles! Last year we did it for the first time and the pictures I took were absolutely priceless!

    In the meantime, while we wait for those leaves to a fall and for autumn to be in full effect, we will continue to talk and have some fun learning about the change in weather and all that comes with it.

   We went outside in our backyard to collect leaves and came back inside and talked about the beginning letter in the word “leaf”.  I pulled out some fall scrapbook paper, drew the letter Ll and let her glue her leaves onto the paper.

    

   And I found a cute Fall Tree snack idea in an old Mailbox magazine and put my own twist on it:

   After that yummy snack, we took a nice nap! 

   All during the week, she bugged me to do some “work” with her paint stampers. Yes, she actually tells me “I wanna do work.” So we tore up some brown paper and glued them onto a sheet of white paper to make a tree. Then she went wild, adding red, yellow and orange “leaves” with her paint/bingo stampers.

   During the week, I had her act as my little guinea pig and we did some letter and spelling work on the Fall Spelling mats I created. This is one creation that I am so proud of! She enjoyed finding and matching the letters, so I knew it was a winner and I printed and laminated a set for my classroom! J

    

Grab your copy here, in my Tpt store!

    My Tpt product list is slowly growing!  Yay!

    If you purchase and download anything from my little store, please provide me with some feedback! I am working on the quality of my work and any feedback would be greatly appreciated!  THANKS!

Deadlines & Stress...so here is a Freebie!

    Well, I am coming up on the 45 day deadline! What is that? 
  Well in working for Head Start, there are many things (aka tedious paperwork) that need to get done and it has been quite the rush (and a pain in the butt) to get it done; all the while trying to teach and maintain a consistent classroom routine for a wild bunch of munchkins!

    In addition to the required paperwork, as a Universal Pre-K teacher, I have to administer a test (yes, I said test) called CIRCLE to all my little preschool munchkins. For those Kindergarten teachers who are familiar with the DIBELS assessment, CIRCLE is just that--- for preschool. Wow. Yes, I know. It’s ridiculous.

   SO needless to say, it has been a painful process. Some of my kiddos are still adjusting to preschool and some are still trying to get used to our routines and transitions! And to have to sit and test these kids in 4 different academic areas--- OUCH!

    As I have been trying to balance testing and paperwork and actually teaching, I have become quite overwhelmed this week! BUT there is a light at the end of the tunnel and soon the 45 days will be past us and I will actually be able to TEACH again! =)

    Anyhow, enough on my testing woes…

   This week, my preschool munchkins have been continuing to celebrate FALL !

    When October began, I introduced a new math skill on my calendar: Patterns.

    Every day this week, we worked making AB patterns with different objects, during circle time and center time, using manipulatives, such as linking cubes and colored leaves. Some children were even eager to try AABB patterns!

   Today I had the munchkins try out their new math skill on their own!

    Click here to get your Fall Pattern Freebie!
I am also featuring this on TBA's Freebie Friday!

   We have also been working a lot with the letters in our names and name recognition.

    I had seen Crayon Resist artwork before and I was eager to try it with my students. We had the children use a white crayon and a white sheet of construction paper to write their name. For the ones who did not know how to do so, we wrote their name very lightly onto the paper and had them trace the letters.

  Then we gave them some watercolors and thick paintbrushes and showed them how to brush the watercolor over the letters. They were thrilled to see the letters appear on the paper like magic as they painted!

    Now after an overwhelming week (which was only a 4 day week!), I plan to relax a bit and have some fun with my own little munchkin as we work on our own fun, Fall projects! 

   

Super Hero Sunday!

    Currently, my little munchkin is obsessed with “The Avengers”. She was so excited when it finally came out on DVD!  I think we have probably watched this movie at least 7 times since we bought it!!!!

    I love that she is a little girl at times and is all about dolls and dress up; and she can switch over to a little tomboy and love trains, cars and superheroes! 

    I found this cute Superhero Pre-K Pack at Over The Big Moon, and I wanted to share it with you! There are some fun activities that she and I enjoyed doing today!

    First we tackled the puzzles of Hulk, Ironman, Captain America, and Thor.

    Then we worked on a Letter Ss search. She complained that her hand hurt after coloring the first few letters! 

    (Although she can grip a crayon correctly, she tends to press pretty hard when she is coloring, so she gets tried pretty quickly.)

    So I made it into a game and we each took turns finding a letter and coloring it.

    And then we worked on some Super Hero Patterning Fun!

    Click here (or the picture above) to check out this Super Hero pack, and use it with your little one! There is more learning fun in this packet that she and I have not done yet!

    Enjoy!

Fallin' in Love with Letters!

Fall is here! Yay!! J

The chill is in the air and the leaves are changing colors! 

    The Fall season is probably my favorite season when it comes to fun crafts and activities. I have many  ideas in mind…let’s see how much I can actually accomplish in the classroom or at home.

    In my classroom, we are Falling in Love with Letters! We have been doing lots of work with letter identification, but more specifically, our focus is on the letters in our names.

    I made these fall tree mats into an alphabet matching game.

    The munchkins used our new alphabet stampers to stamp out the letters of their names.

    And my aide had her heart set out on this Fall Tree art.  Isn’t it the cutest thing?

  And my munchkins even got some fine motor work when I put out some faux leaves, a Fall Scene Mat and some tweezers!

I had some little cheaters...but that only showed me that they need some more fine motor practice to strengthen those little muscles in their fingers! 

And then I had some kiddos that really were focused on the task!

     I even got my own little one excited about Fall!

     I recently subscribed to Scholastic Weekly, for my own personal use at home. We read through “Busy, Busy Squirrel”, and had fun with the “I Spy” type activity on the back. 

And then, I decided to start our own Fall unit at home!

     Here, I took some foam leaves and wrote the letters of her name on each one and had her stick them onto a Fall Tree Template I created.

     Click here to get your own copy of this tree and I am sure you can come up with several fun ideas on how to use this!!

Happy 

Read for the Record!

Today is Jumpstart's Read for the Record Day!

       Read for the Record is the one day of the year when millions of people come together to celebrate literacy  in Early Childhood Education. They do this by supporting Jumpstart in its efforts to promote early literacy by reading the selected book to as many children as possible.

Today my classroom participated in Read for the Record!                                                                                   This is the 5th year in a row that I have participated in this event!

     This year's book is " LadyBug Girl and the Bug Squad" by David Soman.

       And when I got home, I made sure to log on to my laptop and read the book with my little munchkin!!

       Click HERE or on the picture above to read more about Jumpstart's Read for the Record and go online to read this year's book to your little ones.

Be counted and help Jumpstart promote Early Literacy today!

ENJOY!

Freebie Flashback Linky Party!

    So I am linking up with Learning is Something to Treasure this week. I am still very new to this blogging and have only been blogging since March and awaiting more followers! =)  And what better way to meet new bloggers than to join in on a party!!

It's a Freebie Flashback Linky Party!!

    In the time since I started blogging, I have created a few freebies, and here is the very 1st one! It is a Ladybug Alphabet Matching Game!
    (Now that I look back, I could certainly upgrade this! I did, however, upload it on Teachers Pay Teachers this time!)

Click the ladybug below for your FREEBIE flashback!

     Come and join in on the fun!