Filler Idea

I found this literacy work station HERE. The children have to roll play dough to make words. This would be a great filler for after jobs.

Teacher Gift Idea for Next Year

Sorry the picture is sideways, but I was at Krogers the other day and saw this adorable teacher gift idea. They took a glass vase and filled it with Hershey Kisses. Then they used wooded skewer to tape Hershey bars to them to make the bouquet. Finally a little tissue paper and a bow. How cute!?!

Christmas Presents

Here is a picture of the serving trays that I made for my in-laws. Calen had tons of fun playing in paint.

Christmas Jobs for next year

Gingerbread ABC's, go HERE to print.

Sweet Treats, Grap it HERE.

Roll a Number, print it HERE.

Job Ideas

I found these ideas HERE. They are all Christmas themed but I may have to make some using snowflakes and snowman fro January.

More 100th Day

100 Day Counting Mat...Laminate and reuse. I like have 10 written in each circle, this will make it easier for my children.

This idea came from here. Hunting for kisses- buy 100 Hershey Kisses and number them. While students are out hide them throughout the classroom. Depending on how many students are present, tell students how many kisses they are allowed to find and put into their baggie. The baggie is important because little hands and chocolate = a melty mess! Once students find the specified number, they return to the carpet area and begin matching their kisses to the matching poster.

More great ideas can be found below:
Chalk Talk
Free Printables
Teaching Blog Addict

100th Day of School Ideas

Super cute for the doorway. I saw it here.

It's always fun to have the children tell you what they could eat 100 of or what they would buy with $100. The picture came from here.

 You have to have trail mix at the celebration.

 100th Day Hats. Ten strips of paper. Have the children put 10 stickers on each strip. Got this idea and all that follow from here.

 Count 100 Legos

 100 Dots

Hot Chocolate Graph

How cute?!? I saw this picture here. I have to do this in January. The children would enjoy this activity.

Christmas Party

Christmas BINGO

Paper Plate Crafts

Christmas Trees made from waffle cones, icing, and M&Ms. This was a HUGE hit.

Reindeer Food

Pin the Nose on Rudolph

Our Christmas party was tons of fun thanks to my wonderful Room Mothers and my great parents. Now off for two weeks for Christmas break. I am sure I will stay busy finishing my Christmas shopping, doing some crafty, cleaning, and finding more fun stuff for the children to do.

Remember for Next Year

I just came across this adorable craft on http://joyfullyweary.blogspot.com/. Cut out silhouettes from http://undermypolkadotumbrella.blogspot.com/2009/09/nativity-patterns.html. Tape to paper, paint, and sprinkle glitter. Once dry untape silhouetts.

Writing Center

Just found these printable sheets for a writing center. You can use them to have the children stamp and write letters, names, or words. http://www.1plus1plus1equals1.com/Name_Stamping_Public.pdf

Christmas Break

Tomorrow is going to be a fun and busy day. The children dismiss at 11:30, but before that we will have our Christmas Party and our Christmas Musical. I can't wait and will post some pictures tomorrow.

Gingerbread Fun

Today we measured gingerbread men using peppermints. I got the idea from http://mrsleeskinderkids.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2010-12-10T16:51:00-06:00&max-results=50. I am not an artist, so my gingerbread men didn't look very cute but the children still had fun.

Then the children laid next to the gingerbread man to see who is shorter/bigger.

Finally they used the peppermints to measure themselves. We found out who is the tallest and the shortest in class. They had a blast!

Then they recorded their findings.

Reindeer Chow

Snack today was Reindeer Chow. I have seen this on Pinterest and decided that I had to do it. I gave each child a hand full of five different snacks. They had to sort the items, count them, and eat! They loved it.

Oh Christmas Tree

Tear Paper Christmas Tree craft that the childen did for morning work.

Christmas Tree

I love this craft! I got the idea from a local school when I was doing my student teaching. I fold paper in half and trace a tree (we use this time to talk about whole and half). The children cut it out and then hole punch it. Finally we glue tissue paper on the back. I hung them in front of the window because when it's a sunny day it looks like the lights are on.

Teacher Gift

I had to share the teacher's gift that I made for little man's teachers. I am pretty happy with the way they came out and hope that they like them.

Christmas Filler

Here is a filler that I used last week. I didn't use M&M's but I made it a play dough mat. The children had fun rolling the play dough in small balls.

I got the printable from here, http://toddlerapproved.blogspot.com/2010/12/m-wreath.html.

This weeks jobs

Here the children had to pick out a Christmas Tree and count the ornaments. Then, on the sheet provided they documented their findings. (I have seen many different types of these activities on pinterest).

Here the children had to help Santa and put his reindeers in order. The children loved this activities.

 Here the children had to count the mittens on top of a gift box and match it to the bottom gift box that had the correct number in it. This would be really cute to use little bows but I had tons of these mittens that I had nothing to do with.(Thanks mom for this idea).

Sorry this picture is upside down, I could not figure out how to flip it. But at this job the children rolled a die, counted the dots, and put that number of cotton balls on the reindeer. I printed the mats from here, http://www.makinglearningfun.com/themepages/ReindeerMathMat.htm They have tons of math mats to use for different times of the year. 

 Last week we started to talk about patterning and the children did amazing with it, so at this job they had to make candy cane patterns. I got this ideas from http://mrsleeskinderkids.blogspot.com/2011/12/gingerbread-week-our-five-senses.html.

Up on the Housetop filler activity. I got the idea from http://mrsleeskinderkids.blogspot.com/search?updated-min=2010-01-01T00%3A00%3A00-06%3A00&updated-max=2011-01-01T00%3A00%3A00-06%3A00&max-results=50 but changed it for my PreK children.  

My children had a fun time doing their jobs this week. I love it when they call it a game. Today we had our Christmas Bazaar and didn't get to do our jobs. All the children asked about them all day until I let them do their next job. I love it!!!!

My Classroom

Here are a few pictures of my classroom.

This is the back of my classroom, storage, my desk, Art center, and where the children turn in all their work (the blue shelf).

 This is my word/picture wall, reading center, listening center, and writing center.

 This is the front of my classroom. All my morning routine stuff is covered with our wonderful background for our musical that is Friday.

 Here a another view of the room. It's BIG!

 Here is the very back of my room, my center chart, and guided work table.

Here is the back of the room and my computer and dramatic play center.

Jobs

Each week my children rotate through four jobs (some may call them workstations or centers). On Fridays I try to plan a fun activity to do during this time. I do my jobs first thing in the morning and since I teach PreK I feel that centers are VERY important and don't want to take away from that great learning time. Jobs last about 25 minutes and the children only do one job a day. I have tried many different ways of doing jobs and so far this works the best. I have done SO much better with planning my jobs this year due to other blogs and pinterest. I have had a lot of fun making new games for the children to play and they have started to become very interested in finding out the games that I am making.


Tomorrow I will post some pictures of the jobs that my children are doing this week and will do so every week.

My First Blog

I am a Prek teacher at a private school in Memphis. This is my fourth amazing year teaching. I love my job and get excited when it comes to new ideas for my classroom. Teaching is a very rewarding and exciting job. I love the fact that there is never a dull moment and I am always on my toes.

I have been tossing up the idea of starting a blog and here it is...finally. I hope you enjoy it!