Our Curriculum Starts

Quick post..Monday is the day. Our Curriculum starts. We will be doing the Kissing Hand. I am not sure if I will post each day or have one big post on Fridays. My post will include pictures and lesson plan. Also I live in Louisiana. I will be watching the path of Isaac. It is a tropical storm now but will most likely become a hurricane when it enters the gulf. If it goes more west we will be in the path. So our week might or might not be off a little.

Day Two

Day two was better than day one. Outside was dry today YaY!!! The class is kinda getting the hang of things. The floor spots are not strange to them today. Also they are understanding when it is playtime, and when it is not playtime.

So today again we played with buckets of toys instead of centers. They are getting up and putting away their bucket of toy before they get a new one. YESSSS!!!! well some of them, but that's ok by Friday we should master it. If not, we will do some of next week also.

For circle time I read a book called Block City. It is about a little boy using his imagination and a bunch of blocks to build ships and castles. After we read and looked at the pictures we built towers with our blocks. I also added some farm animals and people. This lasted a good 15 minutes until they started fighting. Then I new it was time to move on.

I introduced a small lesson time with them. Which went really well. We made lamb puppets. A very small and quick project.I had bought those kids lap trays a few weeks back. They were a little expensive but money well spent. They love them and its so easy since we do not have a big table to do projects on. They even stack up with their colors in them. In the morning I can hurry and put their projects in each of their trays. When it is time I can call their name one by one and they come get their tray. I will reuse them every year.

Tomorrow will be day 3. I will see how things go again.

Still alive, but sore feet

Well today was a crazy day, but it's over. It was official move up day. Plus a few new kids started. The morning was more hectic. At least it went by fast. I did not have my camera to take pictures. Even if I did I don't think I would of had the time. We tried starting our day in centers but did not go to well. Because one of the kids that was suppose to be potty train was actually not. So between running to the bathroom and changing their clothes. You can get the picture. We picked up and sat in a circle. Then we pretended to catch animal shaped clouds in the sky. Also we pretended to have fishing poles and went fishing. For some reason the kids got mad because we had to let them go back into the water. I told them I did not want to be responsible for the shark and pink fish laying around in my classroom.


After that we got each a bucket of toys and sat on our floor spots. I think I will have the class do this until we get the whole pick up before we take out another toy rule. Then we will try centers next week.

Tomorrow we might try a small little project so we can get use to lesson time. Its hard to spring everything on them because in the other class they did not have centers or a strict schedule. They still can't seem to sit on their floor spots for more than a minute. So yes it will take some time to get everything running smoothly.

August Burnout

Its official I have the August burnout. What in the world is that? Instead of telling you I think this picture sums it up completely.

From Rearranging, Cleaning, Throwing away the old, bringing in the new, Printing, copying, pasting, messing up gotta print again, Stuff getting stuck in the laminating machine,Ms Rhonda, Ms Rhonda, One kid slapping another for no reason and taking off running, Other kid turns around with a stick running after him yelling Stop so I can hit you!!!!, Packing up kids last day stuff....

Did you get the picture? Yea, and it's not pretty. So After this weekend I work Monday and Tuesday. Then I decided to take a 3 day mini vacation. Actually 5 counting next Saturday and Sunday. Time to relax. Then back to work for the official move up of kids. Looking forward to it. I have been taking a few that I know is going to move up to my class. That way they kinda know how everything goes. Slept in late this morning and now it is almost 11:30 and I never ate breakfast. So with my tummy growling I wish every one a happy weekend.

Shopping day at dollar tree.

I been watching my little rugrats in the sensory and art center. They love the scooping and pouring. Then I realized they can do so much more. So I head out to the dollar tree on a mission. This is where I do all my teacher stuff shopping. I learned my lesson over the years. I would go shopping at those fancy teacher supply stores that brakes my teacher budget within one stop. You know what I found out? Having 11 two and three year olds things do not last. Does not matter what they cost, or where you buy them. Also the kids do not care where you bought them. As long as they can play with it, and touch it. They are fine with it. So I discovered the dollar tree where everything is a dollar. Love it!!

Back to my reason of my mission. I need more in my sensory center than just scooping and pouring. I need more ways to keep their little fingers busy. I love it when they think they are just playing, and I know they are actually learning at the same time. Also I needed to find ways to store my sensory items like buttons, noodles, and beans. So I walked down every aisle. Some times twice. I found a bunch of storage containers. Like those plastic food containers. I also found some cute ones. All will use those to store all my different noodles and dry sensory items.

Also found some that was the right size for my stone rocks.

I even found some cute ice cream scoops they can use. Just the right size for their little hands. There was shovels and rakes small enough. My favorite is the rubber tongs. Great for using their pinching and fine motor skills. I found a small plastic colander. Great for sticking pipe cleaners or spaghetti noodles in.

More floor spot ideas. Wow I never seen these in this perfect circle size. They are those gripper pads. You put them under things so they wont slip. Came 4 circles in a pack . I snatched them up in case my pillow floor spot idea falls through.

Last but not least I bought these mystery sink mats. I saw them and bought two. I know I will figure out what I can do. Besides weaving or lacing.

So I think this is all of my august shopping for now. I got the basic stuff I was looking for. I'm just waiting for my new set of kids. Soon my lessons and activities will start being posted. Thanks to the ones that view my blog. I promise it will get better once our class starts.