Welcome to our Room

Welcome to our Pre-K 3 classroom! I teach at an amazing private, Christian Pre-School and Kindergarten. I am blessed with an wonderful assistant, Mrs. Britton and a small class! My journey over the years has taken me from many years of public schools, to staying at home with my children and now back into the classroom part time! It has been such a Godsend to find my way back into the classroom, especially at the school where my children attend! Though my school has several Pre-K 3 year old rooms that meet M-F, my class is a 3 day a week M/W/F class. I love it!

Come on into our room and let me show you around. This is our Writing Center and our Focus Board. While teaching public school, I used the curriculum SRA's Imagine It. In this curriculum, we had a Thematic Concept Board that helped the children focus our ideas and learning objectives for the unit. I decided to incorporate something similar into our classroom. 

This is our Focus Board. I have many of the resources I knew that I wanted to have on this board on Teachers Pay Teachers.

Teachers, if you are interested, the resources can be found on TPT in the stores listed below. I am not affiliated with any of these stores- just sharing great resources! I will also note the price for each resource at the time I purchased it.

Headings: I created them in Powerpoint
The Letters: Cara Caroll's ABC Packet ($11)
Form (Letter Formation Poems): Simply Kinder's Alphabet Writing Letter ($5)
Colors: The Teacher Gene ($2)
Shapes:Brooke Beynon ($3.50)
Numbers: Number Anchor Charts by Cara Carroll ($5)
Sight Words: I joined the  website, Reading A-Z to find age appropriate resources, printable books and lesson plans not only for my Pre-K 3 class, but also for my own 5 year old. I won't start sight words until after Christmas with my class.

    
                  Using Students' Pictures as Tools in the Classroom


                 Birthday Chart                                     Centers Display

After seeing several charts on Pinterest of ways to displays students' birthdays, I decided to make one myself. After school starts, I will take the children's pictures by their birthday month. For example, if two have birthdays in June they will stand together for a June Birthday picture and I will add it to our Birthday Chart.  I also use pictures to not only show the children what center they are going to for the day but also to show them what part of the room to go to. Here is a closer look at our Centers board.

I created this, A Servant's Heart Job Chart for our classroom you can find it on TPT here.  We will also use the students' pictures as a weekly part of our instruction. My sweet helper is showing how we will use this Kim Adsit picture chart during our Preschool Orientation. Students will choose a picture card of something they would like to do while at school and put it next to their photo. 

Here a some more photos of our room! Enjoy! 

 Hope you enjoyed a quick little tour of our classroom!

Mrs. Wishy Washy

As my class prepares for an upcoming field trip to the farm, we are enjoying the "mud" with Mrs. Wishy Washy and friends!  We are focusing on Mrs. Wishy Washy and Mrs. Wishy Washy's Farm this week. A great Teacher's Pay Teachers resource for clip art can be found at Melon Headz Clip Art for $7.00. I am very happy with my purchase! I printed the clip art and cut it out. Then, I made individual baggies for my students to use to retell the story of Mrs. Wishy Washy.

Also, be sure to check out The Wishy Washy Woman on you tube!



I would love to hear your favorite Mrs. Wishy Washy activities!

Teaching Preschoolers How to Grip a Pencil, Crayon or Marker

I have been researching some developmentally appropriate ways to teach three year olds how to hold a pencil. Here are some resources I have come across on You Tube and Teacher's Pay Teachers.









TPT Hold Your Pencil Freebie



Pinterest Pencil Grip Song Freebie




Lakeshore Learning has several great products to build fine motors skills needed for gripping a pencil. My class LOVES to feed the animals with these great products! However, you can do the same thing with materials you already have at home!! For example, tweezers and cotton balls !

                                      

The Letter F

This week we have been studying the letter "F' as we wrap up our all about me unit and prepare to move on to "Family"! Here is a peek at what we have been up to. Also, I wanted to share these TPT authors who offer great wearable alphabet resources.  My super precious assistant here is wearing a "F" hat that I purchased through The Moffatt Girls on TPT. Next, his necklace (which is hard to see here) was another TPT find from Littlest Scholars 

                      

I printed them on red construction paper because our color of the week is...you guessed it! Noah is creating a classroom example for me with his watercolors. 

                                                  Let's build the letter "F" on the light table!

Let's make a Chicka Chicka Boom Boom overhead puzzle with Pattern Blocks!

Find all of the "F"s in our pattern blocks!

A Sneak Peek at Our Week

Here is a sneak peek at our week ahead....

                            My favorite little 4 1/2 year old helping to test it all out for me :). Check back later this week to see how we used these resources and where many of them came from!

Our Pre K-3 Classroom

                                   

                                                     


                   



                                     





                         



                                                               
                             

Classroom Birthday Board

This was today's project in my classroom. I wish I could say that I'm such a planner that I knew this is exactly what I was going to do when I started but alas I'm not! I was inspired by the greatest teaching tool  distraction, Pinterest! All over Pinterest I have been seeing the super cute Birthday displays that show the months of the year with the kiddos pictures taken & placed under their birthday month. 

I started with that idea but decided I wanted something a little more "Pre-K"-ish in addition to the pictures so I started cutting construction paper and broke out the yarn! My little people at the top are made out of construction paper, yarn, google eyes, and a birthday crown.

 Many thanks to a quick TPT search to find a free month-to-month label set. I minimized the set before I printed so that they would be smaller. I think I printed the labels at 60%. Many thanks to the super sweet One's teacher, Mrs. Shannon, across the hall from me! She saved me so much time by giving me some pre-cut & laminated balloons that she had and was not using anymore! It takes a village! Thank you Shannon :)