Feeling All The Feals

My sweet sweet girl started 4k this past week and I am not sure how I feel about this. I think her birthday and the beginning of the school year being so close together is just too much for this mamma to handle. To make things worse when it was time for her to go to her classroom she started running out of the room without a kiss or goodbye and I had to force her to come back and act like she loves me more than school. I guess I should be happy she loves school and doesn't mind leaving me but she could atleast pretend like she is a little sad to go. 

 I can't believe how much my baby has grown since the first day of school last year! She has lost so much of her baby face and is really starting to look like a big girl. 

I know she is going to have an amazing year with Mrs. Nicole and Mrs. Veronica!

Firsts and Lasts

Once again I can't believe the school year has already come to an end. This year was so much more emotional because it was also my babies first year of school which definitely brought the ugly cry out even more yesterday. So after lots of hugging, lots of pictures taken, and maybe a little wine I put together a few pictures from Mckinley's first school year.

Mckinley on her first day of school and last day of school.

 

 

I didn't get a chance to get very good pictures on her first day because A. I was super emotional and B. My students started arriving at my own classroom.

Graduation Day!

Mrs. Barbara and Mrs. Joy made Mckinley's  first year of school so amazing! I will never be able to thank them enough for making this year so wonderful!

Mommy and Mckinley first day and last day.

So here's to an amazing first year of school and we are already looking forward to next year!

First Day Of School

I don't have many words to explain how I feel today except for excited, tired, and a little sad. Today was my first day back to school and it also happened to be my baby girl's first day of preschool. Thankfully I had so much going through my mind for my classroom that I never really got a chance to dwell on the fact that my baby wasn't a baby anymore, but a big kid who goes to school. 

After a long night of going to bed late, a balloon and fan incident and my alarm not going off I never had a chance to get nostalgic this morning. Thankfully I had decided at 11:00 last night to scrap my first idea for a first day of school picture and decided to do a little chalk art instead. I have an awesome framed chalk board my sister made for me this past Christmas and it was perfect for all of the pictures I was able to squeeze into my already hectic morning.

The 11th hour (literally) sign

And indoor shot 

An outdoor shot

A shot with our classroom sign that we forgot to change the 4 into a 3. I am going to get a redo picture when Mckinley goes back to school on Thursday

And an after school shot since I didn't get a chance to take a picture with my baby this morning.

What a whirlwind of a day for our little family. Tonight daddy is cooking us dinner and we are going to relax and snuggle. Tomorrow I will have another half day with a new set of babies and Mckinley will go to our babysitters house since she doesn't go back to school until Thursday. Wish us luck that drop off on Thursday is a little easier with fewer tears. Also pray that if we happen to run into each other in the classroom there won't be any tears. I am hoping the more she sees me the easier it will be on her.

I will be posting on my school blog Insane In The Pre-K Brain more frequently so come on over and check things out. We are going to have such a fun school year!

What A Wild Crazy Ride

Today the 2013-2014 school year comes to an end and I am not sure how I feel about that. Each year each class and each child steals a little piece of my heart and I am not sure if I am ready to let them go just yet. Today as I was wiping my eyes for the third time and reminiscing about the year and how it flew by and all I can say is time flies when you're having fun!!

One of the main reasons this year was so incredible was due to the amazing people I spent very single day with.  I have been so incredibly lucky to have worked with amazing teachers and I can say that I count every single one of them as not only friends, but family. That is 100% true for the 2 nuts I spend 40 plus hours a week with. 

It is always a special thing when 2 people  come together and form a special bond, but 3 people being able to put up with each other every so gel day and not wanting to kill each other is another story. I am so very lucky to have Ann and Caroline in my life and no matter what they do or where they go in their lives I hope they know how much they mean to me. 

From singing off key, to sloppy dancing, to awesome nap time stories I love you guys more than a rainbow tv in the shape of a number 3! 

Long Live Team Inappropriate!

PreK Days {Ms. U & U.S.A}

{Weekly Wrap Up}

I am DYING for next week to get here because Dr. Seuss week is one of my all time favorites during the year! But since I am so behind in my PreK Days posts I am going to start with our most recent week and work my way backwards. 

Last week we celebrated President's Day and learned all about the United States of America. We also met our newest letter friend Ms. U. We learned that the letter U can make two different sounds. We didn't get into the long u short, but we learned that Letter U either says -you or -uh. 

I have really gotten into creating my own Smart Board lessons because I feel like I can't ever find exactly what I want for my uber smart babies. They are only 4 and 5, but they have such a thirst for knowledge and I love  giving it to them. We of course learned about The first president George Washington and the 16th presidents Abraham Lincoln since they are the whole reason we celebrate President's Day. Then we couldn't leave out our current president Barack Obama. I love hearing my kids say his name because no one can say it right and it is just so darn cute. We also watched 3 short videos about Ole George and Abe.

Even though we had a 4 day week this week we still worked on jobs with an extra friend or 2 at each table we were able to get all 4 rotated through everyone.

We created our very own American Flags by tearing paper (great fine motor skill).

We matched Cherry Trees. This was actually a job from our Apple Lesson, but it went perfectly with this weeks lesson.

(Gotta get a picture of those)

We created Presidential Portraits of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln (I will have to make sure to take a picture of Ole Honest Abe. not sure how I forget to get a quick pic of him). Notice George's beautiful eyelashes. My kids ahve a fascination with drawing teeth and lashes lately.

 

After learning about Abraham Lincoln the next day we played a game called "What's Under Lincoln's Hat?" I showed them then hid 5 different objects under the hat and then removed 1 object and they ahd to guess what was missing.  After everyone got a turn we drew self portraits of ourselves in tall black hats and transcribed what we would hide  under our hats.

 

Part of our Presidential Smart Board Lesson was looking at the different coins each president was featured on so we Sorted Some Coins. I meant to bring real coins for them to sort along with the work sheet, but I had a true teacher fail and forgot them. I can admit when I screw up and my kids will remind me over and over and over and over and over each time I forget to do something.

We couldn't forget to make our Umbrella U.

I had everything ready to make Ole Abe's Log Cabin, but a 4 day week really cuts down our craft time. I would rather not have these random days off and just go to school because I feel like we don't have enough time as it is to get everything done as it is. I still think we should get rid of nap time. Just think of all the craft time we would have!

We talked a lot about who could be president one day and to top it off we made our own President Masks.

They were a little top heavy, but still super cute.

This week flew by, but we had a bunch of fun learning about our beautiful country. I can';t wait to share the fun stuff we cooked up for next week. Get ready for some Seustastical  Fun!! Be on the look out for my Pippy Long Stockings costume!

Jump On Board Teachers Shout Out

If you are a teacher, mom, human, and you have a minute you must go check out my Awesome MIL's Teacher Pay Teacher site! She also has a super cute blog she runs with a friend called Jump On Board Teachers  you should definitely follow if you are an elementary school teacher who likes blogs.

If you are not a teacher you may not know how much work actually goes into lesson planning. Yes we have books that give us ideas, but almost everything we use we make ourselves and that takes a lot of time. From planning the lesson, to creating all of the projects, to creating examples and getting all of the supplies needed for each each activity takes me almost an entire week to prepare for the next week which means while I am teaching that weeks lesson I have to find time to make everything I need for the following week. In 1 week we do 5 "jobs" or afternoon activities that include math , art , writing, and reading activities, etc. and then almost every day we are doing some sort of activity usually an art project that goes along with our theme. That means in 1 week we are completing 10-15 activities and with 19 students that takes some time to  do.

Now that we have that out of the way enter the Teacher Pay Teacher site where you can find tons of Lesson plan Ideas and purchase already created Lessons which can make a teachers life much much easier! Now I would toot my MIL's horn anyways because I love her, but I truly honestly LOVE her lessons!! She only started telling a few months ago and she has already created 6 multi page lessons. And when I say her lesson are complete they have everything from cute original stories to write the room activities.

If you have a moment go check her out.

 MLK Junior Celebration

Winter Wonderland Unit

Hickory Dickory Dock Time Lesson

New Year's Eve Telling Time Lesson

Snowman 5 Senses Unit

Zoo Themed Valentine Literacy Fun

Jump On Board

I am such a bad bad DIL (daughter in law)! My Awesome MIL(you figure this one out) has created a Fabulous teaching blog and I haven't posted anything about it! 

Welcome to Jump On Board Teachers

I knew my mother in law was an amazing teacher and I knew she loved lesson planning as much as I do, but it wasn't until I saw her first unit that I truly knew how Awesome she is.

I know you are thinking to yourself "What is so hard about lesson planning especially for little bitty people" Well let me tell you I know I personally work my butt of all week planning and getting everything ready for the next week while trying to teach and deal with emergencies like flying boogers and accidents and not I don't mean falling down accidents I mean pee accidents.

If you are a teacher and are looking for great comprehensive preschool-first grade units please pretty please go check out my MIL's Blog, Pinterest, and Facebook.

PreK Days {Mr. C and The Carnival/Circus}

{Weekly Wrap Up}

Once again I am late, but I am catching up quite nicely. Last week we met Mr. C and learned all about the Circus/Carnival. It was such a fun week and we topped it off with our very own Classroom Circus with Tight Rope Walking and a 3 Ring Bean Bag Toss.

We matched uppercase elephants with the lowercase letters on the peanuts

We made Cat C's

We colored circus animals, cut them out, and glued them on the correct ring with the matching number

Counted clowns and circled the correct number

We even made a Circus Mural which I keep forgetting to take pictures of, but if this little horse is any indication of how cute it turned out you my friends are in for a treat!!

I couldn't remember to turn my lesson in after 5 trys of carrying it around the school on different errands and now that I think about it I am honestly not sure if I ever actually turned it in. Thankfully the people I work for already know I am a little crazy so I think they expect it now.

PreK Days {Mrs. T & Transportation}

{Weekly Wrap up}

Once again I am behind and trying to catch up. This post should have been finished 3 weeks ago, but you know how life goes and some days life is just more important then blogging. So now we are meeting  Mrs. T and learning about transportation just a few weeks late.

We made Shape Buses and then had each student try to write the word BUS (My Brain) 

Made boats that really rock (My Brain). Each student painted a paper plate blue and after it dried we folded it in half. Next they cut out the brown bottom of the boat then cut out and colored the sail. I glued the bottom of the boat and sail onto the popsicle sticks and on to the folded paper plate (open side down) because we start running out of time before we had to head off to specials.

and Advent Wreaths because the first Sunday of Advent was December 2

We actually didn't get to do 2 of our activities because we had to practice all of our safety drills and one of our religion lessons ran way over, but some days you just cant do it all and if you can't roll with the punches you will get eaten alive by 4 year olds.

For jobs the week we:

Counted Train Cars (My Brain)

Placed the Correct Drops Of Water On The Boats

Loaded the Trucks With the Right Number Of Blocks

  

Spelled Our Names With Trains Cars (My Brain)

And Made Tractor T's

 

Pre K Days {Thanksgiving}

{Weekly Wrap up}

I am so behind on life right now! I haven't been getting all of my stuff done ahead of time and I don't like it!! Life is so much easier and you have so much more time if you are prepared and I intend to get back on top of the game.

I just relized I never posted our activities and crafts from Thanksgiving week. We were crazy busy trying to get everything ready for the following week in 2 days that I am not even sure if I snapped pictures of everything.

We didn't have jovbs this week since we only had 2 days we all completed the same activities at the same time which was a bit chaotic, but we got it done.

First I am going to start with the Precious cookies my Awesome Room Mom made. They were adorable and delicious!

We made a Turkey Glyph

A Turkey Hat

Pilgrims

And did some Turkey Math

Happy Thanksgiving!

Pre K Days {Mr. N Nursery Rhymes}

I forgot to upload a few pictures today and left the card in my school camera so I will have to for realz finish this post tomorrow, but I am so darn tired of working on it I just had to get it up and posted. I have been so busy trying to get next week {Thanksgiving} and the week after {Transportation} finished so I can be ahead of the game that I just need to get this off of my brain!

ENJOY!

{Weekly Wrap Up}

Last week Mr. N came to visit and taught us all about Nursery rhymes. Since nursery rhymes are silly poems with rhyming words I wanted to really focus on what else......Rhyming words! I feel like this is such an abstract concept for my babies to grasp that I wanted to spend extra time on it. Each student has  K.I.T.E. folder they take home everyday and in the back of their folder is a section for GASP.....HOMEWORK! Yes I give my 4 year olds homework and the LOVE IT! It is simple activities that reinforce what we are learning in the classroom and this month half of their homework has to do with rhyming. 

I was really excited to let my kids finally use the SMARTBOARD to play a rhyming game which really seemed to help them get the whole rhyming concept. Rhyming isn't a very tactile concept so being able to touch the pictures and hear the words at the same time seemed to really make it sink in. We will be spending a longer amount of time on this skill because I want them to really understand it.

Now how about some Nursery Rhyme/Rhyming activities.

This week we worked on Workbooks I have made up out of worksheets I have or activities I have made up. This is a skill they will need to have for kindergarten so every now and then instead of an Activity I will be substituting a workbook. In this particular workbook the students had to draw a line to the matching rhyming word on the opposite side.

Another rhyming workbook. This time the students had to look at the picture in the middle and draw a line to each picture it rhymed with.

I want to start focusing on drawing shapes next week so we completed a workbook on tracing shapes and matching shapes.

 And our final job we made an N nest with a little blue birdie.

I was really excited about our Nursery Rhyme activities this week. I wanted to once again show my students multiple ways you coule Tell or Read a story so we read a Nursery Rhyme Book, Watched a Video and I Used a Picture Story/Felt Board Story. On the first day we talked about what a Nursery Rhyme is and that it was a special story because it was a poem written especially for little kids and had rhyming words.

We read Hey Diddle Diddle and found the rhyming words and then the kiddos made their own Dishes and Spoons.

I told them Baa Baa Black Sheep using a picture story or felt story. Then I wrote the Nursery Rhyme on the SMARTBOARD and the students helped me find the rhyming words. Then they made their own Black Sheep by sponge painting  a piece of white paper with the sheep's body drawn on it. After they dried they cut out the body and the rest of the pieces and put their not so little sheep together.

We read Humpty Dumpty and watched a little Nursery Rhyme rap video of the story. Then the students made their own Humpty Dumpty. I meant to have them tell me what they would do to put Humpty Dumpty back together again, but we ran out of time and then I forgot.

The last story we read and then watched a Nursery Rhyme Rap was The Itsy Bitsy Spider. Then the students created their own Nursery Rhyme Book and they were the Author and the Illustrator which is something we have emphasized since we started reading books and now they got to do it themselves.