Tis the Season

 Students glues together red and green construction paper petals of a poinsettia.  Adding glitter for a special touch.

 My loft was invaded by the gingerbread man and snow flakes.

 Students were practicing writing color words onto their own copy of the above chart.

 Finished product hanging in the classroom.

 The students were introduced a KWL chart from our story about how owls grow.  These are their thoughts and questions about OWLS.

 Students were asked to draw and picture and write about what they did at Thanksgiving.  I took their dictations.

 This is their foot and hand prints that they traced with the help my TA and then they cut out their hands and their foot adding a nose and eyes to make this cute reindeer.  Parents are going to love having their hands and foot forever.

 This is a wreath with their hand prints in green paint.  I added red paint for the berries and then some I added glitter.

fall is in the air

The first picture is a project my students did about turkeys.  It is a windsock turkey.  I have done this for a few years and the kids love it.  The second photo is of my loft.  I turned the loft into a fall tree.  I used brown butcher paper to make the trunks of the tree and attached them to my legs of the loft.  I then placed leaves I purchased from the Dollar Tree and stuck them in the ceiling tiles to give the ceiling the tree look as if the ceiling was part of the tree too.  The kids enjoyed going to their reading center in "the tree".

Garden Veggies

 Lettuce from the first grade gardens.

 Tomatoes from the third grade gardens

Zennias from another first grade garden bed that survived the hot hot summer

Banana peppers in another first grade garden.  Our garden beds had a hard first year with a sizzling summer of 112 degree temps and construction workers moving beds that should have not been moved.

Cute Ideas from my Fellow Peers

 This idea is from another pre-k teacher I work with.  Both our classrooms are doing the Around the World with Pre-K.  I liked her idea.

 First grade classes are doing the yearly hide the turkey family project.

My school gardens

 Our school has 25 raised garden beds.  These are a few pictures of the beds after the construction at our school and the very hot hot summer we had.  The results were dried plants etc.

 Some beds were displaced.

 After fall rains our garden beds are showing signs of life and yummy lettuce and tomatoes.

The garden project of mine has been a dream for several years even when i was teaching at Head Start.  I wanted to create and outdoor learning classroom.  My combining the two things I love to do, teaching and gardening, my dream came true this past spring 2011 when the Indian Health Services provided us with the materials and the students provided the man power and so the learning began.  And hopefully for many years to come.

Photos of students work

The Students have been learning about harvesting.  On this project they made corn by using tissue paper in yellow and orange (twisting them) and placing them on their corn pattern.  Green construction paper leaves were added.

This poster I drew for our school carnival game that I will be running.

End of 1st quarter

I haven't posted a blog in awhile.  The 1st quarter ended last week and the 2nd has started.  This week  my students enjoyed learning about pumpkins.  We did many things to learn about pumpkins.  My parents were great in helping provide baby pumpkins for the children to explore with magnifying glasses and to explore in water to see if they would sink or float.  I brought a large pumpkin for the children to make predictions with orange yarn to see if they could guess the circumference of the pumpkin with their yarn,  Then they had to place their string on the chart marked too short, just right, or too long.  We also learned the life cycle of the pumpkin from seed to pumpkin. 


A few of the other themes we have done so far this year and in the first quarter were, getting to know me, apples, fall and leaves.  The students are picking up the letters I have introduced quite well.  All but maybe 2 students can count to 10 already.  They also know their colors, most know their shapes (square is the one giving them trouble), and they know the parts of the books.  I have been introducing things like question marks at the end of a question, nouns, and characters.  Many students are locating the letters we are learning in our classroom and environment.  This year I have introduced homework packets to the students and parents.  Students are showing responsibility of completing their work and parents are guiding them.  I will post some pictures of their work on my next post.

Students Have Arrived

Today my students arrived.  I have 17 students enrolled and assessed. (9boys and 8 girls )  Parents dropped off their students with cameras in hand.  I had several crying most of the morning but that was ok.  I don't think my teacher assistant liked the crying.  I even had a mom cry cause it was her last baby to start school.  These are my students very first time in a school setting yeah some of them have been in daycare but that isn't a school.  Many of these students are also siblings of past students i have had. It feels good and I am honored that  parents want their child to be in my classroom. So I have a good feeling about this year.  They are testing high and can sit through a story.  I taught them three songs today that they wanted me to do over and over. Today we went over a few procedures like how to walk in the line, how to play with the blocks and dramatic play things, and the procedure during lunch time.  The biggest thing that I enjoyed the most about today was the fact the students sat through a story and listened to it.  Last years class had a very difficult time sitting to listen to a story all year long.  Fingers are crossed this lasts.

Assessment day

Today was the first day of school but I only had to assess students today by appointments only.  Every one that was scheduled showed up.  It looks to be a great start to the school year.  I have returning families with younger siblings this year.  I am excited to be working again with these families and their little ones.  The students are showing great promise as to what they can learn this year.  I think it will be one of those school years where they are going to keep me on my toes with finding new and exciting things to teach them.  Many of the students already are naming letters and numbers.  YEAH!!!  I just finished up preparing my call log book for this group of students and scored their assessments so I am trying to stay ahead of myself and not get behind.  I meet my new teacher assistant.  This is a long line of TAs (teacher assistants) I have had for the past 6 years at my school.  Hopefully this one shows promise and as much passion as I do for the children.

First Friday

Today was the first Friday of my school year.  I spent all morning in our meeting with the principal and staff.  Lots of stuff to go over and refresh ourselves with procedures.  Today was the first day that I actually felt glad to be back at work.  The other days I was having a difficult time getting things done and started.  Today I brought my sons to help me in the classroom.  While I was in meetings I gave them tasks I wanted them to help me with.  My youngest son helped me make flags of different countries (Pictures when all are done).  My other son helped with my bulletin boards by taking down the old ones and then putting up the new.  Thank you boys.  I brought several things home to be completed before the first day of school. My mom got me a display of a school bus from her job for me to use in my classroom.  See pictures of what I did with it.  I hope the kids love it.

Moving Day

Today i finally got to get into my classroom at about 1:00 today.  My boys and I started moving the furniture back to where i had it last year.  I really want to make a change to the layout but decided to go with what works for the room.  So after working to 5:00 we got the room arranged and ready for me to work on the small details like posters, bulletin boards etc.  I still don't know who will be in my class and the times are not set up for their assessments for Monday and Tuesday.  While arranging the classroom I had to kill a lot of large spiders who I guess decided to spend the summer in my room.  I let my principal know so spraying can take place before students arrive on Monday.  My students will have their first day on Wednesday of next week.  I will be assessing them for two days.