"Mat Man" from Hand Writing without Tears...We did this as a group with the song.

 Some of our charts I have used this week

 Our song during math time to learn our colors as well as same and different

 Our names added to the word wall

 The students made their own Mat Man on their white boards

 They did very well with this for being our 4th day of school

 Day # 5 we are already sorting colors into groups and they picked up on this fast.

 This was the second day we did Mat Man this time on chart paper.  One student asked me "What about the hairs here?" He was pointing to his eyebrows so we added hair on his head and eyebrows.  I loved how they were thinking of the details. Then after large group that is when they went to make one on their white boards.

We added the color words and animals from Brown Bear Brown Bear to our word wall

4th day of school

Today was the forth day of school.  We have had some ups and downs so far.  I started out with 11 students that I started calling to set up a time for the parents to bring their child in before school started to have them assessed with the ECAT.  During the call there was two disconnected numbers (I mean all numbers were disconnected that they put on their application) so they got dropped.  Then one momma stated she doesn't think they are ready for public school that her child has special needs.  I asked what kinds of special needs cause we can accommodate them the best we can especially if that child has an IEP.  She stated he doesn't talk and isn't potty trained (Ok my thoughts here was really at 4 he isn't potty trained).  I let her know that he has to be potty trained to start Pre-K and that she needed to let us know what they planned to do cause there is a waiting list.  Well he never showed up so he got dropped from my list.  The added more students to my list that I got to meet at Meet the Teacher Night and they set up their times to bring their child in.  So long story short I have 18 kids and 14 are boys.  Another boy got dropped from my class cause of no show (if they don't show they get dropped) I received another application today bringing my total back up to 18.

So I am going to be challenged this year with having this many boys.  I already have a sore throat from repeating myself so much and now a cough to go with it now.  Some other challenges I have had so far has to do with technology.  I have a brand new Promethean Board that has duel pens and neither one of them works.  So a work order was put in the week before school started (about 10 days ago) second challenge with the board that my wires that connect from the board to my computer are too short and i have to bring the laptop to the board and it sits in a students chair.  I have to work the board this way by using the mouse and not the pens.  Well last week the board not won't connect with my laptop so I had to come up with a backup plan (using a projector hooked to my laptop to project our calendar etc onto the board) but this has wires crossing the middle of my circle time carpet where an accident is waiting to happen.  I planned my lessons with fun activities that involve the board.  So needless to say this has been a challenge.

We are still learning the routine of the classroom and the boys rather "not" listen to what I am saying and I have to repeat myself.  So my goal this week is to find a way to connect to them to get them to follow directions within the first 2 or 3 times not 10-15 times. LOL.

I want to end it with a quote from one of my boys who was assigned to housekeeping today.  "Ms. Beavers housekeeping is boring."  Don't you love them. :)

Working hard

I have been working hard the last 3 days in my classroom.  This year we have a new principal and she is letting us into our classrooms a week earlier than normal.  YEAH! Since I have a new Promethean Board in my classroom I had to rethink my classroom layout. And I think it will work well this year.  We will have to see when I have students in the room.

This year's theme for my class is "Growing in the Garden".  I wanted to do this theme 1. I love gardening. 2. we have garden beds the students work in. And 3. I think it will connect well with learning.  So I had no idea what to do with my bulletin boards, so I went looking on Pinterest for ideas and BINGO tons of ideas came up.

This is going to be my word wall.  I am still working on it.  I had to hand make the sunflowers and still need to make 10 more.  Plus when I pulled out my letters some were missing hence the missing letters.  I am going to add green stems from each flower and then place the words we will use throughout the year on leaves and then add to the stems.  I hope this works out.  I will also add a small picture on the leaf with the word so my students can see what they are writing and learning.  Then I need to finish the tree with leaves from tissue paper.  I am also going to add butterflies to the tree.

This board is going to be my schedule, agenda, and Common Core Standards.  The ladybugs will have the student's names for them to hang up their backpacks next too.  I had a white picket fence on the green part but didnt like how it looked so I took it down and going to make a different one.  For my daily agenda I am making a beehive that will display the times for the activities and around the beehive will be bees that have the