Back to School Day is Tomorrow!

This will officially be the last year I am teaching preschool. I have one more 4 year old class of 8 fantastic students. I've had most of them in my classes since they were 2 years old and I'm so thrilled to take them all the way up to kindergarten. As Back to School day approaches I finished straightening up the house so it will be a perfect learning environment. This evening Miss K came to set up the photo backdrop and props for our back to school photos and I couldn't be happier. She does such fantastic work!

Where to Begin?

Wow! Where do I even begin? Life here in the past few months have been CRAZY! The short story: we hired a contractor to remodel the basement/preschool room. We made some poor choices and he ran off with our money :(. After a lot of heartache and searching we found a variety of new experts to complete the job. 3 months into our 2 week job and now it's officially finished. Yay!

Finally adding drywall

Adding paint

And now carpet

building in the bookshelves

Organizing and filling the bookshelves

adding in a door

making an under stair pantry

Finished pantry 

Now, you'll have to wait until after Back to School Day for the final pictures of the amazing new space we have to learn in.  I'm so excited!

Last Day of Preschool

Today was the last day of preschool and boy did we have fun!  We played puzzles and practiced graphing, we played outside in the sandbox and the playhouse, sang our songs to be ready for graduation and enjoyed the cool weather.

 What a great group of kids!

 The afternoon kids were building shelters out of tree branches, potions out of leaves and dirt and had a "baby" log they were carrying around and "stealing" from each other.  It was such fun dramatic play!

 We also finished up our assessments and played with puzzles, read stories, worked on graphing and counting to 100.

We had a fun day and I loved sharing our growth with the parents at the end of the day.  Thank you for sharing your kids with me this year!  I love them all!

Wednesday's Review and Assessments

I really love this time of year when we get to play and work more one-on-one together.  I LOVE seeing the data of how much these guys have learned!  Over the weekend we had a VERY wet and heavy snowfall (9 inches on Mother's Day!).  Due to that we lost an aspen tree in the back yard.  After seeing how much fun my kids had playing on it we decided to leave it for a while before cutting it up.  It makes the perfect half seesaw just a foot or two off the ground.  There are additional scrapes on kiddos today from their attempts to "climb" it and bounce on it, but boy did they have fun!

 We had the opportunity to release ladybugs in our afternoon class.  Some of the kids really loved playing with them for a bit before they flew off.  Others kept their distance. :).  I shared one of my favorite stories with the kids today: "Click, Clack, Moo Cows that Type".  It is such a fun book and we enjoyed reading it together.

Review and Spring Assessments and Goal Setting

I love this time of year.  I get to take the opportunity to work with each child individually and jot down notes about what they've learned throughout the year.  It is so awesome to see how much they've grown physically and educationally.  We read and play games.  We do a couple assignments that help me take notes about pencil grip and cutting skills.

 Best of all, we compile a folder of all the information with examples of work.  I am getting so excited to show these off to parents next Monday.  It's a wealth of information about what they've worked on and is a great starting point for writing goals for the future.  What a great spring!

Happy Mother's Day!

Today was such a busy fun day.  We had tons of fun making our surprises for Mother's Day.  If you're a mom and don't want a sneak peak you shouldn't read any further until after you've opened your gift.

We started the day in story time reading stories about moms and talking about how our moms are different from each other and perfect for each of us.  We talked about all the things they do for us and how grateful we are to them.  Then we headed to the table to make them some special art.  It was a painting fun mess and they turned out SO cute!

 We also worked on our letter Q activity page from the Amazing Action Alphabet and after our art work was done we wrapped our presents for our moms.  It's fun to use tape and wrapping paper in preschool :).  We also chatted about numerals 0-9 in math time.

 This afternoon was so much fun.  We reviewed the sounds of /ch/ and /th/ and introduced /sh/.  I love the Moffatt Girls Digraph Word Work!  Simple pages to work on a variety of skills.  We talked more about digraphs as well as long vowels and reading strategies in our guided reading groups.

 Math was hilarious today.  I don't even have any pictures.  I start the lesson about basic addition and they look at me like I'm crazy.  One kiddo pipes up: "5+5=10 and 10+10=20."  Well, needless to say my 1+1=2 basic intro wasn't quite on the right level so math was over and we'll hop into more interesting math on Monday.  Boy these kids get smart fast!  We also made lovely painting art for our Mother's Day gifts.  Don't scroll down if you don't want to see it :).

And the completed Mother's Day project:
"You are my sunshine"

Quilts, /TH/, and Greater Than/Less Than Alligators

Today was a super awesome day.  It was chalk full of learning and was very energizing.  We learned all about quilts and the letter Q in our morning class.  We read our Q/counting book from the Amazing Action Alphabet and read a book called "A Boy and His Quilt".  I love reading that story because it walks through quilt making from a child's perspective.  I grew up around quilts though my boys have never had that experience I feel like sharing this book helps them a little.  We then made a class quilt with quilt squares that we each colored.

 We worked on what the number zero is and means during math.  We practiced counting numerals on our TouchMath number strips as well.  We also did a shared reading of one of my favorite books, "Rhyming Dust Bunnies".  It is such a fun book and most of the words that I wanted the kids to try and read for me are bold and in red print so it was easy to point them out. Be sure to read it at home and have them read all the parts that they can!

This afternoon we reviewed what /ch/ says and talked about /th/.  Did you know /th/ has a spoken sound (like in "the") and a quiet sound (like in "think")?  Learning to try the two different sounds to determine what the word is can be a bit tricky, but since we already know the word "the" we're already half way there!

 Our guided reading groups explored long vowels and what to do when /ck/ appears in words.  We had a super awesome math lesson where the "alligator wants to eat the biggest number" was explained to start using the signs for greater than and less than.

We had an awesome day of learning!  Keep up the hard work!