Spring has arrived!

The Very Hungry Caterpillar, bees & pollination, growing flowers, colorful artist studies...SO many things I love to teach about in the spring! 

The Very Hungry Caterpillar reading center!

Garden Market pretend area!

Insects & seed exploration in discovery area!

Bee hive out of egg crates!

March Math!

Happy March! Ready your centers with St. Patrick's Day themed games from the Pre-K Tweets shop! https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Pre-k-Tweets/Category/St-Patrick-s-Day

Wings and things!

As I was going through past photos of this year on my camera card..I found the long lost photos of our insect jars!  This was such a fun activity and it incorporated nature/creativity!  I printed off the mason jar template from here: http://sweetlyscrappedart.blogspot.com/2011/07/mason-jar-i-love-mason-jars-free.html

Then, during our insects and garden unit,  our class went for a nature walk and collected all little sorts of nature artifacts in ziploc baggies.  I pre-labeled the baggies with their names and all my assistant had to do was pull out their nature bag when it was their turn for art. 

I love how precise this one is... This student is always very careful and takes time in whatever she does.. We visited our school pond and it looks like she made some lily pads in her jar! 

Students were encouraged to illustrate their own insects...

I love this student collected a little bit of dirt...she said it was in case her ladybug got hungry..HAHA! 

I picked this game up at a garage sale last summer..FOR A DOLLAR!  So much fun...the bees are in the hive..students take turns pulling out the leaf sticks..a few bees fall into the personal trays and students count their bees at the end! LOVE IT! 

SO FUN when I see skills being practiced in action!!  Candid photos are the best!! I save my old cell phones and put a few in the pretend center so students are encouraged to practice oral language skills.... I had this one Spanish only speaking student this year..He could talk up a storm on one of these old cell phones!

I've been trying to encourage writing in all of the centers...  interesting and unique writing utensils like crayola twist up colored pencils, gel pens, and these flower pens are fun ways to get students to WANT to write! 

"telephone"  leave a couple of these pvc pipes in a center.. and just see what wonderful things can happen!  

FLOWER POWER!! These grass styrofoam boxes were a display to hold mini pinwheels at hobby lobby..I asked the manager if  I could have them and he gave me four!  Students practiced flower arranging and fine motor skills in the sensory tub! 

More Spring!

I purchased these butterfly life cycle models at Michaels craft store  for around 6 dollars.. we've used them so far for storytelling in whole group, story retelling, sequencing, and observing in the science center!  The brand is Safari Ltd. and Michaels also carries frog and plant life cycle models!  I am anxious for our butterfly house and caterpillars to arrive!!  They will be here within the week!  

We watched this Very Hungry Caterpillar claymation clip in class...It is made by kids and super cute.. my students were noting what everything was made of...it's inspiring to them because they can recreate the story through art using things we have in the classroom...they actually clapped when it was over and wanted to watch it again! 

A look at our spring calendar! Only a few weeks to go till Summer break! The Owl themed month headers are from: http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Owl-Theme-Calendar-Freebie

Spring Vocab.

These "Very Hungry Caterpillar" word cards, in the pocket chart, are FREE! on tpt: http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Eric-Carles-Very-Hungry-Caterpillar-Vocabulary-Cards

The garden and insect vocab. is from a downloadable printable pack from tpt : 

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Monthly-Vocabulary-Cards-12-Themes

The pack is $6..but includes so many themes..including farm, family, zoo, and ocean!

This is a photo of part of our writing center... since we are studying creepy crawlies, I've added some spider rings on the markers! and included some fun spring themed pencils..

Spring Blocks, Pretend, and Reading Centers!

We are starting our gardening unit this week! In our blocks center we have gardening tools, gloves, watering cans, pots, and flowers, insect/plant books, and ..of course... blocks/block people.  

These pretend play items and books  might inspire students to plan and design their own gardens...students might use blocks as fences, flower boxes, or outline their gardens...

The pretend center is now a garden market!  It contains garden vegetables and a variety of flowers...

Vocab, chalk, mini chalkboard plant markers (Michaels dollar bins) encourage writing.. 

Students may write their own labels or prices on mini chalkboards (Michaels craft store). The plant stand is actually a magazine rack from my living room!  

I used actual pictures from my honeymoon when we visited a farmer's market in Quebec!

The reading center contains large spiders (Halloween sale at a party store),  a large caterpillar/butterfly puppet, ladybug puppets, artificial flowers, garden felt board for creating stories and retelling familiar stories. I included informational and fiction books about bugs/insects, spring, and gardens. 

Spring Math and Science Centers

Science Center - Hungry Caterpillar/Garden Vegetables vocab. cards and butterfly sequence cards

Science Center - bug and garden books, color sensory bottles, spring/bug puzzles, bean seed and flower exploration bowl, spring match game, flower petal sorting game, rain stick, ruler, stones and pebbles

I found these wood/styrofoam grass boxes at hobby lobby..they were part of a display and the manager gave three of them to me for free!  Students can poke flowers into the foam (fine motor) and make their own arrangements (creative expression).  I also have one of these grass foam boxes in my sensory garden tub.  I made some see identification mini posters with seed packets and actual seeds (clear tape over the seeds). They go with a seed sort game (not pictured).  

These yellow plastic bottles are awesome! The top is a magnifying glass and they unscrew..so students can take them out to the playground to collect items from nature to observe in the center later. They came in my Lakeshore science kit.. I think it came with about 10 of the bottles. 

Flower petal counting.. the petals are from the craft/bead area in Hobby Lobby..ice cube tray..magnifying glass..and I also put tweezers with it for fine motor.

Rain stick for April showers!

Math Center - "5 Little Honeybees" book/other books about counting bugs or vegetables,  measurement game with mini cubes, counting mats, Fly to the Nest board game, manipulatives for measuring (that is our math topic for this week). 

The counting mats, flowers, and ladybugs came from Lakeshore..the Hungry Caterpillar buckets came from the dollar aisle at Target : ) 

Hungry Caterpillar story sequencing and counting card..these little stick on hooks are removable  and do not leave a mark on the cabinet..plus the cards can slip out of the hooks so students can arrange them in order! 

In puzzles center we have a large Hungry Caterpillar floor puzzle, Hungry Caterpillar  that has a matching card game inside (bought on clearance at Books-a-Million!), and insect/vegetable/spring wooden puzzles. 

Spring Games!

Aren't these chicks ADORABLE?!! They came in a pack of six from Dollar Tree.  Students can identify and/or count and fill the chick eggs with the correct number of beads. I have about 20 felt flower buckets that were recently bought at Goodwill! I have seen some translucent carrot shaped eggs..vegetable/garden unit game? I might have to go back for those!

Here is an ABC upper/lower case match game..there were 24 eggs in the pack from Dollar Tree.

I made this folder game a few years ago and it has held up quite nicely (despite one beakless bird!) It's a traditional roll'em, count'em path game.  

Perfect rainy day or math center game for April!  I have a total of four mats...1-4 students can play this game each with a mat...OR two people can play on one mat (object would be just to fill up the whole mat together).  

again...TARGET DOLLAR AISLE!  : )  These are perfect game piece holders for our upcoming Hungry Caterpillar unit! 

Paper pads and bulletin board cut-outs to make into more spring vocab..purchased from Apple Tree!

A teacher friend of mine introduced me to "Smellies!"  A student reward, a smear of smell good chap stick on their hand, that is inexpensive and last a long time!  The kids love it!  Chap stick is reminding me of something one of my students replied back to me when I asked her to put away her own chap stick.."But Mrs. M, I'm just gonna keep it in my pocket, so it's close, 'cause I might need it to chap my lips later."  : )

Vegetable Soup!

Last week we learned about flower gardens/water gardens..so this week we focused on vegetable gardens. I(and the kids too!) had a lot of fun this week!

Here are some of the activities we did:

-Read food books including "Growing Vegetable Soup" and "Gus the Horrible Eater"

-Planned our own vegetable soup..students drew and labeled vegetables (with their own pre-k spelling!) and we "put them in the pot" (butcher paper pot)

-My assistant read a Spanish book about making soup..each student added a felt vegetable to the felt pot...then they played with the felt set as a center.

-Counted vegetable syllables..highlighted letters in vegetable words..discussed beginning letter sounds of vegetables. 

-Sang "Vegetable Soup" and "Making Pizza with My Momma"

-Did the fingerplay "Peter Rabbit and the 10 little Carrots"
-sand rhyming words (included potato, tomato!!)
-played Mr. Potato Head game and hot potato

-Measured vegetables with unifix cubes and compared the sizes!

-Played vegetable bingo (included letter sounds)

-Had a celery taste test and completed a celery bubble chart (crunchy, green, stringy, watery, etc. and included the 5 senses!)

-Did a celery color experiment (we observed how the leaves drink the water from the roots)

-Planted herbs and voted on names for our two class plants..Tin Tin and Mara (oops we forgot to water them today!)

-Created a tops/above and bottoms/below vegetable chart to show which vegetables grow above and below ground..labeled with pre-k spelling and practiced positional words!

-Had our own farmer's market in the pretend center!

-Sorted seeds and did one-to-one correspondence in the science center.

-Explored the insides of vegetables..counted the seeds inside.

-Stamped with peppers, potatoes, and celery, and paints!

-annnd finally...cooked our very own vegetable soup today!!


....also this week:


-we reached our community "working together" goal of six cupcakes on the board! ..we had cupcakes along with our soup today!


-we attended an exciting assembly this morning where pre-k did an awesome job of singing and doing hand motions to twinkle twinkle and five little ducks!


-we completed all the sunny squares in our weather graph and planned a sunny party for Monday! ..they came up with ideas all on their own and we listed them on the board..they decided to wear their yellow school uniform shirts, drink lemonade, where their sunglasses, and eat yellow foods like bananas. I'm going to add in some "Sun Chips" and probably some yellow candies or iced cookies. 


-we added two HUGE! grasshoppers, a fat little caterpillar, and some snake skin to our science center..all of which the kids found on the playground... all creatures were released at dismissal today :) I guess the kids are a bit over excited about all the spring creepy crawlies on the playground..we studied Eric Carle insects the week before.. a poor frog got squeezed a little too much..because some of our prek friends got a little to excited and well..he's in froggy heaven :(  I hope we never find the snake who lost his skin! yikes!

Math Tubs and April Centers

We recently started our math groups...and they are going great!  The kids are divided into color groups (red group, green group, etc.) I have 5 groups and 5 shoe boxes. 4 kids are in each group. Each shoe box has a cute coordinating colored owl label I made. The image is from the internet and then I did the text, frame, and colors in photoshop. I laminated them and used velcro to attach to shoe boxes. 

We have practiced a lot of graphing lately. We have graphed things from stories we've read, our likes and dislikes, Last week we studied Eric Carle/Insects...I had a mason jar with plastic insects and we estimated then counted the insects daily...we then compared the results at the end of the week.  One of the math tub games for this week was a pattern block graphing game.  The students had to flick the spinner (q-tip stick/paperclip) and then graph/fill in the shape they landed on.  Instead of laminating, I used a plastic page protector.
This print out was free from:  
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Pattern-Block-Activities
This set on teachers pay teachers is great because it also comes with other activities such as a shape tally..We've been doing a daily tally that goes along with our date/number of the day.

This is a big/little number dice roll game.  Students roll two dice then write the bigger number under the big frog, and the smaller number under the small frog.  They did very well! This was also free and it is from:http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Big-and-Little-Frogs-Number-Dice-Game
I can change the clip art and make it a new game. 

I'm not a fan of worksheets but since we've been studying flower gardens this week ..and honeybees...I made this into a math tub.  It consists of 6 honeybee pages..inserted into plastic page protectors... finish the pattern, circle how many, math to the correct number or size.  My assistant takes one group out in the hall and I stay in the classroom and monitor, assess, and help with the games.

My assistant played this game with one of the groups. 
It is free from:
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Spring-Showers-Representing-Numbers-Math-Center
The students have to match the number on the dice card, to the written number, to the number symbol, and to the tally.
At the end, they practice writing a number in three different ways. The free download comes with that sheet also. 

This is a roll, color, count game I found for free from:
http://www.kidscount1234.com/mathcentersandgames.html

Here is one of our new centers..teacher pretend!  They LOVE this center. They get to use the teacher pointer, listen to ABC Disco or Learning Letter Sounds, and write on the board.  I made each letter on the alphabet on photoshop and found images on the internet..once I figure out how to provide a download, I will post it... I made the calendar number cards on photoshop also..they are chicks and bunnies for April.  Every morning we do our pattern calendar, write and tally the number, introduce our "Friend of the Day" with name cheer and handwriting name practice,  graph the weather, and sing!

Here is a photo from another one of our centers this week.. I have a sand table that has pots, dirt, rocks, and flowers...and then I have another sensory table for our "water garden." It consists of foam lily pads, flowers, colored rocks, jewel stones, frogs, and ducks. We toured our school's garden courtyard that had lilies, lily pads, daffodils, irises, frogs, turtles, and fish!!  I need to go take some photos of that area..it is AMAZING! We read a children's book about Claude Monet this week..and then drew water garden lilies, fish, turtles, flowers with crayons and watercolored over it.  They are beautiful and are hanging above our sensory tables.  Will post photos soon!

Another center this week was flower shop... I had some left over wedding flowers and added some dollar store daises.some plastic cups from home for vases... ribbon...tissue paper...cash register.. they had a lot of fun in this center! Pinterest has a lot of great vocab. that I've been using with each theme in the centers. 

Last week we were learning about insects..this week we are learning about flower gardens.  So we tied the two together and completed a pollination experiment/study.  We read "Where there's a Bear, there's trouble" and read "Number Bees."  We did our experiment with cheese balls instead of cheetos and they were so excited! Idea and above photo is from pinterest and little kinder warriors.

Another exciting thing has happened this week... I bought my car!  It is a Nissan Xterra and I am loving it!  It is especially great because I've been using it to haul stuff to school!  Aren't these butterflies cool!!?? I bought them at Ross for $4.99 each!! I am going to hang them from the ceiling in my science center next year.