Mrs. Karen's Preschool Ideas

Our Country!

2012-02-26T10:07:00.001-06:00

Last week was spent talking about "Our Country". I will make no apologies for being a "Born in the USA; Pledge of Allegiance Saying; Star Spangle Banner Singing; Red, White and Blue Wearing; Flag Flying; Bible Carrying; All American Girl"! So with that being said . . . let's talk about MY country!

No week would be complete without talking about a couple of my favorite presidents. Here our a couple of our George Washingtons -

and here are a couple of good 'ole Honest Abraham Lincolns!

No "Our Country" week would be complete without making an American flag. I think our class did a wonderful job with their flags.

There is a little special surprise about the stars that I wanted to share with you. Our letter of the week was "U" so we used some very small cocktail umbrellas to paint on our flags!

FUN!

In honor of "U" week we spent our "Fabulous Fun Friday" doing unusual things. First we painted an umbrella with unusual objects - no paint brushes were allowed!

Everyone had so much and the end results were very unusual!

This week cooking activity turned out to be very unusual to say the least! We made ugly cookies! Everyone added several different colors of food coloring to their vanilla icing . . .

and stirred!

And stirred!

Finally we spread our ugly icing onto our cookies

and enjoyed!

For our weekly science experiment we headed outside. We are having some unusually warm weather right now, so we just couldn't stay inside! We did a fun science experiment with baking soda, vinegar and a plastic bag! Put the baking soda into a bag -

Add a little vinegar -

AND then WATCH!

POP goes the bag!

I've got a riddle for you. Do you know how to tell if it was a good day at school? Look at the teacher, if she smells like vinegar and has paint and baking soda ALL OVER HER, it was a good day!

Thanks for visiting with us. I hope you got a few good ideas to do with your class and I hope you come back again to check in on us!

LaLaLaLaLa It is the Letter "L"

2012-02-26T09:30:00.000-06:00

Since Valentine's Day was on Tuesday this year we had 3 glorious day to spend talking about the lovely letter "L"! Our Wednesday art activity took a lot of patience and fine motor skills, but it turned out to be amazing. First we needed to cut some strips of brown paper for the lion's mane.

I drew a large circle on piece of yellow paper and each child added the eyes and a nose. Next, the children glued on the lion's mane.

The end results were unique and so very cute!

We also spend the ENTIRE day roaring like a lion and talking about this fascinating creature. I found some very interesting facts at Zoo Ville USA and Lions These are two terrific websites!

Thursday is ALWAYS jammed packed with "extra" activities (we have Chapel and Spanish classes each Thursday) so our art activity usually has to be quick AND fun (it always has to be fun!). This week we talked about lizards! I found some very interesting lizards facts over at Lizards . Be careful if you click the link, you could be there for HOURS! Our lizards were not exactly anatomically correct, but they were a huge hit with the entire class!

We just some very small lids to make the dots on the lizards. It was fun!

Since the beginning of the week was filled with talk of Valentine's and parties, I knew I had to do something VERY special for our "Fabulous Fun Friday". I sent a note home asking everyone to bring a flashlight to school on Friday. Hmmmm . . . let the fun begin! For our art project, we each made a small square with clear contact paper and tissue paper.

Of course it was great fun shining our flashlights through the tissue paper and looking at all the different colors.

We headed to the kitchen for our weekly cooking unit. This week we were a little more simple than usual, we made an "L" cookie.

Cute, fun, simple and VERY yummy!

It was a good thing that it didn't take very long to make and eat our cookies because our science experiments lasted a LOT longer than I had expected! Our first experiment started with everyone grabbing a partner and filling a big clear plastic container with water. (NOTE: Our containers are actually the lids from old CD containers.) Next, we added a little food coloring -

BUT, we did NOT stir them! Ahhhhhhh! Now, let's turn off the lights and look at them with our flashlights!

Cool, huh? We can't stop now! Let's add another drop, or two, of a different color food coloring!

I loved hearing everyone talk about what they were seeing. My favorite was, "It looks like a jelly fish!". I do believe it does!

Next we headed to our BIG Spanish/Music room for some light games. First we played our "Color Game". This time however, we turned the lights out and everyone had to find the color with their flashlights! FUN!!!! After a while everyone was getting a little TOO wild so we had to take a quick break. We all laid down on the floor and pointed our flightlights straight UP!

We all just laid there for a while making shapes and letters with the lights. It was an amazing day!

Thanks for visiting with us! I hope you come back soon!

Happy Valentine's Day!

2012-02-14T06:46:00.000-06:00

Let me start my post by saying upfront that I am married to the most understanding man in the universe (and NO, I'm not saying this because he might read my blog). I think every husband of a preschool teacher must be part saint. My sweet Bill has not thrown away a bottle cap or empty toilet tissue/paper towel roll in years. He has actually brought GIANT leaves home from family reunions just so I could take them to school. During the summer months he patiently puts up with my "piles of treasures" that I am saving to take to school in September. After all these years I do believe he looks at the world a little differently. But, during the month of February, I feel very sorry for him. We aren't one of those "valentine" couples. It is not that we don't love and adore each other, but come on, I don't need him to buy me candy (which I can't/shouldn't eat) or flowers (I'm not a cut flower girl, they just die) just because it is February 14th. I feel sorry for him because even if we WERE "that" couple, how in the world could he compete with all we do at school? Come on now, my class has been talking about Valentine's Day and making hearts and valentines for the last week like crazy. I literally sat in the floor last week and cut out over 100 hearts in different shapes and colors! And the gifts, OH MY! Preschool teachers are truly the most loved people in the world. I am always showered with the sweetest gifts and notes on Valentine's Day. I do believe that Valentine's Day is the best day to be a preschool teacher. So, to my sweet Bill, I love you and I know you love me! Happy Valentine's Day!

Valentine Boxes

2012-02-13T14:56:00.000-06:00

I can't believe that the day BEFORE Valentine's Day I had HALF of my class out! Of course I don't want anyone to be sick but we had super fun stuff planned for today and so many people missed it :(
Hopefully, everyone can get their Valentine boxes finished before our party tomorrow but I could not wait to share a few of them today!

Our Snake!

Our University of Alabama "Elephant"

Our University of Florida "Gator"

Our Pink Princess Pig

Our Auburn University "Tiger"

Aren't they wonderful!!! I hope to add some more tomorrow (she types keeping her fingers crossed!).

You Know You're a Teacher When . . .

2012-02-13T07:38:00.004-06:00

I'm loving this linky party! I can relate with every single one of them! Here is my contribution -

Head on over Kindergarten Lifestyle and link up!

Valentine's Week!

2012-02-12T10:36:00.001-06:00

Oh the madness has begun! Yes, it is the week before Valentine's Day and we are SO busy at school. We have been working on the most amazing present for our parents. Our present includes a big surprise - we are writing and more than just our names! Yes, for months now we have been working on our writing skills. We have all different kinds of "pre"-writing activities that the children do everyday. Most are so much fun they don't even realize they are learning to write. I have page after page of laminated sheets that we write on each day (thanks to some wonderful dry-erase crayons!!!). We also use our chalk box to write and draw on every day.

This HUGE box was given to me by one of my sweet parents.

With a little contact paper our class now has a chalk board box.

We love writing on it especially with the colored chalk.

OH NO! I'm off topic again! Let's get back to our Valentine presents. Here they are . . . .

Let me tell you how we did this. First we started by taking our pictures. Look closely at our background. My friend, Mrs. Christi found an old table cloth with hearts on it! Isn't it perfect?!?!?!? AND thanks to my local Walgreens Store and all their fun editing choices, we made our present extra special by adding a HEART shaped photo. The fun continued when we made our photo mat. We used marbles and rolled the colors on!

My class loves to do marble rolling!

It is a great fine motor skill activity

and they love "reminding" me that we are using my Daddy's old marbles!

Now, let's talk about the "FABULOUS" part! Look at our writing . . .

YES, WE WROTE BY OURSELVES!!!!!! Can you tell I'm proud? I can hardly wait until Tuesday!!!

We also worked on some artwork that my class called the "Eric Carle Heart". I guess I've read enough Eric Carle books to make a serious impression on them :0) We started by painting our paper. Now, we can't just "paint paper" that would be boring so we PAINTED the paper using all kinds of different objects. We used a toothbrush -

We used a make-up brush -

We also used a plain 'ole paintbrush too! Then we smeared all the paint together with a scrapper that I found.

The end results were awesome!

But we weren't finished yet! We cut and tore the paper into strips and pieces (more fine motor skills!).

and glued them on a giant heart.

I added a little glitter glue around the edges and WOW!

These are proudly displayed on my bulletin board wall now and will be kept for our end of the year art show.

Since it was "H" week we wanted to incorporate something with our hands. I love what we came up with. This is our first very simple hand project -

Here is a close-up of our poem.

I loved when the children realized they had made a heart with their hands!

Our second hand project was a little more fun and a lot more yummy! We made our hand print with some red glitter paint.

Next, we stamped on some hearts and added the yummy part - Sweet Tart Hearts!

Of course we had to eat some too! The end results were pretty, fun and tasty! We called it our "Tree of Love".

I think this year's class loves our weekly science experiments as much as I do. This week we used the left over "Sweet Tart Hearts" as our experiment. First, we dissolved them in a small amount of warm water.

The purple and green made a strange combination!

Then we added a small amount of baking soda.

The acid in the candy and the baking soda made bubbles!

I love doing science experiments with everyday items. You can find this experiment and others at Candy Experiments . It is one of our favorite sites!

Thanks for checking on us this week. I hope you come back and visit us again. Next week we will have our annual Valentine's Party and talk about the letter "L". After all, "February is the month of LOVE"!

Groundhog's Day 2012

2012-02-05T09:33:00.003-06:00

Isn't he just the cutest thing? We made these on Thursday for Groundhog's Day! Let me show you how EASY they were to make.

First, the children glued on our poem and cut our grass -

Next, we glued our little groundhog to our craft stick -

I cut a small slit right below the poem. Now our groundhog is in his burrow -

Now he has popped up and is looking for his shadow -

We also read the most wonderful book! It was called Groundhog Gets A Say by Pamela Curtis Swallow and Illustrated by Denise Brunkus.

We loved it!

Did Mr. Groundhog see his shadow where YOU live? Birmingham Bill saw his so it looks like we will have 6 more weeks of winter! :0(

Q is for Quilt

2012-02-05T09:15:00.000-06:00

The letter "Q" is always a difficult letter for me to teach. Let's be honest, there aren't a lot of fun "Q" words. I know, I know, "queen", "quick", "quack", but come on . . . how many times can you you be "quick" while you are "quacking"? This year besides the girls being "quacking queens" and the boys being "quick quarterbacks" we made a "quilt! Everyone made their own "square" and we joined them together! This turned out to be a keeper! I am sure it will be a hit at our art show! "Quick" and Fun, you have to love it!

Circus Week!

2012-01-29T09:41:00.000-06:00

I have to be perfectly honest, I wasn't really looking forward to our "Circus" unit this past week. It is not that I don't like the circus, it is mainly because we had just finished up one of the most amazing units, "The Solar System". I was really afraid that our class might be a little bored but I think we manage to enjoy our discussions about the circus after all. We started our unit by talking about the wonderful circus clowns out of shapes. We all had a good time "screaming" out the different shapes we found. Hey, the circus is noisy so we were noisy this week too! :)

I love elephants and the circus always seems to highlight the big mammal. Several of my students had been to the circus this past week and they all were talking about the elephants, so we decided to make our own circus elephant.

Isn't he adorable?!?!?! Our circus elephants were a hit during circle time. Instead of using "your finger" to count the numbers, pick out the shapes, etc., we used our elephant's trunk!

We also enjoyed our "Circus Day" on Friday. Our art project was one that I'm not very sure worked out. We started with the child's hand print and three or four fingerprints (if you are 3 years old, you get 3 fingerprints, etc.).

After it dried we added the rest of the details

Instant clown, holding some balloons!

On Circus Day, the children were invited to come to school dressed as a clown. It was great! It still surprises me how many children don't enjoy "dressing up". About half of my class actually came dressed as a clown but that didn't stop anyone from participating in our circus games. Of course we had our "tight rope", which was a masking tape stuck to the floor in a giant square.

The tight rope is behind the balance beams.

The "high wire" was two balance beams

and of course there were the jugglers.

Juggling is not easy so I found these cute little popcorn holders at the dollar store (2 for a $1.00!) for us to use. Instead of trying to juggle 3 balls, we used giant pom-poms and threw them in the air and tried to catch them in the popcorn containers. FUN! And, the popcorn buckets will be used again and again in my classroom. I think they will be a great storage container for some of my games.

Our science experiment for the week was a lot of fun. Have you ever seen those "circus peanuts" at the store?

Well, let me tell you . . . they make a great science experiment by just putting them in the microwave! Putting things in hot/cold water or in the microwave is one of our favorite things to do. I found this post ages ago Science of Candy and it explains what happens to the marshmallows. I know most people would think a 3 or 4 year old would understand words like, "molecules", but they do. We make our predictions then watch what happens.

Those things really get big! On the left is our circus peanuts in hot water. It was a wonderful day!

Now that we have finished up our Circus Unit, we will spend next week talking exploring our unit of "Health". It should be a lot of fun. I hope you come back and visit us again.

New Fine Motor Skill Activity

2012-01-28T12:27:00.000-06:00

I added a new fine motor skill activity to my classroom this week. It has been a HUGE hit with the class. Again, this is something that cost me NO MONEY! I'm sure you can tell by the picture, you need a paper plate (or bowl), a plastic spoon, old water bottle and some marbles. The object of the game is to spoon the marbles into the bottle WITHOUT using your hands.

You can use a larger mouthed bottled and put the marbles in a bowl to make it easier for the younger children. My class LOVES this and they are really getting to be very good at it too! I hope you try this and if you do, leave me a comment or a link to you blog please.

Quick Note

2012-01-25T07:48:00.001-06:00

I just wanted everyone to know that I have had a lot of requests for my "Quiet Spray" label. I have e-mail a copy to everyone who requested it. If you have NOT received it, please look in the SPAM folder in your in-box. Here is the little .jpg I use. Everyone is welcome to use it. THANKS!

Let's Fly to the Moon (or Jupiter?)!

2012-01-24T15:59:00.004-06:00

I know I say it all the time but . . . "I LOVE THIS UNIT"! This is truly one of my favorites. It still amazes me to see how much my little sponges can absorb. The sky was the limit (literally) this week as we discussed our solar system. We started out the week with a big surprise - a rocket ship in our classroom!

Our square snowman got a weekend makeover! Everyone loved pretending where the next rocket would go. Since we quickly learned that the sun is the center of our universe, we started off our week by doing a wonderful art project of the sun! This is one of my personal favorites because even though everyone uses exactly the same material, the final results are all different. We started with a BIG round circle and added our paint. Next, we covered it with clear plastic wrap -

Here comes the fun part . . . next we squish it!

Everyone of course has their own technique. Some are gentle while others literally beat the daylights out of it. Either way, the results are amazing! We quickly plopped the wet sun onto a LARGE piece of black construction paper and added the sun rays. OH MY!

At this point I realized these were something special!

One of my favorite things to do during "Solar System" week is to assign each child a planet name. This year I have 10 children in my classroom, so everyone got a planet name and we even had earth's moon! The entire week we called everyone by their planet name. I added new facts each day and by the end of the week my entire class could not only locate their planet on the diagram, but most could locate and name the entire solar system!

Since the big rocket was staring at us all week, we decided to "fly to the moon!". I found this amazing astronaut over at Crayola and I knew he/she would be perfect. I tweaked him just a little by cutting him out, adding details to the flag and removing his face (we will add ours later!). Then we started painting!

I was amazed at how insistent my class was about painting the American flag "the right way". Everyone wanted the little square to be blue and it had to have stripes on it! Needless to say, I was proud! I told everyone that they could do any planet they wanted. I guess they really WERE listening in circle time because each and everyone of them knew that men had already been to the moon, so off the moon we went. We made our moon by doing a good old fashion sand paper rubbing.

Finally, it was time to put it all together. We added our rocket ship (with hand print flames), some stars and WOW!

I hope the parents loved it as much as I did!

Our Fabulous Fun Friday was SO EXCITING! First, we are lucky enough to have an amazing Dad who is a landscaper. I put out an S.O.S. for some rocks and he came through BIG time. They were perfect for our moon rocks! Everyone used silver paint to stick on some black and white tissue paper.

After they dried we added a little silver glitter glue and . . . .

instant moon rocks! SWEET!

To me the most exciting part of the week happened when we headed to the kitchen on Friday. First we made a rocket cookie for our snack.

Next, we made our very own "moon sand"! The recipe is very simple -

4 cups of sand

2 cups of corn starch

1 cup of water

Mix together and have fun!

AND BOY DID WE HAVE FUN!

Before we knew it we had been in our kitchen area for over an hour! We even sent everyone home with their very own bag of "moon sand".

Our "Solar System" week was only four days because of the "Martin Luther King" holiday on Monday. We voted and decided that we needed ONE MORE DAY, so on Monday of the following week we savored the last sweet day of our solar system with the most amazing project, a name rocket. First everyone wrote the letters of their names on little squares of paper. Next, we lined them up in the shape of a rocket, added some stars and more flames AND . . . . . .

another WOW project! And, before you ask, YES! the children wrote their names BY THEMSELVES! I AM SO PROUD!

It was great week. I hope you visit us again. Next week we will be talking about the circus!

I'm sharing this at -

Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow!

2012-01-15T16:55:00.001-06:00

I wanted to have something extra special for "S" week. I had read and seen a "sticky table" over at Teach Preschool and ever since I've been dying to try it. My classroom is small and is also used for Sunday School on the weekends so most of classroom activities have to be stored out of site at the end of each week. Instead of using a table, I made a sticky box! OH MY GOODNESS, we loved it!

I hope you can see the large box over on the right. I filled it with all different kinds of objects (Note: the drinking straws were fun but a bad idea. Yes, they kept being put in our mouths!) I just used an old cardboard box destined for the garbage and some very ugly contact paper. I sprayed the box with a spray adhesive and placed the contact paper, ugly side down, to the box. I used good 'ole duct tape to secure the paper and carefully peeled the paper off. The duct tape proof interesting because the children kept trying to stick things to it and seemed to enjoy figuring out that the entire box was not sticky. Another wonderful moment came when they discovered they could remove the items and then replace them in another spot. Seriously, this was an amazing activity!

Well, by now I hope you have seen our wonderful class snowmen! Here is our garbage bag snowman with his very own University of Alabama Crimson Tide #14 National Championship jersey! Lucky for me, we were also talking about the number 14!

Since it was "S" week and I was given some wonderful BIG boxes we also made "Sammy, the Square Snowman"!

Right beside Sammy is our "world's largest snowball". As soon as we read the book, The Biggest Snowball EVER by John Rogan, we all started talking about building one ourselves. It took quite a bit of teamwork, but it was well worth it. Our snowball may have started out small but in the end it was over two feet tall and for the state of Alabama, that is one large snowball!

We read another wonderful book entitled Snow Dance by Lezlie Evans. As a matter of fact, I do believe this was everyone favorite book of the week. I know I was asked to "re-read" it at least 4 times! We decided that since we do live in Alabama and snow is rarely ever seen, a snow dance probably wouldn't work. Instead we made our famous "dancing" snowman.

We call them "dancing snowmen" because the two paper plates are tied together with ribbon and when you hold them up they wiggle and look like they are dancing.

Another great art activity we did this week was our collage penguin. We spent the day waddling like penguins and talking about how they cannot fly even though they have wings. The white belly of the penguins are filled with a variety of different white objects. Each and every one of our collage penguins seem to take on the personality of the maker.

Look at this one! My sweet little "W" was hungry,

so he put some food in his penguin's mouth!

Each month I save one piece of special artwork for our end-of-the-year art show. This month I kept our hand print snowman. Each child used the palm of their hand to form a snowman. Once he dries, we use a variety to hats and buttons to make each on unique. We used our fingers to add snow all around.

We also used an old make-up brush to brush on more snow at the bottom.

I will add a mat and laminate these special little guys and girls for our our art show!

Our Fabulous Fun Friday arrived way too quickly this week. We were having so much fun I didn't want anyone to be disappointed. I think I delivered! We started our by with something different - sand art! Everyone covered a black sheet of construction paper with glue. NO INSTRUCTIONS, just go!

Some used a little.

Some used a LOT!

Next we sprinkled on some sand.

Finally, we added some paint. Any color or colors you wanted!

This was extremely messy but a lot of fun! (EDITED 1/19/11 to add photo) Here is a sample of the final artwork all nice and dry.

Of course snack time on Friday had to be special too! Our wonderful new assistant director brought in her shaved ice machine for us to use.

This thing was so much fun. We all got to have a little shaved ice with our pretzels!

Thanks Mrs. Melissa!

Our science experiment for the week was very SPECIAL! My sweet friend and fellow teacher, Mrs. Christi and I had filled the school's freezers and our home freezers with bowls of water. We gave the children the large hunks of ice and a cup of rock salt. Everyone sprinkled the rock salt on the ice and watched.

OH MY!

As you may know if you live in the northern part of the United States, the rock salt quickly started to eat away at the ice. We were all amazed. BUT, we weren't finished (of course not)! Next, we added some color.

Everyone picked several colors of paint (we used our regular school paint mixed with water) and squeezed on the color.

The results were spectacular!

Even though they were special we waited about an hour and came back to find . . . .

Needless to say, we were all Surprised!

We ended our very special Snow Week by doing a little "snowman bowling". Now, I do not have one of those fancy "I-Phones" or "Droids", but as soon as I said we were going to go "snowman bowling" half of my class said they play that game on their parent's phones or I-Pads. REALLY!?!?! We didn't use an "I-Phone" but we did use some old Christmas boxes turned into bowling pins.

Let the fun begin!

Our snow week sadly came to an end. But it was super fun!

I hope you come back and visit with us again. Next week we will be talking about solar system. I can't wait to show you what we will be doing with those big boxes next week!

Sammy the SQUARE Snowman

2012-01-14T12:02:00.001-06:00

I am fortunate to have some amazing parents this year. Now mind you, I've had great parents before and I truly love each and everyone of them. This year's group seem to "get me" when it comes to my obsession for "treasures" (I say "treasures" most people say junk). Anyway, one of my Dads works for a farm equipment supplier. He told me at the beginning of school that if I was ever out near his shop to stop by. Well, on Wednesday of last week I did just that. The first thing I saw when I walked in were these HUGE boxes. Hmmmm . . . what in the world could I do with them. . . . . I asked him if they were getting rid of them and he said "of course, who would want these big old things?" Uhhhh . . . me! It took some doing but meet "Sammy, the Square Snowman"!

He almost reaches our ceiling. This is one really big snowman! Oh and that big white ball next to Sammy, that's our "world's largest snowball". I love "S" Week!
Thanks to Lee at Advanced Mowers in Bessemer, Alabama! We love your boxes!

Our Class Snowman!

2012-01-09T15:49:00.000-06:00

Here he is, our 2011-12 Class Snowman

Isn't he spectacular?!?!?! We haven't named him yet but we had so much fun stuffing him with old newspaper and making him "extra fat". We all worked together as a team and made snowballs. As soon as we had a giant pile of snowballs we started stuffing him. AND, don't you just love the snowy background? That is some wrapping paper that I found on sale after Christmas. I only paid $0.50 for it! It was a steal! Oh, and by the way, it is "S" week, in case you couldn't tell! ;0)

Winter Fun

2012-01-07T10:39:00.001-06:00

Starting back to school after the Christmas holidays is usually not very easy. But it can be especially rough for preschoolers! This year, my class was the exception!! YEAH! Everyone walked right in to our classroom just like they do everyday. Well, okay, it was a little (A LOT) more chatty, but that is a good thing. I love starting a new calendar year with new things! I personally get bored very easily so I like to bring new things into our classroom. This week I introduced a "PASSWORD" of the day. I put it right on the inside of our door, near the light switch.

(Edited on Jan. 13, 2012 to add picture)

This week's word was "snowball". Each time we left our room the students told me our "password". We even asked visitors to read our special word. It worked beautifully! By the end of Friday, one of the boys showed me "our secret password" in a book! This will definitely be a new addition to my classroom each year.

Our letter this week was "W" and of course we talked about winter. But there are so many fun "W" words and we wanted to enjoyed them all. We did the "wacky walk" everywhere we went. We also tried to whisper, but to be honest, it didn't work. Whistling was difficult but we did give it a good try. During our circle time instead of raising your hand if you knew an answer or wanted to ask a question, we waved three fingers in the air like a "W". All in all we all thought "W" was wonderful!

One of my "treasures" (as I call them) that my son made me years (and years) ago is a popsicle stick snowflake. It is one of those sweet little ornaments that I hang on my Christmas tree each year. I took the original Christmas ornament idea and changed it just a little. Ours is a snowflake magnet that Mom and Dad can put on their refrigerator or bulletin board AND we added a little shimmer to it. Here is how we did it - first, we glued our popsicle sticks together using wood glue. This allows it to be a little sturdier. I can't tell you how many times I glued my son's back together before I figured out to use wood glue. Next, we painted out sticks with a "magical" combination of white glue and white paint.

I loved telling everyone to use a lot of paint! It got very messy, but the end results were so worth it! Next, we added the shimmer - rock salt! I know some people would probably use glitter but the rock salt has an amazing effect.

We usually do this activity on Friday because it takes time for this to dry. On Monday I will give it a little spray of sealer (you can also use regular aerosol hair spray) and attached the magnets. Here is a picture of last year's snowflake (I will update with our new ones on Monday).

Aren't they wonderful?

One of our Moms was kind enough to give us a can of "DIY snow". All you do is add water and you get a substance that looks like snow.

It was fun and probably would have been more fun except there was only a small amount and we had 20 children! Hmm. . . . what to do? I know, make your own snow! And that is just what we did! I bought some bars of good 'ole Ivory Snow soap.

Cut each bar into about four pieces. HERE COMES THE COOL PART! We put it in the microwave for 20 seconds (watch it carefully, each microwave is different) and . . . .

That's right SNOW!

It is a little hot when it first

comes out of the microwave

so be careful!

ALSO, be careful and

DO NOT get this in your eyes -

it is soap and will burn!

Everyone had so much fun playing with it.

We stayed in our kitchen area for AN HOUR! Yes, this activity held the attention of 20 3-year olds for an hour! The end results were rather messy

but really worth it!

I had one more little trick up my sleeve for "W" week - a snowball fight with a twist of course. Each child got a piece of paper with either a color, a number, or a shape written on it.

Everyone read their paper and wadded them up into balls.

I bet you know what came next! That's right - SNOWBALL FIGHT! Everyone threw snowballs at each other until I yelled STOP. Then while everyone was catching their breath, we took turns reading the word on the snowballs. We ended up having so many rounds of the snowball fight we almost missed our playground time. It really was FUN!

It was a wonderful week! I can't wait for next week, it is "S" week and we will be talking about SNOW. It gets a little tricky trying to do a unit on snow when you live in Alabama, but I hope you will stop back by and see how we do it!

Winter Window

2012-01-05T15:59:00.004-06:00

I have this incredible urge to start singing, "walking in a winter wonderland", but I won't! Remember, I only sing to preschoolers! Anyway, we started back to school today and I must admit, it was the BEST first day back ever. Everyone was so happy to be back at school, yes, even ME. I wanted to do something extra special and WOW we did! It is our "W" week and we are talking about WINTER, hmmm . . . . let's see . . . . oh, I know, a Wonderful Winter Window! I found this lovely little object at a New Year's Eve party last weekend. They were just going to be thrown in the garbage, so I rescued two of them.

As soon as everyone arrived I painted their hand brown for the tree.

I didn't use a lot of paint (for ONCE) so that it would quickly dry. Sure enough, by the time the last of the handprints were done, the first were dry. Next, we needed snow! Everyone cut out their own snowy ground.

We used lots and lots of glue (of course!) and glued down the snow. We discovered that the more glue you used, the bumpier the paper would be, and the more it looks like real snow.

Next came the fun part. Remember that funny looking table decoration??? Well, we dipped it in white paint and started whacking our paper! Everyone had their own technique, some were very gentle, while others really enjoyed whacking the paper! :0)

Instant snow!

I mounted it on a large piece of black paper and added the window panes.

What a wonderful way to start talking about the letter "W" and Winter! Everyone agreed, this is going to be a WONDERFUL WEEK!

Merry Christmas Eve!

2011-12-24T08:28:00.004-06:00

Since my house is VERY quiet again this year and all my gifts are safely wrapped under the tree, I have nothing to do (okay, I could clean, but we all know I don't WANT too). I have been busy catching up on one of my favorite blogs Dr. Jean. I always love her wonderful ideas and links, but this one has to be my favorite. Preschool Christmas Story It isn't MY class, but after seeing it you will all probably understand why preschool teachers do what they do!

MERRY CHRISTMAS

from

Mrs. Karen's Class!

Let's Talk About Christmas!

2011-12-18T11:44:00.002-06:00

Our Class Christmas Tree

Christmas is a wonderful time of year for most people. But if you are one of the lucky people who teach pre-school, you know it is more than just wonderful, it is truly magical! My class has had almost a month of fun, fun and more fun. Along the way we talked about the TRUE meaning of Christmas and the letters "J", "B" and "N". "Hold on to your sleigh bells people, this is going to get crazy" . . . .

We started our fun with the letter "J". The entire week we jumped and jiggled our way to and from all our different activities. And of course we sang "Jingle Bells" every chance we got. Our fun "J" art was perfect. The weather had just started to turn cold so we got out our jackets!

I loved watching the children as they each picked out their favorite colors. Can you see the little buttons? Our sweet director ordered us these wonderful buttons. They came in all different colors and shapes. It was a wonderful way to review our shapes and colors!

We worked on a fun sorting activity this week too. I have a large, no make that HUGE supply of scrapbook paper. I love to scrapbook and have a hard time throwing away any scrap of paper, no matter what the size. Well this week we put all those scraps to good use. Everyone picked out their favorite rectangle pieces paper and put them in order, starting with the smallest. We ended up with a little star on top and a brown square at the bottom. A perfect Christmas tree!

With this next art work we switched gears a little and started talking about patterns. My class loves to look for patterns. They all get so excited when they realize things have a pattern on them. This next art project was perfect! First, we cut out some wonderful little strips of red paper.

Next we carefully glued the strips to our plain white candy cane.

The final results were AMAZING!

The little poem reads:

Look at a CANDY CANE, what do you see?

Stripes that are RED like the BLOOD shed for me!

WHITE for my Savior, Who's sinless and pure!

"J" is for JESUS, My Lord that's for sure!

Turn it around and a staff you will see ---

Jesus, my SHEPHERD, Is coming for me!

This was the perfect art project for the letter "J", don't you agree?????

One of my favorite "J" words is Jello,

so of course we had to make some. We headed down to the kitchen for a little cooking/science fun! I knew that we wouldn't have enough time to make Jello the old fashion way, instead we did the speed-set method and it was so fun.

Besides, who doesn't just love to eat Jello?!?
I have a Christmas ornament that my son made for me when he was little. I loved it so much that I do it every year with my class. We start with a little green circle cut from poster board. Everyone covers the circle with puzzle pieces.

I love doing this project because I always tell the children to "make sure the ugly side shows" (the ugly side is easier to paint!). Everyone has so much fun! Finally, all the circles are covered and we let it dry overnight.

After they dry we paint them a lovely Christmas green and add a few beads and ribbons. A perfect Christmas ornament!

The following week was by far "my favorite". I love the letter "B", and I love Christmas - let the fun begin! "B" week has always been my favorite because I love so many "B" words. This year we added a few more "favorite" "B" words and now I love it even more!

Our "B" science experiment was a huge success. We made The Bouncing Polymer Ball. Here is how to do it.

* Label one cup 'Borax Solution' and the other cup 'Ball Mixture'.

* Pour 2 tablespoons warm water and 1/2 teaspoon borax powder into the cup labeled 'Borax Solution'. Stir the mixture to dissolve the borax. Add food coloring, if desired.

* Pour 1 tablespoon of glue into the cup labeled 'Ball Mixture'. Add 1/2 teaspoon of the borax solution you just made and 1 tablespoon of cornstarch. Do not stir. Allow the ingredients to interact on their own for 10-15 seconds and then stir them together to fully mix. Once the mixture becomes impossible to stir, take it out of the cup and start molding the ball with your hands.

* The ball will start out sticky and messy, but will solidify as you knead it.

* Once the ball is less sticky, go ahead and bounce it!

* You can store your plastic ball in a sealed ziploc bag when you are finished playing with it.

* Don't eat the materials used to make the ball or the ball itself. Wash your work area, utensils, and hands when you have completed this activity.

This is very fun BUT it is MUCH MORE FUN if you have all the ingredients measured out ahead of time.

Some of our hands turned blue, but we didn't mind. The results are so worth it!

Another one of our science experiments for the letter "B" was Baked Cotton Balls! I had never tried it but it turned out to be SUPER fun and SUPER amazing. OH, and one more thing - SUPER MESSY!

Sorry, this is the only picture I have.

I really meant it when I said messy!

While we waited on our cotton balls to come out of the oven, we played around with blowing bubbles. But, not the normal way, oh no, we did it the Mrs. Karen way! WOW!
We used square containers . . .

We used a circle container . . .

There was even a rectangle container . . .

Now, that was FUN!

Since we always make our own wrapping paper to wrap up our parent gifts, I decided why not incorporate the letter "B" into our activity. We used some blue balloons and WOW!
Some started off with the green paint . . . .

Others used the red paint . . . .

Then we swapped . . .

NICE! But we weren't finished . . . . next, we dipped a baseball into some gold paint, put it in a box and bounced it around.

The end results were beautiful!

After we wrapped up our presents

we added this little note so that our parents would know how we made our paper.

Now that I have shown you our wrapping paper, let me show you our present to our parents. First, the boys dressed up like shepherds and the girls dressed up like angels. We took their pictures by the big Nativity scene in one of the upper hallways.

Everyone painted their own Nativity frame and added a star.

AHHHHH . . . the perfect Christmas ornament!

One of our four-year old classes made real apple sauce cinnamon ornaments. The entire hall smelled so good. I've done gingerbread men/ladies with my class before but I wanted to do something different this year - I think I nailed it! First we painted our gingerbread man/lady with plain brown paint (yawn!). Next we sprinkled on some real cinnamon! We mixed up our very own puffy paint icing . . .

I put the homemade puffy paint into some old dishwashing detergent bottles and everyone got to squeeze on a face, some buttons and cute little icing . . .

He/She was very fragile, CUTE, but fragile!

I have a small confession to make, "I am addicted to Pinterest!" I have gotten some amazing ideas off there and here is one of my favorites -

I must give TOTAL credit for this to Simply Cindy. I change it around a little but I can't even start to tell you the wonderful comments I received. Besides being absolutely BEAUTIFUL, it was also a great fine motor skill activity for us. Of course it all started with the child's handprint. I added the star with some glitter paint and everyone filled it in with sequins!

Now of course we need some sand for the camels to ride on. (I'm not sure if you can see, but the children are painting with some old make-up sponges that I found.)

Here comes the real sand! I put it in an old cinnamon bottle and . . . .

SHAKE, SHAKE SHAKE!

WOW, let's look at it again!

Personally, I think I saved our last activity for the very end. Each month we save one piece of artwork to be highlighted at our end of the year art show. This year I wanted something different. We started with some painters tape that I taped down in somewhat of a Christmas tree shape.

Everyone painted the entire sheet red and green.

Next, we used different sized circle objects dipped in gold paint.

(This child is using an old plastic communion cup!)

The end results are completely amazing . . .

Some of the paper tore when I removed the painter's tape, but after it dried completely and we laminated them, no one can tell!

We ended up by having a wonderful Christmas party on Wednesday and our big Christmas concert on Thursday. This is one VERY tired teacher signing off. See you in 2012!

MERRY CHRISTMAS

and

A Very HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Time to Put on My Big Girl Panties and Deal with IT!

2011-12-07T17:01:00.001-06:00

So it has been so long since I have posted. There is really no excuse EXCEPT for the fact that I have been feeling sorry for myself. You see, I posted a very simple Thanksgiving project to a website. It was so cute and very, very simple. It was just a little Pilgrim and an Indian. The comments were . . . .well, ummmmm . . . oh heck, they were just plain nasty! First, it seems that I offended some people by "stereo-typing" the Indian. Then came the lovely BLAST about how our project was nothing but "cookie cutter art". I will admit that I did cut out the pieces and the children glued every thing down. They also picked the beads and feathers from a large selection, making sure to pick out "their favorite colors". It was simple, not the usual "detailed" work that we normal do. BUT, it was a very nice way to end our VERY BUSY week before Thanksgiving. AND it gave each and every child a wonderful sense of accomplish. Well, here it is, you be the judge!

Now that I've got that off my chest, here is a few of the other activities that enjoyed before our Thanksgiving holiday. We used our handprints to make some Incredible Indians -

We also used our shapes to make the most wonderful turkey -

Can you see the different shapes?

Our class also was lucky enough to borrow a teepee from one of our families. It was SO MUCH FUN to use as our very special reading nook. We even used it as a background in our Indian pictures.

All in all our Thanksgiving activities were pretty wonderful. Be prepared . . . here comes our Christmas fun!

Veteran's Day 2011

2011-11-07T15:01:00.001-06:00

I just could not wait another second! I had to post our art project from today! We talked ALL day about the upcoming Veteran's Day holiday and since we have several children who have Dads/Granddads who are veterans, I had to do something special. I think we nailed it!
(Yep, this is for you POPS!)

The white rectangle is actually a picture of the child holding the U.S. flag!

Up close view!

Making him was so much fun! We used a sponge and "bounced" the paint on!

It was a little messy (okay it was ALOT messy!) but WOW it was fun.

The most important part of today was the lesson. I hope everyone got the message, "be grateful!".

Pin It

"M" Week and Home & Family

2011-11-06T17:16:00.000-06:00

With Halloween over, we hit the road running on Tuesday as we started talking about our Homes and Family! Nothing says family like talking about our Moms and talk we did! I love hearing everyone talk about what makes their Moms special. It seems I have a lot of Moms who are really good cooks! We also did a wonderful art project - a house made completely with triangles and squares!!

I wish everyone could hear the children as the recognize the shapes. My favorite comment was from "H" when he told me the grass was NOT a triangle or a square, it was a rectangle! I loved it! Look closely at the grass, the children cut it themselves! I love working on our fine motor skills!

We spent most of Wednesday talking about the letter "M". It turned out to be one of the most fun letters! I found some magnets and little marbles with tiny metal balls inside! I knew we just HAD to paint with them. We dropped the marbles into the paint and held the magnet UNDER the plastic tray . . . .

We wiggled the magnet and the little marbles magically followed along!

The final results were truly magnificent - a multi-colored "M"!

The rest of the day was devoted to those lovely magnets! We tried all day to see what they would stick too!

It was a GREAT DAY!

Thursday was spent talking once again about our wonderful families. Everyone loved taking turns and telling us who was in their family! I loved when out of the blue "W" asked ME who was in MY family? As soon as I finished listing everyone they all started giggling because they already knew about my son, the police officer!

We painted the most wonderful family tree on Thursday. I didn't really want to JUST PAINT it, I wanted something different. I found some old make-up brushes and they were a big hit!

I think the children did an amazing job on their trees.

After they dried we added the names of everyone in our families! Now that is a family tree to be proud of!

Friday was FINALLY here! I love Fridays! We really have a lot of fun on Fridays and I was determined NOT to disappoint anyone this week! As soon as everyone came in the door my sweet friend and fellow teacher, Mrs. Christi traced their foot onto some brown construction paper. It was really easy and quick for us to cut them out. Next the children added some eyes, his nostrils and last but not least his hand print antlers! What a Marvelous Moose!

Of course we had to read the wonderful book, If You Give a Moose a Muffin by Laura Numeroff. Ms Numeroff writes the most wonderful books. I love them all!

One of my student's Dad gave me some LARGE clear plastic tubes that had caps on one end. The best part was that they unscrewed so I could put stuff in them. I've had them for a few weeks but I really couldn't decide what to do with them. Ahhhhhhhhhh. . . . then it hit me!

Look closely at what we put inside -

Rice, metal marbles, metal clips, gem clips, puzzle pieces, etc. When put together with our magnets, these long tubes made the most wonderful way to work on our fine motor skills. I truly believe some of the children would have played with them all day long. It didn't take long for the boys to realize that the only way the inside pieces would stick to the magnets was to ggggoooooo vvveerrrryyyy ssssllllllloooooowwwww. AHHHHH . . .an instant calming effect! SUCCESS!

But I really couldn't let that calm go on TOO long, now could I???? NOPE! We headed down to the kitchen for a little (and I do mean little) science experiment. You know, you stick the marshmallows in the microwave and the blow up! Okay, that was fun, BUT not fun enough so next I dumped several bags of mini marshmallows on the table and a couple of boxes of toothpicks. Everyone looked at me and finally "C" said, "what do we do now?". My response, "what do you want to do?". OH MY, the most amazing thing happened. . . .

Instant Art!

Again, several of the children were amazed at their structures. I truly believe the children were proud of their work. I could actually see their confidence strengthening! It was a magical!

We had a few minutes before our playground time and what better way to wait for everyone to put on their jackets then to hold the first annual Marble Run of 2011! I found some old plain hard cardboard tubes in a supply closet. Now these look like giant toilet tissue rolls, no caps on them, the perfect thing to see how far a marble could race down the hall! Everyone got a turn to let the marble fly!

Man, some of those marbles could soar all the way down the hall!

Okay, that was fun, but I had one more surprise . . . .

As soon as we came in from the playground and everyone finished lunch we headed back to the kitchen for one more marble run! This time we connect several hard plastic tubes together (again, I raided a seldom used supply closet) and well you can see for yourself . . .

It was a hit! We let the marbles fly back and forth. It was a great way to end our day!

Throughout our week I took pictures of each child holding our U.S. flag. I have a very special activity planned for this Thursday in honor of Veteran's Day. I hope you will stop back by and see what we will be doing.

Halloween Day 2011

2011-11-06T09:05:00.000-06:00

Halloween fell on a Monday this year and it was our "M" week so I just couldn't help but have a little fun with it! The entire day was devote to Marvelous Monday Halloween fun! We started by doing a simple but fun art project. I don't like scary things so we made a spider and his web! First, we made our handprint spider!

Next we made our web. Since it was "M" week, we dipped Marbles in white paint and rolled it around on a black piece of construction paper. The class loved doing this! I told them they had to be careful and patient so the marbles wouldn't jump off the paper.

The little spider was glued on and we had the perfect Halloween artwork!

We quickly headed to the kitchen for some Halloween cooking and science fun! Since our art project was a spider, we had to make a spider cookie! Unfortunately, I didn't have any chocolate frosting (opps!) so we made Multi-colored spiders! Some were pink, some were blue and we even had some yellow ones! No matter what they color, they were fun and yummy!

Our science experiment was super fun! Everyone received an empty water bottle. We put one squirt of yellow paint in it -

then a squirt of red paint -

then a little drop of rubbing alcohol -

Can you see the two colors starting to mix?

Next came the fun part -

SHAKE IT BABY, SHAKE IT!

Making the orange paint was fun but then we grabbed the bottles and headed to our big Music/Spanish Room for some bowling! We lined up all the bottles and used them for bowling pins! Halloween bowling fun!

All in all, it was a Magically, Marvelous Monday!

2011-10-30T11:07:00.000-05:00

DO YOU PIN? If you are on Pinterest, you are welcome to check out my pins. You can follow me at Karen's School Ideas.

"G" Week and Community Helpers Part 2

2011-10-30T11:04:00.000-05:00

This past week literally flew by! Our entire week was jam-packed with more community helper visitors! All-in-all we had 6 visitors this week! They were all wonderful too! Let's get our week in review started off with our Marvelous Monday fun! The very first thing the students found as they walked into my class on Monday morning was what turned out to be one of our favorite "G" words . . . .

A GUITAR!

One of the new teachers said that I was "brave" bringing it into my classroom. Not really, to be honest, I have NO musical talent and my husband was going to give it away several years ago. Why not let the children enjoy it! Besides strumming on the guitar most of the day Monday, we made lovely little doctor kits. (Here is the spot where a picture normally appears. OPPS! No picture, I totally forgot! Keep reading and you may understand why!) We also headed to our BIG Music/Spanish room for a little "Doctor/First Aid Fun"! You see, at the beginning of each school year we are required to take a CPR/First Aid class through the American Red Cross. GREAT idea and thankfully I have never really had to use any of the information we were taught. The really fun part of the class is at the end when I turn into a "hoarder" and collect all the used first aid supplies! You should see me scooping up all the bandages, slings, etc. Other teachers used to laugh at me until they saw us doing this . . . .

That's right - we played DOCTOR! Everyone picked a partner and started putting on bandages! I have never seen little people have so much fun without any instructions. We could have done this for hours! After a while I decided that I had to join in on the fun.

Yes, that is me! I ended up with bandages ALL over me! SUPER great way to work on our fine motor skills while having FUN!

We spent Tuesday talking about the Veterinarian and another Police Officer who came to visit us. The Veterinarian brought some wonderful "pets" to show us!

Where are the puppies and kittens when you need them???? Oh well, I tried to be brave! The children loved them! The Veterinarian even let one of my students dress up in his "operating clothes".

And since Reid was such a good helper, he got to KEEP the clothes. Although he told me later he would have like to keep to lizard! ;0)

We had another special visitor on Tuesday, Officer Love and Hans!

Officer Love and Hans work for the Hoover Police Department. Hans is an ammunition dog. There are only 2 of these dogs in the entire state of Alabama.

He is used to detect anything from bullets to bombs! And talk about well behaved??? WOW, my sweet puppies could take a few lessons from Hans! Thank you Officer Love and Hans!

We also a had wonderful visit from a doctor on Tuesday! His name was Dr. Bearden. His son is at our school. He is actually a Gastroenterologist (a stomach doctor!) He let us listen to our hearts with his stethoscope!

He was extremely patient and let everyone have a turn! Thank you Dr. Bearden!

Wednesday was another busy, busy day! We had a librarian and a dentist come to speak to us. Now, normally when I hear the word "librarian" I think *yawn*, someone is going to talk to us about books. NOT THIS TIME! Our sweet, sweet, amazing visitor not only talked to us about books, she brought books, told us all about the Dewey decimal system and read of a wonderful book called Dewey - There's a Cat in the Library . We absolutely loved every second of her visit! (I'm secretly trying to figure out how to get her to come back more often!)

Thank you Mrs. Davis!

Our other special visitor Wednesday was a pediatric dentist, Dr. Miller. Both her daughters have been at our school. She told us about the importance of keeping our teeth clean and the proper way to do it!

Thank you Dr. Miller!

In honor of Dr. Miller, our art project for Wednesday was a very silly smile!

Can you see what we are painting with? That's right, it is an old toothbrush! A little messy, but a lot of fun! We also had to add some teeth -

and nothing says teeth like dried butter beans! A great fine motor skill activity and the perfect smile!

Since most of our classes only attend school Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, we had our annual "Community Helper Day" on Thursday. It was so much fun! Everyone was asked to come to school dressed as their favorite community Helper. Most of MY class arrived dressed as fire fighters. I loved it! Since my Dad was as fire fighter for many, many years, I love to talk about our friends the fireman! I even surprised my class by bringing in my Dad's old helmet! Everyone loved wearing it, especially my sweet little girly, girl. After everyone else grew tired of wearing it, she popped it on her head. I don't think she took it off the rest of the day.

Good 'ole #9 got some extra special loving on Thursday!

(This picture is for you Nana!)

Early Thursday morning the entire school went upstairs to the main church offices. The staff had a big surprise waiting for us - CANDY! We paraded around and showed off our community helper outfits and the staff filled our little treat bags with candy. To be honest, I'm not sure who had more fun, our students or the staff.

Our sweet friend Kristin!

My best buddy, Lottie!

The Vestavia Fire Department came for their annual visit on Thursday. By the time they arrived my class knew all about the fire department. My favorite part of the day was when the fireman pulled out their jackets and asked us if we knew what they were called. One of my students said, "it is your turnout gear, where is your "K" tool?" WOW, I guess they do listen to me after all! :0)

Our art project was very simple for Thursday. We made a wonderful little five fire fighter hand print with a poem.

This was originally made by Tippy Toe Crafts and I found it on Pinterest (my newest addiction!) We changed the water a little by adding sequins for a little fine motor skills work,

and we made our fireman work at station #9!

I really love it!

It was finally FRIDAY! I had waited all week for this glorious day! The entire day was spent talking about the letter "G" by holding our annual "Garbage Day"! Yes, it was time for GARBAGE DAY 2011! I had pretty much worked my class up into a frenzy by the time Friday arrived. They were not disappointed! We started with our art project made entirely out of GARBAGE! Meet Garbage Guy Greg

and Garbage Girl Gayle!

We had so much fun talking about each piece we glued on. I was so surprised to hear the children when they recognized the different product packages we used. One of the little girls recognized the Coca-cola carton and looked at me and said, "does this mean I'm READING?" My answer, "YOU BET YOU ARE!" She was so proud!

Soon it was time to head to kitchen to "eat a little garbarge!" Oh my, the look on everyone's faces! No one was actually worried since by now they are all use to me and my craziness. Everyone started giggling when I begin pulling all the left over goodies out of our snack cabinet and threw it into a garbage sack!

Everyone loved eating "Mrs. Karen's Garbage"!

We also had a "G" science experiment and this one was GREAT! We talked about gas! Here we are blowing up a balloon using gas!

Me again! I'm not mad, I'm excited!
My little buddy on the left just realized what

was going to happen!

I love it when my students figure things out!

We mixed a little vinegar and baking soda into a plastic bottle, stuck on the balloon and WOW!

There goes the balloon!

I actually sent the balloon and bottle home with one of my students. He wanted to show his Dad! SWEET!

FINALLY, it was time (someone please turn on the theme music to the Olympics) for the GREAT GARBAGE GAMES 20111! Let's go! We headed to our big Music/Spanish room for the games. First we played garbage basketball

Nice Shot!
Can you see the "ball"?

It is newspaper!

After a while we started playing garbage soccer!

We used newspaper for the ball again!

We ended our games with garbage tennis!

I really hated removing the child's face on this picture. His expression was priceless! We used newspaper for the tennis ball (of course) and old boxes for the rackets. It was fun! I am really surprised this year with my class and their ability to work together. We are definitely a good team!

By the time everyone left on Friday afternoon we were tired. I say "we" because I was exhausted! It was a great two weeks talking about our friends the community helpers.

Thanks for stopping by. I hope you will come back next week. We will talking about the letter "M" and our "Homes and Families"!

"P" Week and Community Helpers

2011-10-22T15:18:00.000-05:00

Oh my, oh my, what a week! I feel like one of my students when I say, "it was the bestest week ever!". Let's get started by talking about the letter "P"! Since Halloween is just around the corner we started our week by working on our fine motor skills and painting a pumpkin!

Can you see what we are painting with? It is a cotton swab! We use them quite a bit when apply glue or painting. It is a fun way to work on our fine motor skills! The pumpkins were painted orange of course then sit to side to let dry. The next day we added our "special" eyes, nose and happy mouths to make our very special Halloween pumpkins. Aren't they amazing?!?!?!?

The little poem at the bottom reads:

Just a little teacher note - As a pre-school teacher, I have to do a lot of cutting for the children. THE CHILDREN DO USE SCISSORS, but when I do the cutting, I don't try and cut nice straight lines, there just isn't time. So you will notice a lot our artwork has poems, titles, etc. cut with wavy lines. It really saves time!

Another great "P" word is puzzle! We found a HUGE puzzle and just could resist letting everyone work as a team to put it together!

It took a while but the results were very positive!

I knew ahead of time that our Friday was going to full, so we headed to the kitchen for a little cooking and science fun! We started with by making pink and purple cookies! Most of the girls wanted pink of course.

The boys turned up their noses at the color pink so we let them add a little red and blue food coloring together to make . . . .

PURPLE!

A little science, a little cooking and a lot of yummy!

We stayed in the kitchen for another one of my favorite "P" words - playdough! And of course it was purple! We gave everyone a big handful of playdough and scattered some toothpicks on the table. Let the fun begin!

I honestly think everyone could have stayed and worked on their creations for hours! I was blown away by the creativity!

WOW! I was proud! We let them dry over night and everyone got to take their amazing sculptures home.

Tuesday was a really busy day for us because we started talking about our friends, the police! This was especially special to me because one of our community helper visitors was going to be my son! We talked all day about the police and how they were our friends. I love to listen to my class when they start talking in our circle time. Some of their comments are amazing. One little guy was quick to tell me that he knew all about the police because his Mom had a wreck. I remembered all too well when this happened because his big sister was in my class at the time. Anyway, he told me, in great detail, about the wreck and how the policeman made sure he and his sister were okay. I had a "Mom Moment" as I listened because he suddenly asked me if that was my son. SWEET! We read the wonderful book Office Buckle and Gloria by Peggy Rathmann. After I read it everyone decided that it was wonderful and I had to read it again! That is the sign of a really good children's book! Our art project for Tuesday had to be special and it was. We made a police patrol car made from shapes!

Can you find all the shapes? We had so much fun making this! The policeman was made with our fingerprints and so were the lights on top of the car. We put a little poem on the final project that read

I LOVE THIS!

Our Wacky Wednesday came all too soon and I wanted something really different. We were having our school pictures made so we really couldn't do anything too messy. I think we nailed it. Take a peek at our "Pink and Purple Penguins with Polka-dots"! NOW THAT IS WACKY!

We spent the entire day talking about penguins and learning new and interesting penguin facts. We even waddled like penguins everywhere we went! It was a PERFECT day!

Thursday was our annual "Pajama Party Day"! We've been doing this for years and every year the children get more and more excited. This year was NO exception. Of course we all wore our pajamas to school, some even came in a robe and slippers! Everyone knows that a party has to have party hats so we made our own!

Right after lunch we put on our party hats and headed to the big Spanish classroom where we ate popcorn and watched the movie Kung Fu Panda. OH WHAT FUN!

FINALLY IT WAS FRIDAY! Not because it was the end of the week! No! It was the day I had waited for MY ENTIRE LIFE! First, my sweet, sweet friend, Laura Douglas came by for a visit.

Laura is an x-ray technologist and she showed us our bones. Did you know that we have 206 bones in our body? Well, we know it! Oh, the wonderful things she showed and told us. THANK YOU Ms Laura!

Yes, that's me on the right with my sweet friend, Ms Laura!

We headed back to our classroom to calm down (just a little). We were right in the middle of our circle time when . . . .

my son, Police Officer Harrington arrived!

I'm not going to pretend like I wasn't excited! HEY, it had been an entire MONTH since I had seen him! It was time for a BIG HUG! We spent the next 30 minutes or so talking about the police and all that they do for us. TRUST ME, I was one proud Mom! Here are just a few of the pictures from Friday. (A big thank you to my friend and photographer, Tiffany Crittenden! I love everyone of the pictures!)

It was purely perfect!

Our class ended the week with a giant Pizza Party complete with punch and pudding! What a perfect week!

Thanks for stopping by. I hope you will come back again. In the mean time, I'm going to be looking at all the pictures (again) from Friday!

Quiet Spray is Just for Fun!

2011-10-19T06:48:00.000-05:00

Okay, let's clear something up right now! THERE IS NOTHING IN THE QUIET SPRAY BOTTLE! I have seen several comments where people talk about "spraying the children like a dog". There's nothing in the bottle! It is meant to be FUN and SILLY! Lighten up people! Sorry, about the rant! But come on, I LOVE and TEACH children, I do not HARM or BERATE them!

The Light Box

2011-10-15T10:36:00.000-05:00

The letter "L" has always been a fun week for me. I love to walk around singing, "LALALALALALALALALA"! Trust me, only a preschooler can love my singing voice. To make this week a little more fun I added a surprise to our classroom. OUR LIGHT BOXES! A friend of mine gave me a box that their new gas grill came in and one of our classroom just received a new bookshelf. I knew immediately what I wanted to do with the boxes. I pulled out my old Christmas lights and poked them threw the top of the boxes.

Plug the lights in

and instant fun!

Everyone took turns!

These two guys are best buddies and

the one of the right has been out sick.

They had a lot of catching up to do and

the light box was the perfect place!

This was such a huge success that we gave it to one of the older groups to use next week. SWEET! I love sharing!

Leaves!

2011-10-15T10:21:00.003-05:00

I love Leaves! I don't like raking them but I sure do love gathering them up and using them for our school art projects! This year I was a little worried because the leaves here in Central Alabama had not started to fall as much as in years past. No worry, my neighbors were more then happy for me to run around the neighborhood and gather up their leaves.

I'm not a teacher that likes to do the same art project year after year. I guess I get bored it. Either I change it or just do something different all together. These next two art projects are the exceptions to the rule! First, let me show you "Leaf Man and Leaf Lady 2010"!

Look closely! "She is kicking!"

"He is running!"

"He has funny legs!"

I'm not sure if the children like this because it is a fun project OR because I tell them they can use A LOT of glue! Either way, it is fun and always a big hit at our "End of the Year Art Show".

Here is the other art project that I love doing. I never get tired of this one! We call it "Squishy Leaf". SUPER EASY, SUPER MESSY, SUPER FUN! First get a really large leaf pattern. I like to give choice. I have three different leaves that I cut out from poster board. Everyone gets to pick three colors and either a shimmery bronze or gold.

Cover with plastic wrap (some people use wax paper, but I like the plastic wrap because we can see the paint better), and mash!

Here is the final product! Aren't they wonderful?!?!?

I don't like worksheets or art work that has been copied and all you do is color/paint. BUT (why is there always a but?) I found a beautiful tree and had it enlarged onto heavy cardstock paper. We made our own watercolor paint by mixing our regular brown paint with lots of water and we went to work. I let them use cotton swabs instead of paint brushes. I wanted to see what would happen if I gave my students NO DIRECTIONS.

After the trees dried we added fingerprint leaves.

Look at a few of the final results! WOW!

I love this one because "the leaves were falling to the ground".

The parents I'm sure were laughing at me when these went home. I was grabbing the children's folders and pulling out these pictures. I tried to explain to the parents how amazing the art work was. OH MY! These children were showing some mind blowing fine motor skills. Remember, we are ONLY 3 and 4 years old!

At the beginning of the school year, wwaaayyyy back in August, we arrived at school to find out that our Director and Assistant Director had done a little house cleaning. There were boxes and boxes of "treasures" that either our school was getting rid of OR the church. Either way, I made out like a bandit! One of the "treasures" was several bags of this -

OH MY! We cut some old paper towel tubes and glued on our leaves.

WOW! Instant centerpiece for Mom's table!

On Friday, everyone was to bring in a leaf (OR as many as you wanted to bring in). Oh the fun! We made a giant "L" and everyone glued on their leaves.

WOW! That a big "L"!

My sweet husband found me some big bunches of leaves in our yard. Bless his heart, he knows there are some things that are better than flowers - leaves during "L" week! I took them to school

and we made our scientific observations as to what will happen to them.

Hopefully, they will still be hanging up on Monday so we find out!

Thanks to my sweet friend (and fellow teacher), Mrs. Felicia, we were able to find a wonderful leave shaped cookie cutter. We made Leaf Toast with cinnamon butter for snack. What a YUMMY way to end our week!

Fall Fun!

2011-10-15T09:29:00.000-05:00

Our "F" week and "Fall" activities fell all during the same week. This made everything extra Fun! No fall activities would be complete without an adorable scarecrow and ours was the cutest ever!

Some old lunch sacks and left over scrapbook paper made for a very fun fall art project.

Of course, we had to make a pumpkin! We did ours a little different this year. We painted it with condensed milk and food coloring.

WOW! The texture was amazing! We added a couple of hand print leaves and a palm print stem and the results were fantastic!

One little word of caution - this takes forever to dry! We let ours dry for 4 days and they were still sticky.

While we were making our pumpkins one of the boys said he wished he had a blue pumpkin, because blue was his favorite color. Hmmm . . . . change of lesson plan! The next day we made our very own "Personalized Pumpkins"! Some were fat and pink

Some were tall and pink

Some were all about our favorite football teams -

The Florida 'Gators!

War Eagle for Auburn University

Others were a combination of things we liked -

All in all we decided our pumpkins were perfect!

I found this little poem about a squirrel and really like it.

We just needed the "perfect" little squirrel to go with it. AHHHHH! . . . found it! First we added cotton balls to his tail. Next, the fun part! We used old squirt bottles to turn him gray!

I knew those old bottles would come in handy! After we sprayed him we wiped his body with a paper towel. What a wonderful piece of fall art!

"F" Week

2011-10-15T09:01:00.000-05:00

I'm going to try and make a change in my blog posting. I'm thinking making more post, hopefully everyday, but making them shorter. Hmmm . . . . let's give this a try and do a little catching up!

Let's talk about the letter "F"! Of course Fall is a great time to talk about the letter "F" and with a room full of boys we loved talking about Football! I think there must have been at least a dozen Football games on the playground during ''F" week. We also talked about things that were Fun. So naturally everyone agreed Football and Fun were our Favorite "F" words! One of the most fun art projects we did was our

We had so much fun painting with a Fork!

We also did a little sandpaper rubbing to make our frogs come to life!

You put it all together and add a four flies and what do you get!

Well, sometimes we get a little carried away when we make our fingerprints. No problem . . .

GREAT FUN!

We also headed to the kitchen to do a fabulous science experiment. We did the preschool version of "Will it Float?". Everyone was told to look around our room and pick any object they wanted (okay, I did have to say paper products were OFF limits!). Blocks of course were the #1 choice but I finally got them to try and pick different things. First, we made our observations. "Will the object float?" Then we plopped them in our large bucket of water

Success!

Of course my camera battery died before we could finish, but you get the idea.

We also had a wonderful time cooking in the kitchen too. We made our "Fabulous Fall Friendship Fruit Salad". Would you like the recipe??? It is very simple, invite all your friends to bring in their favorite fruit. Cut it up, mix it all together and enjoy! YUMMY!

We also did another fun science experiment with a fan. It was fun throwing balloons into the fans to see how far they would fly. The grand finale was when we threw a box of feathers into the fan! OH MY! Messy but fun!

New Items For My Classroom!

2011-10-09T09:49:00.005-05:00

If you've read my blog before I'm sure you already know this, but I love to make things out of nothing. I don't want to be one of those teachers who gets all upset when something gets broken or torn in the classroom. Okay, the one BIG exception to this is books. In my opinion no one should ever tear up a book! Okay sorry, I got off subject. Anyway, where was I . . . . oh yes, making things! One of my dear, dear friends gave me this lovely photo album at the beginning of the school year.

Not too bad, but it really didn't fit into our classroom. Thank goodness I am a hoarder when it comes to scrapbook paper. I don't think I've ever thrown away a scrap piece of paper especially the pretty scrapbook stuff! Look at our photo album now!

Much, much more classroom friendly and it even has a vinyl cover! But look inside for the best part!

Each page has either a color, shape or number. I took it to school on Monday morning and everyone wanted a turn. My favorite moment was when I saw one of my little boys, who has loudly announced many times that "I don't like books!", looking at it. He told me he thought I had put the wrong number of dots on the number 10 page. He counted and counted and final declared "Mrs. Karen is right, there are 10 dots!" Everyone loves it, even those that don't like books!

My second surprise for this week was a "Game Mat". I made it from Zip-Lock baggies and packing tape.

I simply put the different shapes/colors into the baggies, closed them shut then used the packing tape to connect them all together. The object of the game is to "whack" the shape or color with a fly-swatter.

Now, as expected, I heard a lot of complaining the first time around about what color or shape everyone wanted to "whack". I made coordinating cards with the shapes and numbers and I let each child pick one out of a box. "YOU GET WHAT YOU GET!" No more complaining! Besides, this is FUN!

I wasn't really sure about this next item. I found some tracing activities at Color Castle and printed a few off. I enlarge them to fit a 14 x 17 piece of paper then laminated them. My original thought was to have the children trace them with the new dry erase crayons, but that just seemed so YUCKY. I already had so many tracing sheets. Then it dawned on me - STICKERS! I have millions of tiny stickers. They were the perfect size!

Don't worry about getting them off. It is so easy! I just wipe over them with a Clorox cloth and the practically slide off. I made several different types of sheets and the class loves them.

The last new game actually cost $1.00! I know, I broke my own rule and spent $1.00, but it was SO worth it! I went to our local Dollar Store (LOVE THAT PLACE!) and bought a colander. Add some pipe cleaners and you have an instant fine motor skills game!

At first I didn't like that it had a handle on it but in the end I discovered that the children were holding it by the handle and only using one hand to lace the pipe cleaners through the holes. NICE!

Hmmm . . . . we are out of school tomorrow for Columbus Day, I wonder what else I can make??????? Thanks for stopping by, I hope you will come back again!

"T" Week and Transportation

2011-10-02T10:23:00.001-05:00

"T" Week was TERRIFIC! But then again, I knew it would be ;) I had tons of fun activities planned and to be perfectly honest, heck, I was even excited about it! Nothing says Transportation like a good 'ole Truck, so we had to do an art project involving a truck. We started by making truck tracks all over our paper.

Everyone enjoyed picking out different colors of shapes for their trucks. The final results were TERRIFIC!

It didn't take me long to realize that for some strange reason EVERYONE was very excited to be at school. We tip-toed our way to our big Music/Spanish room to work off some energy and what better way to burn off the wiggles then with a game of tennis! That's right, we played "Balloon Tennis". The rules were very simple, just hit the balloon with our special tennis racket, (a.k.a. paper plate) and try not to hit anyone else.

It took a little longer than I expected for everyone to grow weary of our game. But after a while we noticed several of the little girls sitting over on the side. Okay, time for a good circle time!

I had a fun surprise for our circle time discussion. A taxi cab! Not a REAL taxi (we are in Central Alabama after all!) but look what I found.

Can you believe that someone was actually going to throw this away???? REALLY! Well, it now has a new home with me! Everyone loved climbing in and having their pictures taken in the taxi. I made a little take home sheet for everyone that said, "T is for Taxi" and we glued our pictures to it. I thought it would be just a little something special for the parents to keep. I like to keep an eye out for film developing specials. I think it is nice for the parents to get little "surprises" from time to time.

Since our taxi pictures were going home on Tuesday, I decided that we should call it "Taxi Cab Tuesday". We even did a special piece of art to go along with it.

Don't you just LOVE Rick Allen's hat?
He had been to New York over the summer and

he told me that the "Taxi People" all wore hats!

I LOVE IT!

Okay, I know there has to be more to transportation than just taxi cabs and trucks, but wow they were so fun. Wednesday we spent the day talking about other forms of transportation. I loved it when one of the boys started talking about "boats". That was it, we had to do an art project with boats! We started by painting our water. I love to paint with unusual items. I want everyone to "think outside the box". We painted our water with old make-up brushes. They were the perfect thing to help us swirl the paint to make our water.

I just dropped big blobs of blue and white paint onto a sheet of paper, then a added some glue for texture. We swirled and swirl! WOW, what fun and what beautiful art! Unfortunately someone (that would be me!) forgot to take pictures of the final results. But, I sure you can use your imagination to see our boats and the airplanes made from shapes. :(

No good "T" week would be complete without a turtle project and I didn't want to miss an opportunity to do something extra fun. Our Tim the Turtle started off the night before. My sweet friend and fellow teacher, Mrs. Christi and I used hot glue fun to add a little extra fun to our turtles.

Everyone was so surprised when they started painting.

All of a sudden, Tim the Turtle had a tic-tac-toe board on his back! Our end results were truly amazing!

I love him!

Now anyone who knows me knows how much I LOVE Fridays! Not because it is the last day of the week, but because we have Tremendous amounts of FUN on Fridays! (I always want the students to WANT to come back to school on Monday!) This Friday was no exception. Our artwork was simple, but fun. Lots and lots of hand prints made lots and lots of great art.

These alone are just terrific, but we live in Alabama AND it is football season. So a few of my die-hard football guys got to make something a little different.

See, I really am an equal opportunity teacher! ;)

I took out all the blocks from my classroom and replaced them with bottle tops!

At first everyone just looked at me kind of funny. But soon the fun begin. By the end of the day everyone wanted us to keep the tops in our room all the time. It seems they were a little more fun that I thought!

I also had trucks instead of cars in our room AND all our fun counting games had the counters replaced with tops!

The real fun for Friday started when we headed down to the kitchen for snack-time. We ate a train!

It really tasted terrific!

While we having our snack my sweet, sweet friend and fellow teacher, Mrs. Tiffany slipped in the back door. We all had an amazing time watching her twirl her baton.

WOW, she is really good!

Don't you love her tennis shoes, tutu and tiara!

Of course she gave each child a chance to twirl and everyone loved it!

The big surprise of the day was waiting on us we when came back to our classroom. Tons tons of tubes and tape! We spent the rest of the day working on our wonderful sculptures. Some were tall

some were not

and some were . . . . well, I guess you could just say, some were just fun!

What a terrific week! Don't forget when having your own "T" week be sure to walk on your tip-toes, remind everyone to talk, not yell and when lining-up be sure to touch the wall with two fingers. Adding fun little distractions like this not only reinforces the letter of the week, it sure does make the week more fun!

Thanks for stopping by. I hope you come back soon and check on us!

"C" Week and Church

2011-09-25T10:53:00.000-05:00

WOW! "C" week was a Complete success! We started off early Monday morning talking about the letter "C", the color yellow and triangles by doing an amazing art project. We call it our Colorful Shape Clowns! Aren't they the Cutest things ever???

Everyone enjoyed putting the different colored shapes together. I really love the new button eyes. Our wonderful director, Mrs. Cynthia, ordered these LARGE buttons in all different shapes and colors. The children had to hunt for two eyes that were the same. Oh what fun!

Monday is also our Computer Lab day. We divide up into two groups and while one group heads upstairs with our friend, Mrs. Tiffany, the other group stays with me. I always like to do something a little special so Group #2 doesn't feel left out. So this week we headed to the kitchen to make our own crayons! I always think it is so funny that children love to peel the paper off of crayons. Well, they do until they are actually instructed to do it! Some very sweet person donated a large box of used crayons to our school. Now, I said "large" but the word really should have been HUGE! We got busy peeling paper and doing a lot of giggling. It seems that on this particular day, peeling paper either makes you giggle or get mad.

We finally filled our muffin tins with all the broken and peeled crayons. We decided that some of the muffin tins would have all different shades of one color in it while others were filled with every color you could imagine. We popped them into the oven and in just a few minutes they were all melted. I put the in the refrigerator while we were on the playground. When we returned - our very own, homemade new crayons! FUN!

Tuesday we talked about our theme of the week, "Church". I think it is very important to remind the children that even though we are at school, we are still "in" a church. I always tell them that NO ONE loves to act silly and have fun more than I do. BUT, there are a few times that we have to be "RESPECTFUL". The first is when we head upstairs to have our Chapel time. The second is when we say a prayer. And the third is when we say our Pledge of Allegiance. I only have a couple of children who need reminding of this. And believe me, I remind them! (OKAY, I'll get off my soapbox now . . .) Anyway, we are very lucky to have a beautiful stain glassed window in our church/school, so I thought we needed to make one too. We are lucky to have a large commercial Ellison Die Cutting Machine upstairs in the main office that we can use. We got a large roll of contact paper

and requested the "church window" die cut and we went to work!

I love how patient everyone was. I thought that my boys would use nothing but blue tissue paper or the girls would only want the pink and purple. But once again they surprised me, everyone wanted ALL the colors! Our very Colorful Stain Glass Window was a big success!

Several Moms told me later that they put the window in their kitchen window to let the light shine through.

During the week, while some students are working on their art projects other students have the opportunity to explore our different centers. One of the most popular centers (right behind the blocks) is our writing center. I have taken some writing sheets that I downloaded from First-School I made copies of the writing paper and wrote each child's name on one. I laminated the sheets and the children use the new Crayola dry erase crayons. These things are amazing!

The children write then they wipe! Everyone loves it practice writing our names!

Another fun center is our "Fine Motor Skills" table. There is always a different game or manipulative to help us work on our fine motor skills. Here is one of our newest games. We call it the "Color Wheel".

As the year progresses, I will change out the clothes pins. The next step is to have them with only the words written on them in the correct color. After that they will have only the words, no color. I love having fun and learning our color words at the same time.

Wednesday is always a fun filled day! Besides our regular activities we get to spend 30 minutes in the gym with Mrs. Nancy. She has wonderful games and activities planned. It is a Physical Education class designed just for us. I had what I thought was a fun art project planned for us too. Well, as always things got changed. I saw this Puffy Paint Cupcakes over at Teach Preschool and I knew we MUST DO IT! There are no words to describe the fun we had. Everyone loved saying, "it looks good, but you can't eat it!". First we read the wonderful book If You Give a Mouse a Cupcake by Laura Numeroff. We love all her books! By the time I finished finished reading it everyone was giggling and asking, "are we going to eat a cupcake?" I really felt bad when I told them "no". But everyone agreed, our art project was almost as good! We started by folding the paper for our cupcake wrapper -

Then we made our icing!

It was a wonderful combination of shaving cream, glue and your favorite color of food coloring.

And as everyone knows, you can't have a cupcake with our sprinkles, so we added some sprinkles -

The sprinkles were actually some old metallic confetti that we found! I knew it would come in handy ONE DAY! And here it is, the perfect "C" word, CUPCAKE!

If you are wondering whether or not it stayed puffy?

Well, YES IT DID!

We had to be a little careful taking it home, but it was still nice and puffy.

Oh, and it smelled good too!

THANK YOU SO MUCH DEBORAH STEWART

for another great idea!

Our Thursdays are so busy! First we have Chapel and that last about 40 minutes and we also squeeze in a 20 minute Spanish class. I have to plan fun but quick activities for Thursday. This week, I think I nailed it! The puffy painted cupcake gave me an idea. We had found some puffy paint in the supply closet earlier and I had been wanted to use it. I hesitated, because it said you had to bake it in the oven for it to "puff". But wait . . . putting something in the oven and baking it is called, "cooking" it right????? Okay, let's do this! I found an old writing sheet that we trace for writing practice.

It gave me an idea! I drew circles onto a piece of aluminum foil

Each child decided what color to put in each circle

We spread the paint around and waited 24 hours for it to dry! (Just a note, preschoolers and some teachers are not very good at waiting!)

Since we had to wait and I didn't tell them what was going to happen to the paint, we spent our circle time discussing the possibilities. And discuss we did! I loved some of the answers. Of course there is always that one person who thinks (maybe hopes really) that it will "blow-up". A few thought it might "disappear" and several thought it would change colors! We wrote all our answers on the board and waited.

Friday morning finally arrived and we headed to the kitchen to cook our "Cs". A 350 degree oven for about 5 minutes and . . . . .

WOW!

A colorful "C"!

Friday of course is our big science experiment day. We did a wonderful experiment involving milk, food coloring and dishwashing detergent. I call it a "Colorful Explosion". Okay, nothing really exploded but it does get their attention. First I dropped some green food coloring into the room temperature milk.

The I drop one drop of dishwashing detergent into the center of the food coloring

AHHH! The food coloring will move very quickly! We had to do it many, many times. But each time everyone loved it.

Of course we had to cook something this week and since we had just read If You Give a Mouse a Cookie we had to make a chocolate chip cookie. BUT, we had to make it the "Mrs. Karen" way! Here are a couple of versions of our chocolate chip cookies -

Our number of the week was "3" so each cookie got 3 chips!

I really loved the stacked cookie! YUM!

Of course each Fabulous Fun Friday we must have a Fabulous Art Project and this week we had SEVERAL! I found this vegetable slicer thingie in my basement. (I think my mother-in-law gave it to me because she didn't want it anymore. PLEEAAASSSEE. . . don't tell her what I did with it!) When I looked at it, it was all rusty, YUCK! So, I used it at school to make crayon shavings!

Well you know what you HAVE to do with crayon shavings . . .

YES! We melted them onto a triangle piece of paper! We called it "A Very Colorful Triangle!" (Sorry, no pictures of the final project, I forgot!)

My sweet friend and fellow teacher, Mrs. Christi, had a lot of fun melting crayons. I am sure that you have seen this

It is all over the internet. Of course we had to try it. First, cover you area with a lot (and I do mean a lot) of plastic. I'm sure the original artist was much older than my class, but I think we did a great job! We glued crayons randomly to a piece of cardboard using E-6000 glue. I put out an S.O.S. to my friends on Facebook saying I needed an old hair drier. Luckily, I found one! Here are some amazing pictures of us in action

Everyone waited pretty patiently for their turn. Now here it is

OUR MASTERPIECE!

We were all so proud!

What an amazing week! We were all so very tired by the time it was carpool time, one little girl actually fell asleep.

Thanks for stopping by and check on us! I hope you will come back again!

The Letter "D" and Pets

2011-09-18T11:45:00.000-05:00

Here we go again! What a great week! On Monday the class started our unit on "Pets" and introducing the letter "D" with a wonderful, easy project.

Unfortunately, I wasn't there because I was sick at home recuperating from a massive migraine (YUCK!). But thankfully my substitute did a great job holding down the fort. I like this project because it really isn't anything special - at first. But look closely and you will see the precious little prints of the children.

Tuesday, I was back and ready to go! We started our day with an interesting art project. We made "Sam the Square Blue Dog". As you can see, Sam was made entirely of blue squares.

I think he turned out to be Darling and most importantly everyone was so proud!

We sent a note home asking the parents to send pictures of their child's pet(s) to school. During circle time everyone took turns telling us the name of their pets and why they love them.

Our class microphone came in very handy! It seems this small little addition to my circle time REALLY works! Everyone has already learned that you can't talk until you are holding the microphone. YEAH!

Tuesday is also our "Music Class" day. The entire class spends approximately 20 glorious minutes singing, learning new songs AND discovering new musical instruments.

Wednesday is always a super busy day. We worked again on our letter "D" and our "Squares" by making a dump truck filled with blue squares!. With a room full of boys, I am sure that you know it was FUN!

Everyone had a good time pointing out all the different shapes we used.

Wednesday is also our "Wiggles Day". We head to our gym for 30 minutes of group activities. It is really a Physical Education class for 3 and 4 year old children. EVERYONE loves WIGGLE DAY!

Thursday starts out with our Chapel Class. Again, it is church for 3 and 4 year old children. We sing some of the most wonderful songs and then hear a fabulous Bible story. Chapel last about 40 minutes and we love it. I still am amazed at how well my class behaves in Chapel. Needless to say, this class was no exception - their behavior was FABULOUS! I was so proud!!! We also head to "Spanish Class" on Thursday. This is a short 20 minute class which introduces us the wonderful Spanish language. I love hearing my class greet Mrs. Fish (okay, her REAL name is Mrs. Felicia, but no one calls her that!) by saying "hola" and "adi'os" as they leave.

The only problem with having Chapel and our "Spanish Class" on Thursday is that our art and circle time is drastically reduced. I usually have to have something quick planned. So this week we made a "Square Blue Collage". SIMPLE, SIMPLE, SIMPLE but oh so fun!

Several blog post ago I mentioned paint chips and how I would be telling you what I did with them. Well, if you look closely you will notice that some of the blue squares we have used on these projects were punched from paint chip samples!

I LOVE IT!

Finally, it was our "FABULOUS FUN FRIDAY"! I love to pull out special things on Friday. My goal is for everyone to have so much fun that they can not wait to return on Monday. I think this Friday did exactly that. We started with an insane art project. We called it

We started with BIG half sheets of poster board. Next, we made different shades of blue paint. (Everyone really loved looking through the blue paint chips trying to find the shades of blue we made.) Finally, it was time for FUN! I have been saving different size square boxes to use as BIG stamps. I like BIG things! We used everything from old tea boxes (remember, I live in the south, we drink a lot of iced tea!)

to old jewelry boxes

But the fun really came when I pulled out this -

I found it at our lake house. I think it was used for firework rockets during the 4th of July. I'm really not sure, but we didn't care because the bottom was a perfect square!

You can see by the above photo that we also used an old tissue box. We had a blast!

Soon it was time to head to the kitchen for our "Science" and "Cooking" class. As everyone left on Thursday I told them we were going to "eat a dog" for Friday's snack. I love the look on their faces when I tell them things like that! Here are a couple of our "Dog" cookies -

Please notice our square heads. And yes, they tasted as good as they looked!

Our science experiment for the week was "Does it Dissolve?" Several of the children were given clear plastic cups (you only get to be a "Science Helper" if you are using your extra special listening ears) and we poured in different items to see if they would dissolve.

The grits and shaving cream were fun!

We ended up with eight different cups. It was fun to look at them while we ate our snack.

We ended up our week by pulling out the ever-popular "Playdough", blue of course! Everyone tried very hard to make our letter of the week. Hmmm . . . .

SUCCESS!

And people wonder why I'm very tired at the end of the week! :)

Thanks for stopping by! I hope you will come back next week and see how we learn, play and have a great time!

The Letter "A" and All About Me

2011-09-12T16:43:00.001-05:00

Wow, I can't believe it is Monday and I am just now posting from last week. So sorry, but a migraine hit me on Saturday and I am just now starting to move. Thankfully, I will be back at school tomorrow.

What an amazing week we had! Monday was Labor Day so we didn't get started on our week until Tuesday. We made up for our lost day VERY quickly! Several years ago a made LARGE individual letters. I glued on pictures of words that start with that letter. It is so fun to hear the children screaming out the words each week. Here is our "A" -

We are also talking about "Circles", the number "1" and the color "RED" this week. Here are some of my posters that help us remember.

Again, each of these were laminated and have lasted for several years.

Since this year's class is mostly boys (EIGHT!), I decided to make some roads for them. They were an instant hit! But, who wouldn't love driving your cars around this . . .

By the end of the week our road looks a little rough, but no one seemed to mind.

Tuesday was a great day to bring out all of those bottle caps I have been saving. Everyone got to make a wonderful piece of artwork using nothing more than red paint and bottle caps.

We call it "RED CIRCLES".

We took a little time Wednesday to talk about "ME!" It was fun. I always loved to tell my children some "special" about myself and then hear what makes them "special". It seems one child in my class can fly like Superman. While another child is really, really, really strong. Good to know! We also spent the day making little self-portraits. Bear with me please, while I introduce my class . . . .

This is Cooper and Will B.

Next we have Will S. on top and Reid in the Alabama football jersey. (I have no idea why this picture is turned this way!)

Next (another wacky picture, sorry) is Lucas and Cooper.

Here are our girls! Meet Ellie and Helen.

Last, but not least meet Winston (the Florida Gator fan) and Hunter. (AGAIN, sorry for the picture!)

Our "Fabulous Fun Friday" started out with some wonder "A"corn painting. A large storm brought down a lot of leaves and acorns last week so we put them to good use. We poured red paint onto the acorns and dumped them out onto a cut "A". After a few minutes of rolling the acorns around we discovered that "A" is for AWESOME ACORN FUN!

Friday was also the perfect day to finish up our week of "All About Me". We made a cute little self-portrait complete with our hand prints.

"I am wonderfully made". Psalms 139:4

Last week we begin talking in our science class about chemicals. You know, how some things just don't like each. Last week it was oil and water. That was fun, but this week we really had fun! As soon as we hit the kitchen we prepared our "Apple Tree" snack. It was just plain delicious. Since we talked about how oil and vinegar DON'T mix, we talked today about how icing and food coloring DO MIX! Our fine motor skills really got a work out as we mixed the icing with green food coloring and spread it onto a half of graham cracker.

We added the bottom (another half of a half of graham cracker) and a few "Twizzlers". Instant apple tree!

Yes, it tasted as good as it looked!

We finished up our day in the kitchen with everyone's favorite science experiment. I call it "elephant toothpaste" but others just call it vinegar and baking soda with a dash of dish washing soap. This was extra fun because we found out that some things mix well like the icing and food coloring BUT THEN when you mix other things like the vinegar and baking soda you get . . . .

WOW!

Oh, one more thing . . . have you ever seen and peanut butter and jelly and Oreo sandwich? Look what one super creative parent did . . . .

Everyone in the class wanted to know if it tasted like an Oreo? We had a great week. I hope you will come back and visit us soon.

The 2011-12 Year has Begun!

2011-09-03T10:58:00.001-05:00

Here we go!

Thursday, September 1st was our official first day. NO TEARS! That is always a good sign. The day went extremely well. We were happy and just played most of the day. I pulled out some of my special music and we danced and sang for about thirty minutes. Our circle time was just talking and sharing. Everyone loved my microphone

and couldn't wait for their turn. The day went by fairly quickly and before we knew it, it was time to leave.

Here are some of the new ideas that I am trying for this year. I hope you like them. The first came about after a trip to my local Dollar Store.

The object of this game is simple. More the little pom-poms from one bowl to the other BUT you can't use your hands! HUH??? You have to use the tongs! We love it!

Next is a fun math game. I have a huge box of bottle tops and I knew they would come in handy.

I found this template on line and new it would be perfect for all those wonderfully colored bottle caps! So far - we love it!

Since we are studying the letter "A", I wanted to incorporate our letter of the week while practicing our math skills. I really like this

We match the number of apples with the number on the tree trunk! Simple FUN!

Okay, now let's talk about our first week! With day one being such a huge success I decided that we should go ahead and start slowly working on our curriculum. We started Friday with a great project! We talked about the color red, and the letter "A". Everyone took turns gluing red items to a giant red apple. Simple, easy, a great confidence building and very fun!

We headed to the kitchen for our special Friday Fun snacks and science experiments. This week we made our world famous "Friendship Pudding". Here is my recipe if you would like to make it. One package of good 'ole Jello Instant Pudding, milk and a coffee can. We pour the pudding mix into the coffee can, add the milk and SHAKE! Everyone takes a turn shaking the pudding. Each time we pass the can to a different person we shout out their name! It is a great, fun way to learn every one's names. Plus the pudding is really yummy!

While my buddy, Mrs. Christi, was dishing out the pudding, I showed our class a very simple science experiment. We mix oil and colored water together. OR DID WE? Well, we tried, and tried, and tried. But the two would not mix together. FUN? You bet! Next we added an Alka-Seltzer tablet to the mixture - instant lava lamp!

NOW THAT WAS FUN! I loved hearing everyone screaming when they got into their cars later that day, "oil and water don't like each other!". Mission accomplished!

I at the lake now for Labor Day but I cannot wait until Tuesday!

First DAY!

2011-09-01T07:54:00.000-05:00

SCHOOL OFFICIALLY STARTS TODAY! Let the fun and the learning begin!

Treasures for My Classroom

2011-08-30T14:57:00.000-05:00

It is official! I've started moving all my wonderful "treasures" back into my classroom. My husband can almost see the floor in our downstair's den. It took me two days to unload and find room for all of my "treasures" at school, but I've done it! Want to see what I have? Let's sort it out . . .

First, there is my fabulous assortment of paint chips!

Aren't they wonderful! We are going to use them in several games, cutting and sorting activities. We will have so much fun with them.

I also got a little carried away with collecting bottle caps.

We will be sorting and learning with these as well. I have an amazing reading game planned. You will want to check back soon and see this!

Of course there are the obvious "treasures", such as cardboard tubes

and cardboard boxes. Please notice the Wii game box (my birthday present!).

But now, let me show you some of my greatest "treasures" . . .

Plastic fishing worms! Perfect for "W" week!

Feathers!!! I even have a hawk feather! Perfect for our study of not only birds but during "Q" week we can actually write with a QUILL!

But, I've saved the best until last . . .

I found this in a field at our lake house! I think it was used during a 4th of July celebration to shot off rockets. BUT LOOK AT IT! It is a ROUND CYLINDER and it has a SQUARE base! Can't you just see us dipping the square base in paint and smashing it onto some paper???? Oh, I'm getting chills!

I guess I better finish printing off some more notes to my parents, especially the one that says "WE GET MESSY!" I hope you stop by again in a couple of days. I hope to have pictures of my classroom up. We start school on September 1st!! YIPPPPEEEEE!

A New Year

2011-08-25T07:21:00.001-05:00

I'm heading to school today! I've been thinking, talking and typing about this all summer and the day is finally here! It is just the beginning of our teacher workdays, but still you would think that I would be excited. Not really. And it isn't just because I will be sitting all day in a classroom listing to a CPR/First Aid trainer for the 10th time. No, it is because one of my son's fellow police officers in Anniston, Alabama was shot while on duty yesterday. ( Anniston Star ) Even as I re-read the last sentence, it is almost impossible for me to believe. (As I type he is still on life-support.) How can this be? How can one human being care so little about another that they shoot them? I somehow try and justify a shooting in my mind when there is some sort of (sick) reason; a robbery, a fight, etc. But to shoot a police officer who was just doing his job. REALLY? My mind cannot and will not come to terms with this tragedy. So today, instead of being my usual happy, excited and bouncing off the wall self, I will say yet another prayer for Justin Sollohob, his family, friends and fellow officers and head out the door. TELL and SHOW the people you love and care how you feel, you never know.

Pinterest Link Party!

2011-08-20T13:42:00.005-05:00

Love Pinterest? Have a teacher blog or love reading teacher blogs? Well, what are you waiting for? Head on over to Michelle's Math in the Middle Blog to link up and see all the other great teacher blogs who have linked up! Oh, and be sure to check out my favorite School Pins at http://pinterest.com/keh9/school-ideas/