Pet Rocks!

 Hi friends,

Like you, we've been very busy these days. This week we participated in the California Emergency Drill, we finished our DRDP assessments, and I had 9 parent teacher conferences. Next week will be as packed as this one with a few more conferences, dental screenings, curriculum training, IEP meetings and many other things that will definitely are not in our lesson plan book :)

Besides this week's busyness we had a ton of fun learning about pets!

We began our week "writing" some vocabulary words. We used magnetic letters and playdough.

Pet Rocks!
This cute pets were amazing! My kiddos created their own pets, they painted the rocks and glued on some googgley eyes. Some of them even names their "pets"... Rocky, Rocco, Blacky, and Tiny....aren't these cute?! The best part of this pets is that they do not need feeding, to be walked or get their litter box changed! LOL!

What is your favorite pet?

Keep learning!

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Activities for Winter Celebration

Hi friends,

School's out! These five months of school have been wonderful for me. I got to be partnered with a wonderful co-teacher, I'm working at a great school within my district, have wonderful students and parents.

On Thursday, we had our Winter Celebration...it was just incredible! My kiddos worked very hard learning five winter-related songs to sing during our party, we decorated Christmas cookies and we had the surprise visit of Santa Claus!....their little faces was priceless.


One week before....
We were very busy these past two weeks. We were making ornaments, writing our names on snowmen, practicing patterns with colored candy canes, learning our songs and much more.

I loved this activity. The kiddos wrote each letter of their names on a snowman. We then, counted the letters in our names and charted the names according to amount of letters.

These little guys were made out of playdough. They manipulated the dough and painted it with white paint with glitter. Then using twigs, they created the snowman's arms.

One of my favorite winter books: The Mitten. After reading the story, my kiddos were given two pieces of construction paper to lace and put together plus pictures of the characters of the book. They cut the animals and placed them inside their mitten. They were able to retell the story and I was able to check for comprehension, win-win!

Gingerbread kids....without the calories!

These was an independent classroom activity. The materials were provided to them and they put it together to their own creative interpretation.....well, we don't have any snow in San Diego :)

Turn off your alarm clocks and enjoy your well-deserved Christmas break!

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Love is in the air.....and a FREEBIE!

Hello friends,

These past weeks have been crazy busy! Assessments, conferences, deadlines, Kindergarten readiness meetings, and several unexpected events....the typical life of a teacher! Putting all that aside, I am very excited to have an upcoming holiday to celebrate in the classroom.

My kiddos and I began preparing for our Valentine's Day classroom celebration this week. We all are super excited! Here's a peek of our preparations:

Using straws, heart shapes cutouts and string, we are creating patterned necklaces. They are also practicing lacing and developing fine motor skills. This activity was based on the idea of Tons of Fun Preschool Activities blog.

This one was a huge success! The students traced and cut the hearts. They also wrote "I love you" and "Te Amo" on the sentence strip. To finalize this masterpiece, they glued teh hears onto the paper and clip it with a clothespin. Isn't this cute?!? I love how this turned out, I'm sure the parents are going to appreciate it!

Our math center this week was all about number sense and one-to-one correspondence. Using heart shaped cookie cutters, the students stamped the amount on each strip of paper. 

This upcoming week will be more fun activities in our classroom, stay tuned!

In the meantime, grab your uppercase and lowercase letters of the alphabet matching game {{HERE}}.

Spread the love and keep learning!

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Vote for me!

Hi friends,

Hope you all had a wonderful Presidents' Day week. In our classroom we celebrated Presidents' Day week by learning about our former Presidents Washington and Lincoln, and our current President Obama.

We read these fabulous books: Today, On Election Day, Duck for President, and my favorite Election Day!

Each day we created an anchor chart. 

The first day we learned about George Washington.

With each President we learned five important and fun facts.
Order of President: 1
His dog and his name: Sweet Lips and True Love
His favorite food: cherries
Fun fact: Got his teeth pulled out when he was 57 years old and had fake teeth made out of hippopotamus teeth.
Height: 6'2" (a ribbon is inside a plastic baggie to compare with the other presidents)

Order of President: 44
His dog and his name: Bo
His favorite food: broccoli
Fun fact: Loves to play basketball.
Height: 6'1" (a ribbon is inside a plastic baggie to compare with the other presidents)

Order of President: 16
His dog and his name: Fido
His favorite food: apples and hot coffee
Fun fact: Stored important documents inside his hat.
Height: 6'4" (a ribbon is inside a plastic baggie to compare with the other presidents)

How did you celebrate Presidents' Day in your classroom?

Keep learning!

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Go Green!

Hi friends,

Our last week before Thanksgiving break we learned about recycling and had several hands-on activities with this theme.

First each student used a recyclable item we have saved during the last couple of weeks. Using their imagination, they painted and decorated each recyclable item to create something new. 

To close the week, we did a little nature walk around the school grounds. A very kind volunteer was able to place some recyclable items on our nature walk route. The kids collected the items and once in the classroom we sorted it.

Keep learning and recycling!

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FREE! Pumpkin Pie Counting Game

Hello PKP friends,

Before Halloween, Christmas decorations were everywhere. I remember going to the grocery store and listening to Christmas music and it was;t even November yet. It was like Thanksgiving was forgotten :(

Well, I have created this sweet FREEBIE to practice number identification, one to one correspondence, and counting - all these while developing fine motor skills!

As i was searching for fun activities to help my kiddos who need fine motor skills practice, I will be using this with child-safety tweezers.

Another option is to use play dough. Both ways you are using those fine motor skills and developing those small muscles.

Keep learning....and gobble, gobble, gobble!

2

Letter Identification - Pumpkin Edition

Hello friends,

This past week we have been integrating pumpkins and fall elements into our lessons and activities. We just finished week 8 of our curriculum Big Day PreK, and for the alphabet knowledge component we are reviewing the letters A through E. 

This is a fin activity I created for my kiddos. They really enjoy dabbing and stamping, so this practice should be a breeze!

I placed the pumpkins cutouts of the letters into my big pumpkin. Each child took turns picking out a pumpkin letter. That child would read the card and ask their friends to dab it.

They also practice identifying the lower and uppercase letters.

You can get yours {{HERE}}

Keep learning!

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Five for Friday {{10/02/15}}

YAY for Friday....and Saturday!

I have been on Fall break since October 18th, and sadly it has come to an end. This Five for Friday will be about everything that has happened during the break.

Click on the image to join the fun with the wonderful Kacey at Doodle Bugs Teaching!

I'm on break.....but the work doesn't stop!

I've been doing DRDP assessments during the craziness going on in our house right now.

We purchased our new home three weeks ago. And we are putting new flooring, in the entire house...it looks like a war zone!

This is a peek of where my office will be!

Our new quarter begins on Tuesday and with that comes new goals, new projects, and new ideas!

This would be my favorite of the favorites! My parents came to visit us! They are being awesome in helping to move furniture, unpacking, and helping with the girls!

In all that craziness, you MUST stop and enjoy the sunset!

Keep learning!

4

Trick or Treating Safety!

Hello PKP friends,

Today is the first day of October! That means we have 30 more days for Halloween!!! I love this holiday! I personally love the parents and children's imagination that's put into those elaborated and well-thought costumes. I still remember a few years ago one of my students was wearing a very nice sparkly dress with a silver suitcase with  number on it - she was dressed up as a model from the game show Who Wants to be a Millionaire! It was so clever!! 

With all of the celebration there's also certain safety rules we all need to explain our kids and most importantly is to explain the reasoning behind it. Is not that we want to ruin their fun, we just want them to have a great time and be safe at the same time.

This is a very special post! In collaboration with Norm Reeves Honda we provide you with a very cute infographic about Trick or Treating Safety Tips.

"As the keeper of the candy

and the parent of the small,

these tips will come in handy

for the safety of one and all"

Now I just need to start thinking about my own costume. Maybe a princess, or a witch, or a pirate, or a cowgirl......so many choices!

Keep learning!

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The Little Red Hen

Hello PKP fans,

As the school year continues to develop, we are incorporating more and more hands-on activities for our students. This time we explored The Little Red Hen with a variety of activities, and a cute craftivity!

After we read the story, we ALL wanted to try some of the delicious bread the Little Red Hen had made. We got the chance to see the process of the wheat, the flour, and finally the bread! We used our senses to explore further what the Little Red went through to be able to make her delicious bread.

The next day we cut a paper into the shape of Little Red. We also retold the story using the sentence frames: First...Then....at the End. 

These were some of the hens we made. 

We took dictation of what the students had to say about the story.

Keep learning,

0

Compound Words

Hello there!

Each day my students show interest in reading (older threes and four year-olds!). The always ask for beginning sounds and some of them have started inventive spelling while they draw and write on their own.

I introduced compound words to continue fostering their curiosity and they loved it! Now any word they hear they want to do hands-motions I taught them to separate into two different words :)

Here are my kiddos in action! We used my newest Compound Words product to practice this skill.

The students will first foo hand motion 

(repeat each word using each hand - moving closer and closer. 

Once the hands are together they discover the new word).

They proceed to open the foldable and draw a picture of the new word.

This product provides 25 different compound words foldable for different level students.

Keep learning!

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