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Tuesday, February 26, 2013

Dr. Seuss Week - Part 1

In honor of Dr. Seuss' birthday and "Read Across American", my class is talking about Dr. Seuss ALL WEEK!  That's right, we are spending an entire week reading, writing and laughing with Dr. Seuss.  I just had to hurry and post two VERY special pieces of art work that we did this week.  These first ones were done after we read My Many Colored Days



The children wrote the color they chose!  Aren't they wonderful?!?!?!?!

On Tuesday we read and discussed the book 10 Apples Up On Top and I will admit it has become a class favorite.  Our art project for the day even amazed me! 

Yes, the children wrote the numbers on the apples, then we glued them on top our heads!!!  OH MY!  EVERYONE was giggling and laughing so hard.  It was truly a terrific day!

I'll have more fun Dr. Seuss ideas over the next couple of days, but I couldn't wait to show these to our friends!  Thanks for visiting with it!!!!

Sunday, February 24, 2013

USA!!

I've said it before and I'll say it again . . . "I LOVE THE USA!"  What an amazing week we had talking about our wonderful country and some of the people who made it great! 

We started out with one of my all time favorite ideas.  Each child was assigned a specific person who helped shaped our country.  I went to the library and found historical books about each person.  My class loves when I show them "grown-up" books.  I know, most of the information in these books was too advanced for my class, but we loved the pictures and there were a lot of exciting details that our normal books lacked.  I also gave them little details all week about their specific person and by the end of the week everyone was referring to each other by their character's name!  My favorite moment came when I overheard Abraham Lincoln say, "Hey George (Washington), do you want to play with me on the playground?".  SUCCESS!

We started our week by talking about George Washington.  Talking about President Washington was fun and exciting for my class, especially when they saw his hair and clothes.  We spent the day chopping down the cherry tree and working on this amazing craft.

This was so simple but so much fun!  At the same time we were talking about George Washington we started discussing Betsy Ross.  Well, sweet Kloe (a.k.a. Betsy Ross) said she wanted to make Betsy Ross instead of George Washington.  Uhhhh . . . . okay, here is Kloe's version of Betsy Ross!

The bonnet was ALL Kloe's idea!  She saw it in one of our books and nothing would do until we figured out how to put a bonnet on Betsy,  I LOVE IT!!

Wednesday was spent talking about our flag.  We talked about the 13 stripes and counted ALL the stars (over and over and over again!).  We looked at pictures of older flags and flags from other countries.  We also made our very own American flags!


The only part of the flag that had any assistant from me was the blue square.  I drew it and the children did the rest. 

 The children used their fingers to make the stars.

We had a wrench thrown into our plans on Thursday but since it was such an opportunity, we did not mind.  One of our local TV meteorologist came to visit us.  James Spann came to talk to us about the weather. 

'
Since we were talking about our flag, we made Mr. Spann a very special flag!
 
I think he really like it!  We even made it onto the local news on Friday night!
 
After Mr. Spann left we spent the remainder of our day talking about Abraham Lincoln.  Since everyone was amazed to learn that he lived in a log cabin, we made one for very own.
 
 
Look closely and you can see the numbers written down the side.  I took ten strips of paper and wrote 1 through 10 on them.  The children had to put them in order to form the log cabin.  Of course the rest of the art project was a good way to review our shapes.  Good 'old Abe had a circle for his head and 2 rectangles made his hat.  And the log cabin had a rectangle door, a square window and a triangle roof.  We used the child's fingers to make his beard.

Finally our Fabulous Fun Friday arrived!  Our letter of the week was "U" so we declared Friday "Unusual Day"! 

Our day begin by our class coming in to see all our new unusual classroom.  We removed the "regular" blocks and replaced them with . . .


well, I'm not real sure what these are but I found them in our supply closet.  I think they are some type of cardboard supports.  We used them along with some cardboard boxes my friend Laura gave us for some really cool buildings.

We actually called them "logs" and used them for our log cabins. 

I also added a new fine motor skill game.  It was so simple, I glued little cups to a large rectangle box and added a golf ball.  It was a big hit! 


We had so much fun trying to move the ball through out simple maze.

I will admit the most fun activity we did this past week was very unusual!  We drew pictures under the table!

We used markers and colored pencils to make some amazing art work (which of course I didn't get any pictures).  But, it was so much fun!

As our week came to an end we headed to the kitchen to make some (very) ugly cookies! 


We added several different colors of food coloring to our vanilla icing to make the "ugliest" color.  We spread it on some graham crackers and YUM, they were so good!

Because of President's Day on Monday, our week was a little short, but we managed to squeeze in a lot of fun.  I hope you find some of these ideas helpful for your classroom and hope you stop back by again!

Monday, February 18, 2013

Fun with Lines

This past week we talked about the letter "L".  It is a fun letter!!!  Of course our class talked about love but we also leaped through the air any time we could AND we got to walk around and sing "lalalalalalala" all day long.   Oh, and who could forget those lovely lions we made.

 
If you look closely you may be able to see the mane of the lions.  The children cut it all by themselves!
 
 
 
But the highlight of our week came on our Fabulous Fun Friday!  Earlier in the week I saw this post from one of my FAVORITE blogs Teach Preschool.   I actually giggled with excitement because I knew my class would love doing some of these activities and they did!  Let me show you our fun with lines!   Our day instantly became exciting when the children saw all the lines Mrs. Christi and I had laid out on the floor in the hallway.


Everyone loved "walking the lines" back and forth down the hall.  Everyone had to wait until there name was called before having a turn.  This was a fun way to practice our listening skills and focus on following directions.  We hopped, wiggled and leaped our way up and down the hall.  Since the last few days had been wet, cold and rainy here in Central Alabama, this was also a great way to rid ourselves of some extra energy. 

We also drew lines with rulers.  Rulers are fun!  Mrs. Christi and I covered two of our tables with butcher paper and everyone had a great time drawing with them. 

 



I always find it fascinating seeing which children enjoy activities like this.  Some wanted to draw for only a few minutes and they became bored while others could have been there for hours!

Again, thanks so much to Deborah Stewart and her wonderful blog!  You inspire me!

Sunday, February 10, 2013

Valentine's 2013 Part 1

Ahhhhh . . . Valentine's Day, which only follows Christmas and birthdays in a child's excitement!  My class is already in a frenzy talking about our Valentine party which is not until next week.  I've tried to stress the meaning of Valentine's Day, you know LOVE and all, but all I hear is CANDY & PARTY!.  Well, I do have four more days to get my message across.  Now, let me show you a couple of really cute and fun hands-on activities we did this past week. 

Here is an oldie but a goodie . . . Heart Man/Lady!  We let the children pick out the matching circles for the eyes, and hearts for the hands and the feet.  Each heart person looked different!  These are just plain fun!
This Heart Man is flying!

Don't you just love Heart Lady's hair and hair bow????
 
Our BIG project this past week has been our "Eric Carle Heart".  This is the second year in a row that we made this and it will not be our last.  First we started by painting a large sheet of construction paper, but we didn't use any paint brushes!  We used scrappers and other objects to spread the paint around. 
 
Next we used stamps to stamp designs into the wet paint!
 
The results were amazing!

 
After they dried, we cut the paper into pieces (GREAT fine motor activities!)

 
and glued the pieces to a giant heart!
 
 

 
 Well, all I can say is WOW!!!!
BUT, we weren't finished!  Next we wrote "I LOVE YOU" on a big piece of construction paper and took a Valentine's picture for our parents.

So far, this project took 3 days to complete, but it was WORTH IT!  Next week we will work on the picture frame! 

I needed an easy but fun Valentine's project was needed for Thursday and I found this on PINTEREST.  It was perfect!





After we traced and cut out the child's hand and arm onto red construction paper, the chidren took over!  After they glued their arm down, the children used cookie cutters dipped in different colored paint to make our "Valentine Love Tree". 

Friday is always fun in our class and this Friday was NO exception.  We made our "Valentine Vulture". 

(Sorry no pictures of the construction process, we were too busy laughing!  Here is another view and write up about him ). 

We spent a good deal of time on Friday in the kitchen talking about volcanoes


and making our very own "colorful volcanoes". Add a little paint to your vinegar and you get super fun!


SERIOUS FUN!
If you haven't already, I highly recommend that you add some paint to your vinegar. 
It is a great way to help work on team-work
while enjoying a little science and color play at the same time.
 
Our Valentine theme will continue through next Thursday so I hope you stop back by and see what else we are up to!

Sunday, February 3, 2013

Love Notes Link Up!



Amy over at Literacy and Laughter started a "Love Notes" link up to get to know the people behind the blog.  Hmmm . . . I guess most people don't know me or not very much about me, so I thought I would play along.  Here we go . . .

"Lovely List"
Name: Karen
Grade You Teach:  Pre-K
State:  Alabama
Favorite Color(s):  Red, White and Blue
Lucky Number:  9
Favorite Subject You Teach:  Math
Go To Snack:  Chips
Favorite TV Show:  Big Bang Theory
Last Movie You Watched:  The Help
Music You Are Loving Right Now:  Anything from the 60's & 70's
Always Shopping At:  Walmart
Word of the Day:  Happy
 
 
"Love Links”

share links to…
a blog you are loving right now:
 
 

 
Your Valentine or February pin board:
 
 
 A Product You Adore:
My Cricut Imagine!!!!
What did I do without this thing???
 
 
 

"We’d all love to know…”

What are your favorite hobbies or what do you enjoy doing during your free time?
 
 
 
I love heading to our lake house!
 
Your favorite vacation destination?
 
Again, it is the lake!  And do you blame me??
 
The best advice you’ve been given?
BE YOURSELF!
 
What are you known for?
Being a little bit different
(or maybe a lot different depending on who you ask)!
 
Most rewarding part of teaching?
Seeing a child do something he/she just told me she couldn't do!
 
 2 random facts:
#1
 
My son is getting married to an amazing girl!!
WE ARE THRILLED!!!
 
#2
I am a closet artist!

 
The Loves of Your Life:
Share a picture(s) of your LOVES

 
 

 
 
Please consider creating your LOVE NOTE post and linking up.

PLEASE be sure to include a LINK BACK to this post.
 
 Looking forward to reading all of your posts!!! :)