No, David! Centers and Learning

 

Last week was based on a book called No, David! I picked it up from Scholastic. It's a wonderful site that earns free books for my class whenever parents or teachers order! If you're a teacher signing up for the first time, use my customer number (1803211273) to earn a free 250 points and starter kit. (:
Book summary: a child who has behavioral issues and is learning good behaviors versus bad behaviors.

Centers for the week

Basket 1
Word wall of course!

Basket 2
Our word wall words that are themed to the book

Basket 3
No, David! floor puzzle.

Basket 4
Number 1 cut, color and glue practice. I have printable sheets that the kids LOVE because they get to use scissors by themselves. It's amazing how awesome they are with coordination at this age. I was scared at first to introduce scissors and glue, but I've slowly let go of my crazy teacher anxiety!

Basket 5
Shapes! Because I was unorganized and unable to print my trace board sheets. XD

Responsibility Checklist!

At my wonderful place of employment, Mrs. Amazing gave me an awesome checklist a few months back that I still follow! I thought I might share it with all of you amazingly organized teachers and Mamas.

• Child Assessments in Fall and Spring (ISTAR)
• Observations 1-2 per month
• Daily Sheets (communication with parents)
• Parent/Teacher Conferences in Fall and Spring
• Lesson Plans Due every Thursday (2 weeks in advance)
• File Folder's of Child's Work (1-2 pieces per month)

A few things I've added along the way:

• Sanitize toys every 2 weeks
• Sanitize chairs every month
• Sanitize tables weekly (daily if possible!)
• Restock on kleenex and cleaning supplies every Friday

This simple checklist is the greatest of all time! It keeps me organized, makes sure I'm doing my job, and best of all it's a list! Lord knows I LOVE lists. If you have anything to add, do so. Teaching is a constant state of learning! Happy Organizing!!

DIY Flexible Puzzles for any Theme

I'm standing here at my local neighborhood Staples copy center with my new friend Justin. He's extremely helpful and I appreciate all that he's doing! Today we're making large flexible puzzles since I can't find any that go with the theme for the next few week's plans.

Now I know you're thinking why would I be at staples making puzzles? but it's simple.

First, find an awesome black and white image you love and absolutely have to have as a puzzle for the kiddos.

Next, head on over to your Staples and have them printed in "Engineering Prints." They cost around $2 for an 18"x24" print. Next, have it laminated with the cheap, thin laminate that sticks to the page.

It's $2 per square foot and around $6 total for the entire puzzle.

After you have your printed and laminated puzzle, use a dry erase marker to draw out where you want your cuts to be.

Finally, cut on your dry erase lines to create your pieces and try it out! My munchkins love them! The benefit is that they're totally flexible and easy to wipe down with a bleach wipe. Sanitizing EVERYTHING is a huge part of the job to ensure healthy kiddos. (: Happy Puzzling!

Sub Tub Preschool Style!

I saw a pins for a sub tub, but every tub was for elementary school and none for preschool, pre-k, or kindergarten! I was beyond frustrated, but I after looking at 20 variations of sub tubs I can make my own. Hopefully this helps at least one other person in their quest for preschool sub plans and ideas. Happy Sub Building!

First I searched high and low for the perfect sized tub. I prefer tubs with lids, clear, and my classroom accent is blue. The ones at the Dollar Tree, unfortunately, weren't big enough for what I wanted, so I made my way to good old Walmart. I chose a clear blue tub from their storage container. It's a 6.5 qt tub and it only cost $3.50 after tax! Yay!

Second, I wanted to choose a theme that would I'd be able to leave in the tub all year. I'm forgetful and I know I will never change it by season or holiday or for any other reason. Since it is already named after a little submarine, sub tub. I went for the good old fashion Ocean theme. If you haven't already read my list of centers of themes from a previous post, click here to learn my madness.

Third, I created my layers of what to include in the tub. Starting from the top to bottom of what a Substitute would see first:

• Welcome Letter including basic rules
• Name tags
• List of trustworthy/untrustworthy students
• Schedule
• Center rules
• Free play rules
• Free center Friday rules
• Ocean books
• Ocean lace cards
• Word wall words
• Word writing list
• Trace board sheets
• Ocean Puzzle

Conveniently,  everything fit into the tub with room to spare!

Welcome Letter
This informal letter I typed includes, as its name, a welcoming to the class along with a few right off the bat things the Sub should know, as well as an extra attached page for good/bad student behaviors. It also includes a list of student names and explanation of what is included in the tub he/she has just opened. Here's the letter:


Name Tags
My students love any day they get to wear a name tag or sticker, so including these for the teacher who doesn't know them is genius. The tags themselves are just blank Avery labels, any size. The Sub writes each child's name onto the label and sticks it to them for the day. Whoever still has their name tag on at the end of the day gets an extra sticker on their chart!


List of Trustworthy/Untrustworthy Students
Sometimes this is tricky because my students are very cunning. They know what they can get away with and will try to pull the wool over anyone's eyes. I do have extremely honest students who tattle on themselves, so it could be worse. I do like to include an explanation on why the students are labeled trustworthy or untrustworthy.This gives a clear reason for the Sub to not doubt why the child is on which list.


Schedule
This is pretty self-explanatory. I include a time table excel chart of what to do, when to do it, and how. This eliminates any confusion about when and how things should be done. It is mapped out to ensure that no time is left unfilled.

Center/Free Play/Free Center Friday Rules
I have different sets of rules for the classroom depending on the day of the week and activity. The students learn quickly, but sometimes it can get complicated. I include a different sheet for each individual set of rules. Most of the rules are the same, but some are exempt for certain times.


Activities
Last but not least at the bottom of the sub tub are the activities for the day. This includes the Ocean books, lacing cards, word writing list, word wall words, tracing sheets, and puzzle.
Everything except for my word wall words can be found on Scholastic's Book Club at clubs2.scholastic.com Happy Shopping!

How to Theme a Lesson Plan

Setting themes to weekly lesson plans makes life and planning SO much easier. I can keep all of my major learning centers the same, but change the characters or specific details of the project. It also simplifies my organization system and storing system by allowing me to store each week's theme bundled together, and yes, you'll read about that eventually. If you've ever had brain blocks or complications trying to create themed plans, let me break it down into my crazy thought process, which unfortunate for you will not be broken down. :-P

All right, let's start planning. It all begins with a book, any book, your favorite book, my favorite book, literally any book.

Step 1. Choose a book.

Next, I make a list of my developmental milestones I want my kiddos to accomplish throughout their time with me. Occasionally, these lists vary from child to child, so I try to strategically plan for pairs. 

Step 2. Make list of milestones

• Alphabet: capital/lowercase and letter sounds
• Numbers: symbols, point to count, verbal 1-20, greater/less than
• Patterns: colors, numbers, shapes
• Writing: pencil holding, name, 13 letters, tracing, copying words 
• Scissors: proper etiquette, straight lines, safety
• Glue: why, when, amount
• Cognitive: puzzles, memory, story telling, comprehension
• Decoding: sounding out letters to make words

Your mind is spinning and I know you're thinking, "That's a lot for three year olds. It's not possible. They aren't capable." Surprisingly, they are capable of these things because they're learning positive self-esteem and pride! They think they can and I think they can, so they can. It's not about perfection, it's about practice.

After you've made your list of milestones, choose your centers that focus on these.

Step  3. List of centers

• Word wall
• Word writing
• Puzzle
• Scissor/Glue practice
• Tracing
• Number matching
• Alphabet matching
• Patterns and colors
• Lacing cards

Now, remember that book you chose from step 1? Here's where it comes into play. Choose X number of centers, tailor them to the ideas of the book, and voila planned lesson plans.

Step 4: Choose centers of the week and specify them to the book.

Just because I love that each and every one of you reads this, I'll provide an example.
Centers for the week

1. Word wall
2. Word writing
3. Puzzle
4. Tracing
5. Number matching

Book for Theme
Cat in the Hat

Putting it all together
1. Word wall

• cat
• hat
• fish
• bowl
• plate
• trick
• one
• two
• red
• blue
• ring
• pink

2. Word writing

• cat
• hat
• fish
• bowl
• one
• two

3. Dr. Seuss Puzzle

• I happened to order one from scholastic, but if you don't have the option:I'll be making a post about what to do, so DON'T PANIC!

4. Tracing

• Find and print various pictures or line tracing sheets.
• Laminate and attach to clipboard with dry erase marker

5. Number matching

• Draw, color, cut, and laminate a large fish bowl.
• Make small cards with various numbers
• Buy gold fish crackers or make your own little fish
• Draw a card and count out the number of fish to put into the bowl!

 Hopefully you get the idea about how I change my centers weekly and theme them for holidays, books, and projects! It makes organization a snap and I can always quickly insert a fallback in case I'm short on certain supplies. I like to pull out my book Monday morning, show the cover, and ask if they can guess the theme. They're awesome at context clues and inferences based on pictures and story themes! Happy Planning!
 

Operation Alphabet DIY Word Wall

I love word walls, and if you aren't familiar with them I'll explain. A word wall is a list of all the letters of the alphabet and words that start with that letter. It allows children to see similarities in letters and match letter sounds. Personally, word walls are more effective when they are interactive, but that's just me. It took me about two weeks to finally plan a word wall and critique how I wanted to use it. It isn't just a spur of the moment, fly by the seat of  your pants type of project.

For my classroom's word wall, I wanted it to be
1) easily accessible to the kids
2) easy to change
3) and low to the ground.

Unfortunately, a few of my set backs were
1) the inability to get tape to stick to my non heat laminated cards
2) the idea that I didn't want to use beau coup amounts of tape
3) and it had to be fool proof.
So, I asked my three year olds if they would like to have a word wall and of course, being three, they loved the idea and tried to think of ways to use it. 

(Like hang beanie babies)

They decided they wanted it to be on the wall by the door. Placement: check. They wanted it to have fun characters: check. They wanted to do it all by themselves: check. They are BIG on independence.

To create my one of a kind wonderful word wall, I used an owl template I downloaded from a teacher on teacherspayteachers.com (it was freebie). I don't remember who, but I do have the download! Did someone just say Freebie? Yes I did!

And I printed these out (in black and white) and laminated them using my awesome EZ laminator from walmart! Then, after a whole roll of masking tap and some clear tape from the Dollar Tree, I finally got them to stick to the wall. It was a small miracle! Next came my dilemma of how to make the cards interactive.
Velcro? It wouldn't stick to the lamination.
Tape? Too much effort to rotate words each week.
Clothespins and ribbon? Again, wouldn't stick to the lamination.
And thus, that left one option: hole punch. I hole punched each and every card and put hooks on the wall! 

Command hooks are kind of expensive, but my good ol' Dollar Tree has them occasionally and Walmart has their own brand (which of course I bought).
The rest is very simple:
1) place a hook under each little owl
2) explain and demonstrate what to do
3) let them explore
4) take a million pictures!

Each week I switch out the word cards to coordinate with the theme of the week. I love to pull words from the books included in the theme along with new fun appropriate words that I want them to know, exp: treacherous, catastrophe, habitat, coordination, etc. It's a great way to expand their vocabulary and learn the alphabet. Even if they do not know the names of the symbols, they can practice matching similar letters, capital and lowercase. To really make it fun for Valentine's day, I made the word cards into hearts! Check it out here: Valentine Word Wall

Dollar Tree Valentine!

Boy oh boy do I LOVE the Dollar Tree. Anything I grab is only $1?! It should almost be illegal. Anyways, I always see blogs with tutorials for how to do awesome stuff with objects from the Dollar Tree. So here's my first of many: Valentines. They're not just any plain old paper valentines like when we were kids either.
Don't burst my bubble, be me Valentine!

Supplies
bubbles
colorful ribbon
hole punch
cardstock
markers

Procedure
1. Unwrap that wonderful 6 pack of bubbles you just bought for $1!
2. Print out a cute square of heart shaped goodness or draw your own with some beautiful swirls of red and pink! Make it creative and especially cute.

3. Punch a hole in the top two corners and lace some ribbon through.
4. Use your scissors to curl the ribbon for a little extra flare!

"Pucker up Valentine!"
This cute dollar store steal uses lemonade and a tumbler cup!
It's as simple as that!

Supplies
lemonade singles packets
tumbler cup
construction paper heart
tissues/shredded construction paper.

Procedures
1. Line up lemonade packets around inside of cup.
2. Stuff tissues/shredded paper into middle to secure packets.
3. Put on lid.
4. Cut two horizontal slits in paper heart and insert over straw. Ta-dah!! 

Every year I give or make my best friend a special Valentine surprise. Last year I bought her Tulips that she couldn't possibly kill as long as she added fresh water. Fail. This year's surprise? How about a sock bouquet?! Unfortunately, I didn't make this one because I got her a puppy, so no pics! ): Yay for puppies!

Supplies
Valentine pencils
Straight pins
socks of various designs
small vase
green fill/tissue paper (optional)

Procedures
1. Roll the socks around the top of the pencil to create a flower and pin using a safety pin or straight pin.
2. Repeat until all your pencils and socks are used!
3. Fill small vase with green shredded paper or tissue paper.
4. Stick pencil flowers into vase and voila!

You could always fill the bottom of the vase with candies instead! Be creative!