I Love It When I Am Called Away From Planning Time to Clean Up Puke

Here is how I know it is winter: I have 8 additional blankets on top of my comforter, and I'm still cold. Tonight it will be a desperate battle between cold and blankets, and we shall see if the blankets can rise up and conquer the cold.

For now, I'll just shiver and hope my body eventually warms my little burrito tunnel up. Hard to do when my limbs are made of ice.

Here's another clue: my classroom has officially lost its leaves. Farewell leaves, we shall miss your beautiful colors! It is now time for the blues, grays, and whites of winter! Also intricate snowflakes. And here they are! Aren't they pretty?

I cut these the same way I do my leaves; draw a stencil, trace them on stapled butcher paper (or printer paper for the white ones), and cut them out. Then, with fishing line and tape, I have cheap, easy, pretty decorations that are pleasing to the eye and pretty fun to make as well. I get compliments on them all the time.

This time around, I added a bit; I sparkled a few so that they looked like real snow. My kids helped. Used mod podge and fine glitter to make "glitter paint", which got all over the table and floor. They loved it though.

My lesson plan for today (which involved forests and mountains) was unexpectedly interrupted by the arrival of the "fixer guy" who came to change a few ceiling tiles that had leaks. Since it was too cold to go out for very long, we spent about half an hour watching him replace tiles. Each time a new one was taken out (leaving a gaping hole in our ceiling), we counted, using the experience to see how math can be used in real life as well as practicing "one more" and "one less". I have several very good counters who figured out the system easily after only a few tries.

Then of course, my creative types came up with the idea that dragons live in our ceiling, and we have to be quiet or they'll wake up. One of my girls, codename "Monkey" told me, out of the blue, "When I'm a monkey, I'm going to climb into the ceiling and defeat the dragon." Since we were talking about dragons, this didn't surprise me. I asked her when she was going to turn into a monkey though. Her reply? "For Christmas."

Of course. Should have thought of that myself.

My less enjoyable event of the day was when one child, codename "Curly", threw up while I was planning. Needless to say, I wasn't able to finish, since I had a lovely mess to clean up. Poor guy, I don't think he knew what hit him.

I ate the same thing for lunch...hope it isn't slow acting!

Another mid-close up of my snowflakes :)

Singing and Dancing and Singing, oh Joy!

I'm constantly trying to introduce my kids to knew music (to them), including as many genres as I can. I love world music, and kids music, and what preschool classroom would be complete without Disney music? These are all classic favorites of theirs, and I'm totally up for playing them all day. Lately though, I've been trying to expose them to some of my favorites by sneaking them into CDs with songs they'll like. I just burnt three new CDs; the Frozen soundtrack, and two "mixed tapes" (do people still do that?).

The Naptime CD:
Landslide, Fleetwood Mac
I'm Coming Home, by Diddy
I Won't Give Up, by Peter Hollens (an A Capella version)
Boston, by Augustana
When I See You Smile, by Bad English
Africa, by Toto
The Impossible, by Joe Nichols
Puff, The Magic Dragon, by Peter, Paul and Mary
When You Say Nothing At All, by Alison Krauss
Let It Be, by The Beatles
Dream Big, by Ryan Shupe
Superman (It's Not Easy), by Five for Fighting
How To Save A Life, by The Fray
Man With A Memory, by Joe Nichols
Hold My Heart, by Sara Bareilles
100 Years, by Five For Fighting
White Flag, by Dido

The Awake CD:
How Your Love Makes Me Feel, by Diamond Rio
The Fox, by Ylvis
Mamma Mia, by ABBA
Wavin' Flag, by K'Naan
Hurts So Good, by John Mellencamp (I meant to put a different song in, but I like this one too)
Footloose, by Kenny Loggins
I Wanna Dance With Somebody, by Whitney Houston
Shine Your Way, by Owl City
What Made You Say That, by Shania Twain
Landslide, by Fleetwood Mac
Stuck Like Glue, by Sugarland
I Can Hear The Bells, from the movie Hairspray
Human, by Christina Perri
See You Tonight, by Scottie McCreery
Life Is A Highway, by Rascal Flatts
Brave, by Sara Bareilles
I Like To Move It, by Madegascar
Everybody Walk The Dinosaur, by Was Not Was
How Six Songs Collide, by Norwegian Recycling
American Honey, by Lady Antebellum

For all of these songs, I know them well, but often I don't hear inappropriate words. I'll be proofing them tomorrow, so if a song isn't a good one for class and you know it, don't use it!

I Love It When My Office Supplies Are Pinecones

George Takei recently posted something to his Facebook wall that I simply could not resist sharing. Any funny teacher pics, really. This one made me laugh especially, since I'm the worst when it comes to bringing stuff to school. Caps, corks, lids, and pens; cups, containers, tins and bags. If it's a thing, I want it. I have everyone I know collecting magazines for me (collage opportunity!), and whenever I see a big box, I immediately ask, "Can I have that box?" with the zeal of a true fanatic.

Today was one of those days where I had collected enough stuff to actually take it into school. In my bag of goodies, there were yogurt containers (containing water bottle lids and tin cans), Semester at Sea catalogs, scratch paper (always useful), big game dice, a paper tray, and the forest. By that I mean pinecones, leaves, pine needles and twigs, mulch and acorns and bark and dirt. It was lovely.

It is forest and mountain exploration week, just in time for December. Also, snow. It didn't stick, thank goodness, but it did snow, and the air was freezing! My hands weren't happy. The kids were, though, and that's all that matters, right?

Right.

During our morning circle, I introduced my kids to the forest. We couldn't go to it, so I brought the forest to them. It included all the things I mentioned above as well as some plastic bug counters (in real colors!). We discussed what we could smell, see, feel, and hear (though we definitely did not taste), and explained what they reminded us of. Since the colors of the forest are predominantly greens and browns, I added some paint chips (which I snag every single time I find myself in a paint department of any sort) in these colors to their art center.

In their science center for exploration time, I put the forest items on a tray with some magnifying glasses and "forest journals". The kids were able to trace, draw, or make rubbings of the items they saw. They described them to each other, and then used teamwork to make the best rubbings they could. As a lesson, it was pretty fantastic. We're keeping the science journals in our center all week.


Last, we painted with evergreens today (after learning what evergreens were on our freezing cold nature walk). The kids got to experiment with different types of art materials, getting creative with their brushes. They discovered that stroking the twigs across the paper created many thin trails, while dabbing them caused dozens of tiny speckles or lines, making for some pretty creative artwork. Later this week, we'll try making nature paint, mountain formation, and playing in a bear cave! I'll try to keep it as updated as possible.

Peace!

Fine Motor Balloons, or Stress Relief for Teachers

My school director mentioned to me once the idea of filling rubber gloves with hand sanitizer as  kind of sensory bag. I liked this idea, but I didn't have rubber gloves OR enough hand sanitizer, so once again I had to improvise. I did have play dough, and balloons. So why not use those?

Of course, I was improvising so I didn't actually have a funnel on hand, which left the question of how to actually get the play dough IN the balloon. My first attempt was to do it by just shoving the dough into the balloon, which worked to an extent. It left play dough in the mouth though, and was messier. Eventually, I remembered an old scotch tape roll I'd saved, thinking it might come in handy. Turns out I was right ! It opened the mouth of the balloon enough so I could stuff it with play dough.

After that, just tie the balloon tightly, and voila! Balloon fine motor muscle stretcher!

Of course, drawing faces makes them even more eexciting. We had fun with this part.

And if you'll notice, they are a very relaxing toy!

Cardboard Blocks

The Perpetual Curse of the Preschool Teachers seems to be that we never have enough of a budget to buy all the things we want. Have you ever looked through one of those catalogues for preschool classrooms? I spend the whole time bookmarking the things I want to have, even though I doubt I'll ever get them. Talk about expensive!

I try to create as many of my supplies on my own as I can. This can be difficult at times, especially without a laminator, but occasionally a few bright ideas come my way. My kids were starting to get bored with their cool curve blocks (BORED?!?!?) so I thought it might be nice to exchange them for some other type of block. Why not giant stacking blocks? They're light, and can fall on heads with little to no effect (great for higher stacks), they're colorful, they're paper, and best of all...they're FREE. Basically. Also, they're made from recycled materials, which is my favorite part.

If you can't find small boxes already, here is how I made mine from regular-sized boxes:

Start with two equal-sized rectangles and fold into thirds (the folds should be the same length as the width of the rectangle). Tape these together into a T shape.

Begin folding box sides up and taping them on the inside edges.

Tape all the way closed and tape up outside edges

I wrapped my blocks in colored butcher paper as if they were presents, using clear tape to keep shut, but it's not necessary. Just looks more colorful.

Let the stacking begin!

Don't forget to let the T-Rex destroy the buildings!

Fall is Coming

I've often wondered, in Game of Thrones, winter is coming. Does that mean they're in fall?

Well, up here in the Great Northwest, fall is certainly on its way. You can tell because it has been rainy, including lightning, and the leaves have already started to change colors. Also because I'm putting fall decorations up in my classroom.

They are leaves cut out of butcher paper and hung on fishing line at my entrance. Everyone loves them. For winter there will be snowflakes!

To cut out the leaves, all I did was print some leaf clipart out, trace them onto overhead transparencies, cut those out to make stencils and then draw the leaves onto several folded sheets of red, orange, and yellow butcher paper. If you staple the sheets together it makes it easier to cut them out so they don't slide around.

I also made my question of the day board fall-themed, but I don't think my kids appreciate it quite as much.

The leaves are the nametags with magnet tape so they stick to the board

Disney Naptime Playlist

As 3-year olds, my kids are in love with Disney music. As a 3-year-old-at-heart, I am too. And everybody knows that naptime music is less for the kids and more for the teacher who has to listen to it for the next two hours. So I try to pick music I enjoy, won't fall asleep to (I'm more into naps than they are at this point), but music that doesn't have that steady binaural beat that activates the alpha waves and keeps them asleep (such as Beethoven). Since all I really know is that classic music is the cause of that, I'm not necessarily the best at finding the alternatives, but I've come up with some favorites. A slow-paced Disney playlist is one of those.

I happen to already have the majority of the Disney soundtracks, so it was just a matter of thinking of all the slow songs used in Disney movies. This is what I came up with:

River Lullaby (Prince of Egypt - Not Disney, but kids)
Stay Awake (Mary Poppins)
You'll Be In My Heart (Tarzan)
So Close (Enchanted)
Reflection (Mulan)
God Help the Outcasts (The Hunchback of Notre Dame)
Part of Your World (The Little Mermaid)
Can You Feel the Love Tonight (The Lion King)
Love Will Find a Way (The Lion King 2: Simba's Pride)
For Longer than Forever (The Swan Princess - Also not Disney)
A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes (Cinderella)
Tale as Old as Time (Beauty and the Beast)
Best of Friends (Fox and the Hound)
Once Upon a December (Anastasia - Not Disney)
We Are One (Lion King 2: Simba's Pride)
Gotta Find You (Camp Rock)
If I Never Knew You (Pocahontas)
A Whole New World (Aladdin)
Colors of the Wind (Pocahontas)
I See the Light (Tangled)