Saturday, August 30, 2014

Creation week #2

Pre-kinder is up and running! We've had a great few weeks getting to know our new students and introducing them to their new school and jumping into our unit on creation.

This week we learned about day 2 of creation- when God created water. We looked at water above (weather) and water below (oceans and seas). Here are some of the fun activities of this week:

In art class we made kites for our windy weather!

Some of the girls realized if they tied the kites to the swings it would fly.


Finger painting with blue- our color the week- was a little messy :)


Friday was "blue day" and we played with blue balloons



Taking advantage of a moment of sun, we headed outside to draw with chalk


These boys made a big tic-tac-toe game

Drawing with chalk can be a little messy!

For other posts from our creation unit check out  Days 1 and 3 or days 5,6, and 7 from last year

Saturday, August 9, 2014

Pre-Kinder classroom set up!

One of my favorite things about being an elementary teacher- and more specifically a PK teacher is creating a classroom environment that students love to be in! The beginning of the year is filled with thinking through what goes in my classroom, how do I arrange it, and what will be best for their learning.

I am so pleased this year with my set up. Over the past 2 years I have slowly changed furniture, payed attention to what classroom decorations will go on the wall so that students utilize the resources, and read up on what is best for a PK room. My room is not quite finished (the awesome maintenance staff at our school still need to install a few things) but here is some of what PKers will be living in this year! Behold the classroom tour!

Block area with a smaller car carpet

When finished, each of the students will have a section to hang their best work from the week.

Our calendar routine is now bilingual as we are focusing on growing in both languages.

This chart assigns each kiddo a number that is where they line up, sit on the carpet and whatever else I need. It changes about once a month so we can adjust for learning needs (such as sitting in front or separating certain students.)

My Teacher aide did an AWESOME job decorating our door. Each of the leaves and flowers has student names on them.

A permanent display board in the hallway that can have student work on display

Our mail box system for storing student agendas and papers.

Our home/kitchen center

Books!

Teacher work area. We were able to update our desks and move the classroom computer over.

The view outside of our classroom- clearly the school is under construction. So far the noise hasn't been too bad.

Art supplies with small group baskets on top

The sensory table that our awesome workers made last year.