Chugga Chugga Choo Choo

In our classroom (and just about every pre-kindergarten classroom) there is an area called the dramatic play area.  This area is set up for children to pretend play.  My dramatic play area has child sized  furniture such as washer, sink, refrigerator, small cabinets, table and chairs, couch, high chair, crib, and a closet.  There are also babydolls, dress-up clothes, and a lot of play food.  While there materials are permanent and stay around all year I also have a secondary theme that get changed out about every other week.  This week since we are talking about transportation our theme for the dramatic play is a train station.
Here are some pictures of our train station.

Train with chairs behind it for passengers

complete with tickets, and cash register

Conductors hat

 I was taking some observations in this area, and I would like to share some of the things that are being said as he students are pretending to be at a train station.

"Tickets, who needs tickets?"

"Excuse me, where's the ticket line?"

"We gotta go to the dance in Alaska, let's get our tickets."

"I was workin the ticket line Ms. Lisa."

"Passengers need to get tickets from the train man, the conductor."

"I drive the train and take the passengers to America."

"I was the ticket helper, but then I was the son riding on the train."

There were some interesting conversations going on, and we were using a lot of new vocabulary.  All in all we are having a lot of fun with this theme.

Lisa

Dr Seuss Theme

I know I said I would post pics of my new Dr. Seuss theme so here they are...

This is our Birthday wall.  I put the cake up with contact paper, and then wrote on the name with dry erase so they can be changed out every year.  I also always hang up pics of their parties they have in class.

This is one of my favorites, the helping hands chart.  I used pics of the fish from The Cat In The Hat, and each one is a different job.  The students get a new job each week, and it teaching them a sense of responsibility and being a part of a group.

These are for their individual art work.  Each student has one of these hanging somewhere around the room with their name and picture.  When they complete art work in the class they can do one of two things with it.  1. they can put it in their take-home-folder, or 2. They can hang it on their place with the clothe pin that is already there.  

These are the signs for the bathrooms...obviously.

My Room has almost a whole wall of cabinets that are kind of a creamy color.  The pic above is what we did to the bottom cabinets under the sink.  It's fun, and we'e had a lot of comments on them from people coming into the class.

Here is what we did to the cabinets above the sink.  This way we can frame some of the art work the students do, and it is easy to change it out often.  They are always wanting me to put their art work up here.

We had a blank wall in the library, and my assistant came up with this idea.  She put up covers of some of our favorite books, and I think it turned out really cute.

These are a few quotes that we put up around the room.

We are still adding a few finishing touches, and I will add updates on those as they come.  

Lisa

"I Have A Baby!"

No, I did not have a baby, but this is what I heard when I came into school this morning.  One of my students is now a big brother, and when he came into school today he could hardly contain himself.  We were singing our morning song, when he about exploded with the news.  He then went on to explain, “The doctor made magic, and the baby came out.”  I love to hear how children explain the miracle of child birth.  Another thing he told me was, “mommy and baby are living in the hospital alone.”  I know this sounds sad, but the reason he said this was he had to stay with a family friend while everyone else was in the hospital.  I love when students get new siblings, however, it usually causes them to somewhat alter their behavior.  I’ll keep you posted on the big brother progress.

"The Heart"

I haven't written in a while, but with all the craziness of Valentine’s Day I have a lot to talk about. 

In our class we have a cut out of one the student’s bodies, and we are slowly labeling the parts of the body.  Of course because it was Valentines talked about the heart.  Here are some of the responses I got when I asked the students what their heart does…

“It keeps you warm.”

“It makes your blood.”

“it gives you blood.”

“It goes bum bum, bum bum”

I then proceeded to have them feel their hearts, and one student was really concerned because he could not find his heart beat.  Here is what was said about that…

“I can’t feel my heart; all I feel is my bones.”

“Just hold your hand there, and you will feel it beating.” Me

“I still can’t feel it; I don’t think I have a heart.”

“If you didn’t have a heart you would be dead,” Another student.

I love hearing the things that come out of five-year-old’s mouths, and these questions just promote great conversations.
Here is a picture of our body...

On Monday we had our Valentines party in school.  In the morning everyone decorated bags for their valentines, and made a valentine for their parents.  Before lunch we exchange valentines.  The children had a blast handing out their goodies they had brought in, and were very excited the rest of the day.

Here are some pictures of our Valentine Party:

These are the valentines they made for their parents.  they sprinkle crayon shavings onto wax paper, and then I ironed it for them to melt the wax.  next, they cut out the heart, and we put the card together.  They also had the option to write either, "I Love You" or "Happy Valentines Day".  Lastly, we took pictures and put them in the bottom corner.  We had a lot of fun making them, and I think the parents enjoyed them as well.

Here are all of our Valentine goodies at the end of the day...

Happy Valentines,

Lisa

Class Visits

So, anyone who has ever taught knows that at anytime during any day random people can walk into your room, and their observations while they are there may or may not be detrimental to your job.  Well as we are getting into the second part of the year we are having more and more visits from these wonderful guests, and usually to make sure the students behave I will tell them the company is there to observe them and see if they are ready for kindergarten (a little deceptive I know, but it works).  Anyway, today we had I visitor come to observe Mr. tantrum whom I talked about yesterday, but while she was there you know she could not resist observing me as well.  I mean I live for this pressure I guess.  Today did not go to bad though, and I think I did a pretty great job at keeping my cool considering we have had approximately four different visitors in the past week.  By the time we made it to nap time I was feeling pretty good, and all but two of my students were sleeping (those two hardly ever sleep). The guest was talking to me about who knows what when all of the sudden there was a loud crash.  We went over to see what it was, and here one of the non-sleepers had knocked a toy off the shelf.  However, the priceless part of the story was the look on the little boys face when he saw that woman walk over there.  His exact words were, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry that fell".  Let's just say my class knows how to behave when there are other people in the room.  Not that I should really be complaining, though, because I do have a pretty well behaved group of students this year.

This week has been incredibly busy already as we have been preparing for valentine's day, and it is spirit week.  Today was Super Hero and Princess day, and I vote not to have is anymore for three reasons:
1.  I really don't have any articles of clothing that involve princesses or super heroes
2.  Everyone wears elaborate Halloween costumes that make them crazy hyper
3.  The costumes also make bathroom time longer and a bit more difficult for all involved
However, the good news is they were so tired that everyone took a nap today!

One of the hard things about teaching young children is some are still prone to unexpected tantrums.  With one student in particular, though, they are not at all unexpected, in fact I would be surprised if they did not occur a couple times each day.  Lately they have been getting more and more frequent, and the odd thing is that there is no common trigger (he just sort of cracks).  Yesterday we counted and he had literally five tantrums.  Now when I say tantrums I mean crying as loud as he can, usually yelling as well, and sometimes flailing himself all around.  Yesterday, however, was also different because during the fifth one he HIT me for the second time that day. (Don't worry I can take a hit from a five year, and did not get hurt it's just the principle of it all)  After the first time I told him if he ever hit me again he would have to go to the office and I was going to call his mom.  Well, needless to say I don't usually go back on my word.  He ended up being sent home for the rest of the day.  Today he came back a new boy, and the day was pretty impressive.  We will see what tomorrow will bring...

Tomorrow is pink day (I don't know why and the boys are not to excited about it, but at least I should have something to wear).

'Till then,

Lisa

"I'm The Man"

In my home living center of the classroom I have a large container that contains our beauty salon prop box.  The students love this as they are able to pretend with straighteners, curlers, shampoo bottles, and various types of empty make up containers.  They love having one person sit in a chair as if they were in a salon, and will often even use the sink to act like they are washing one anothers hair.  This is very popular with many of the girls as they have either been to the salon or see their moms use many of the items.  However, the boys also find this prop box intriguing, and are often using it as well.  They sometimes take a flat object and act like they are shaving someone's head.  Today there were two boys taking turns being the beautician, and this is the conversation that I heard between them,
"Can I have a turn" one boy said to the boy who was setting up a straightener to do someone's hair.
"No, you have to be the man to do this."
"Am I the man? Can I do it now?"
"No, only I am the man, okay? I am the man!"

I am not sure where he heard this,but it made me crack up a little before I reminded him that we had to share.

The End Of Our Winter Theme:


These are class books that we made -

The first contained activities that they do in the snow such as snowball fights, sledding, and snow angels.  The second book was a follow up to a discussion we had on hibernation, and the made various animals that live in cold places, hibernate, or go somewhere worm during the winter.  The class really enjoys making class book, and they love seeing it all put together after they each create a page.


Sewing Mittens - 

The students threaded these paper mittens all by themselves, and it was a great winter activity to work on hand/eye coordination.  


Our theme for next week is tools, and machines  We will also be preparing for valentines day, and I will have a few fun ideas to share in dealing with that.




I hope everyone has a great weekend, 


Lisa 

Stop, Drop, And Roll

       As you can probably tell from the heading we had the fire department visit us today to talk to the students.  We were able to go outside and walk through the truck, and then the firefighters came in and did a presentation. When the children were getting on the truck I was pretty surprised because the fire woman would lift each child up into it, and five year olds are not really at the lifting stage anymore. I really hope she doesn't end up with back problems. Anyway, when we went inside they showed us all their gear, and how they get dressed. As he got dressed he explained everything, and then when he was fully dressed everyone came up and gave him a high five. The largest problem they have in fires involving children is that the children usually run and hide from the fire fighters since they look and sound so scary with their uniform and oxygen. This way the students could see that it is still just a person under all that, and they are there to help.
     After this they took questions (which is always interesting). We have been trying to talk about asking questions versus making a statement, but they are still learning. However, here is how the conversation went on a certain question:
"Do you have to live at the fire department?" - Teacher
"Yes we live there for a whole day, and then go home for a day.  We sleep there, eat there, have training, and even have to do chores." - Firefighter
"Do you have a TV?" - Student
"Yes we have a TV, do you know what we use it for?" - Fire Fighter
"Because otherwise you would be bored?" - Another Student
"Well sometimes we watch it, but usually we use it to watch the news or have trainings." - Firefighter
     The fire department did a great job, and I was really impressed by the way that they were not shocked with any of the comments or questions and they understood and answered everyone. The students really enjoyed it, and it was definitely the topic of discussion for the rest of the day.

"Mom, I Think I Have The Diabetes"

        So, today I want to share a story that a parent told me.  I am going to called him C, and even though his mom tells me his embarrassing stories all the time he never seems to get embarrassed.  I love that quality about him.
       His mom explained to me that she has diabetes, and C is aware of this.  They have quite a long commute to school, and one day on the way home C had to use the bathroom.  Now if you have ever had experience with a five year old you know that usually when they have to go it is urgent.  Therefore, his mom decided to stop at a gas station to avoid any disasters.  When C came out of the bathroom he was looking a little grim.  When his mom asked him what was wrong he said quietly, "I think I have the diabetes".  His mom was a little confused, and asked him why he might think that.  He told her that when he went to the bathroom it was really runny (TMI I know).  C's mom looked at him and trying to hold back a laugh she responded, "Oh you have diarrhea".  of course he replies, "yeah that's what I said".

Something To Look For In Next Weeks Post:

       Every pre-k classroom has a theme to it, and when I started in my classroom it had sort of a mismatched jungle theme.  However, we have been working really hard to transform it into a Dr. Seuss room.  Let me tell you this is a slow and steady project that you rarely find time for, but we are hoping to have it completed in time to celebrate Dr. Seuss's birthday.  I will have pictures of the progress to share soon.