Around the world in 6 days

Well what a whirl wind trip we had. We visited Africa, India, China, England, Slovakia, and Brazil before heading back home for Texas. Preschool 5 year olds don't always get the world being so big, but my little friends this year got it. We had a great time. I used a beach ball globe to show them our (pretend) flight path.

After I showed them the country or continent, I would toss the ball out and see if they could point at it for me. They did so good. As I shared in my last blog we traced all our contries/ continents and tried to write their name on them after we cut them out. We decided to not make a mobil, so I am adding a picture of what we did.

Oh go back to the description of the queens crown for England I have taken a picture to show you what we did.

A new unit coming up. I have done it before but I have not collected enough fun things for my own satisfaction. I am teaching around the world in 6 days. Each day we will visit a different country, or continenent. Today while trying to decide on a few last minutes I traced Africa and India on file folders and cut them out. Each day we will trace and cut the shape of our country out. Those that can will copy the name of the country, or continenent on the shape. At the end we will string them all up on a big picture of the world. A mobil will be created. Just for my added "Bible touch to this" I will put God created the whole world and everything in it. ( this is a future Bible vs. for my class). They can enjoy sharing their work with their families. We will practice tracing, cutting and printing, all great learning tools for my Pre K friends. I will let you know how it turns out, because as of now it is just an idea.



Update from this original blog--- we have traced 4 continents or countries so far. It has worked out great. What a great and easy tracing and cutting practice it has been. I guess we could call this a geography lesson as well as multi cultural. I am just excited that it has turned out good.
*****Today we made crowns because we learned about the queen of England. The children used glitter glue and sequins for their jewels. Teacher assembly was required but the children were very proud of them.
Supplies: Tag board strips for the base and cross part on top. glitter glue and sequins for the jewels. purple tissue for the fabric part.
Instructions: Took 2 strips about 12"x 2" and stapled in center making a cross or plus symbol. took the base which was 24"x3" and stapled end to end making the base. Let the children decorate the pieces with the glitter glue and sequins. Stapled the cross to the base at the 4 ends and underneath tucked the purple tissue and taped down. The children were excited to be kings and queens. Picture coming tomorrow. I barrowed a crown to show you a finished product

Random stuff

Don't you love it when you have something sitting on your counter, you want to use it, but how can you make it a learning experience? The last week and 1/2 I have had snowflake oriental trading little stampers sitting in a bowl waiting for a brainstorm. I wanted to use them but wasn't sure how. Today it hit me! The children can roll dice and they can stamp that many snow flakes on their page. A teacher friend came in, she thought it would be good to fold the paper in 1/4's and then they could roll 4 times and stamp 4 times. It was awesome! I had the children write the number in each square as well. Such a simple thing, why does it take a brain storm or searching all over to come up with these simple things. so thats the random thought for today........... just a footnote, you would not have to use stamps, you could use colored daubers and have them stamp a different color each time they roll. You could also use stickers. So many simple things out there, it's just hard on the spot to know quite what to do. LEARNING CAN BE FUN AND EASY.

snowman picture goal for the day

Alright, today is the day I will figure out how to post that snowman on this blog. TaDa, a grocery bag snowman from Texas.

Winter still and more on yesterdays snowman post

Well I thought about what I blogged and I decided to share what we learned by building our grocery bag snowman.

We were in 4 teams and everyone got a different amount of recycle paper. We learned to work as a team to make our ball.

We were learning the concept biggest to smallest so we had 4 balls and had to decide which was biggest, medium, small and smallest.

We heard the story about Frosty before we started any of the snowman building. We talked about what the boys and girls used in the book for eyes nose mouth etc. I had our items all set out. They had to choose from what was available.

What a fun learning experience it was, and since I am still learning, I have not posted the picture yet.
OK teaching team I challenged you via email to find me. Monica found me and shared with me the link. Pretty sad when I don't even know how to tell people to get here. More winter stuff later.

Winter fun in my preschool classroom

Well this is my first attempt at a blog and sharing my love and ideas(nuggets) for Pre-K teaching. We built a snowman out of trashbags (actually grocery bags turned inside out) 4 teams raced to fill their bag with wadded up recycle paper and we taped and tied the 4 balls together. I let them choose sorting buttons for eyes, nose, mouth and of course we had buttons as well. Next I let them use my teaching pointers for arms and my gloves and scarf. I forgot a hat but we found a sombrero in our resource room. He was a special snowman we were so proud of. The kids loved him. If I knew how I would share a picture. I will try to figure it out and share later.
Tomorrow I will share the rest of our snowman day activities. Did we have snow? No, we live in the DFW area, never much snow, but it was definitely cold enough this week.