Travel Teach Repeat

This week was community (places we go). I read The little Red Hen (makes a pizza ) on Monday. After reading that book the kids went to small groups and created their own pizza with construction paper scissors and glue.

Then on Friday we made our own real pizza with soft tortilla, sauce and cheese. They had fun!

In dramatic play we decorated like Kroger, add a cash register some food product and play money. The kids wrote out a shopping list and they would go in the store and shop for whats on their list.

Love
Candace

We made candy corn out of ripped paper. I gave each child an orange paper, white paper and yellow paper. They had to rip each piece of paper into small pieces of paper and then glue them on each section . I wrote the color word on the section where they would glue the paper. This was a great fine motor skills.

Little kids love balloons and they love hands on activities so we try and come up with hands on science activities that they can do on their own. So one of the activities was filling the balloon with air using baking soda and vinger. I tested it out with my kids first to make sure it would work as planned. We placed a reasonable amount of vinger in the bottle first. Then we took a funnel. Wrapped the balloon around the smaller part of the funnel and filled it with baking soda. Then we attached the balloon to the opening of the bottle and dumped all of the baking soda in the vinger. From there the balloon would fill with air causing it to blow the balloon up.

My kids testing it out. 

Love
Candace

I'm sitting here relaxing on this Sunday evening. Tomorrow is Columbus day so our school is closed. Tuesday will be. Teacher work day so I have to attend a workshop that day from 8am -3pm . I went to a couple of days of training last week for GA prek and learned a lot of things. Although I have taught GA prek before I guess a lot have changed. One interesting thing that stood out to me that I was doing was letter of the week. They suggested for us not to do that just implement the letter everyday in print around the room or activities. All I have done this weekend is rested. Been lazy I don't even think I went out of the house this weekend. To go to church and that's it .

Love
Candace

OMy husband birthday was on Friday, sept. 26. I took him to the beach. Hilton Head Island, he loves The beach. He need a get away where he can relax and feel at home. He's from Gambia and the beach is a couple of miles from home. He says when ever he goes to the beach he feels like he's at home. I love the beach as well it makes me happy and it relaxes me. I did take a short nap on the beach and we did witness a wedding that was being performed on the beach .

I have so much to post. I do things with the kids through out the day and say I will post it but I never get around to it. I am so busy. I go to work then come home help my kids with their homework do my wife duties and them I have home work cause I am still in school and I just never get around to post or talking bout what I want to talk about. It's going on the 8th week of school, seems like the weeks are going by so fast.

Love

Candace❤️

So I love my teacher Instagram family! They are always sharing ideas, things that may be helpful in the classroom ! So I seen a lot of teacher posting #gonoodle so I decided to try it. Gonoodle is a brain break, it's like a way to channel postive engery. This program is really helpful in my classroom considering I work with #prek kids. They get restless at times especially during morning meeting time . And in large groups. I was super excited when I finally set it up! I dance along and sing with the kids when we are using gonoodle. I would really recommend this to anybody even for exercise purposes. 

Sooooo... Today while going to lunch, walking in line one of my students pulls the fire alarm . OMG just embrassing lol. One of the janitors quickly came out and took care of it. So if things couldn't get any worse lol. I went to go lamanite some things to hang up and my papers got jammed in the lamaniting machine, so they had to take the laminator apart to fix it. 

I love how sponsors/ supporters start the school year off right! DD has free coffee every Monday for the month of September! And I was just talking about coffee in an earlier post lol. So I'm excited about that! I look forward to going to DD on Mondays!!

Also Racetrac is in support of teachers! We can get free drinks the whole month of Septemnber !!😃

  

Our theme for this week is "My Family " so we have been talking about family. For one of the small group activites I asked the kids to draw a picture of their family. One of the kids drew a picture of my family, I thought it was so cute and thoughtful! 

This was am activity I got from the OWL curriculum. I wrote some letters on square pieces of paper lamanited them and and let the kids fine the letters in their name . Some of them even went on to spell their last name. 

Love 

Candace❤️

Yesterday completed one month/4 weeks /19 days since school has started.  The Kids are for sure getting into the day to day routine. The days are going by so fast, it's like Friday comes and it just seems like it was Monday.  Some days I wish I could extend the day so we can finish up projects or if there is a child that needs extra help with writing their name or recognizing letters. 

I have really never been a coffee drinker, I don't like the way it makes me feel. It makes me feel so jiggery  and it speeds up my heart rate. I have always worked with kids and really never needed coffee to wake me up or give me engery. Lately, I have been drinking coffee every morning to give me a boost and the reason why is because I am in school, so I stay up wayyyy pass my bed time (9pm) and it's hard for me to get myself together in the morning. I get coffee from DD and I love getting coffee from there because I can afford it and they have so many flavors you can add in your coffee. So now I kind of got use to getting coffee from DD as a motaviating tool for me to get out of the bed and don't hit the snooze button .. LOL. It's like I look forward to getting the coffee. It's like if I stay up pass my bed time doing homework I tell myself, "don't worry, finish this cause your going to get coffee in the AM" lol I know crazy lol  but all in all coffee is working for me I tell them to do the half and half so I won't feel so jittery and my heart won't be racing . 

This year we are working with a new curriculum in Pre-K, it's the OWL Curriculum. This is my first time working with this curriculum and I'm in love! The curriculum is so detailed, it's designed to go with the GLEDS standards from BFTS. There's so much stuff that comes with the curriculum: books, posters, CDs, games to play on the computer and much more! They also have so many ideas you can do with the kids like games, sorting , letters , numbers , social studies , science.... ect. I will recommend this curriculum to anyone! 

So before starting school I went out and bought some cute flats to go with my cute and comfortable outfits I bought. I went to Payless because they had a sell, so I bought the flex comfort flats. Now remind you I teach Pre-K so I walk around and stand up a lot (assisting the kids mainly). I wore these flats 

 they were on sale. So I wore them and on the first day they were a little stiff and tight ( just need to break them in). After the 3rd day of wearing the Dexter shoes they were sooo comfortable. At the end of the day my feet were doing the happy dance LOL.

I was at Ross a couple of days ago and I seen these shoes

Schelles memory foam, I wore them and they are so soft and comfy. They look like slippers but they have a hard bottom so I wear them as shoes. I think my feet love these shoes the best!!

Love

Candace

Since I teach Pre-K I think my main goal is to be prepared! I come in early and cut out, organize and sort things, just so I can have my day run smoothly. I also will stay late or take things home if need be. When ever we are doing a project I like to have everything cut out, sorted and in their own bags with everything they need for that project. Now if it's something were they are cutting out, I will let them cut it out on their own. It bothers me if I'm not prepared, and that doesn't just go for school it also goes for when I'm going on a trip or just taking my kids to their activies on Saturday. 

This is one of the projects I have prepared. Everything cut out in their bag and ready to go! 

Love

Candace 

We read Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you see? I also made head bands for them to act the story out after we finished reading it. We had a: 

The kids caught on quick and they actually started acting like the animals lol. 

This was the second week of school, it went by so fast. Seems like it was just Monday. but nevertheless it was a great week. We are starting to use the new Owl curriculum, which is really good. They have  alot resources that comes along with it. So that makes it that much more easier to follow through. we also got our tablets, so the kids have began using them and they love it. I am looking forward to third week of school!

Love

Candace

I printed out pictures of the kids, cut them out and placed them on a paper and had it set up like a BINGO card. This was a talkative game, as I was calling the person name they kept talking about when are you going to call my name or look at this person, look how they smile...LOL . kids are so funny. So this was a fun game. I played it with my Pre-K students.

We played a game called "Who has the penny?" this was my first time playing this game. It was apart of the curriculum. So how to play...
Materials needed
-penny
-paperclip
-key
  - you can also add extra items if you want

the kids can sit in a circle on the floor, they must close their eyes and open their hands. You can go around and drop the items in their hands and once they get something in their hand they need to close their hands. After all the items are given out ask them to look in their hands after every one has looked in their hand then they can sing ( with their eyes closed)...
Who has the penny ( and who every has it, they sing. I have the penny). Who has the key ( and who every has it , they sing. I have the key). Who has the paperclip ( and who every has it sing. I have the paperclip). Then everyone open up there eyes. Ask them who has the penny and they will say the child's name and see if they are right... and so on and so forth for the other items.

Today we did a number of activies. One of them were; we talked about the human heart today for science. Now most of the time when we talk about things in class we may set up a table during centers for them to draw, paint, write or create what we discussed. Sometimes we just set out materials and sit back and see what they do. So today I set out red yarn, white card stock paper, scissors and glue. I didn't tell them to do anything particular with it, it was just there and they were free to create what every they wanted. One of the boys in the class sat down and created a heart. He got up from the table and it was just sitting there. When I walked over, I asked whose paper and everyone said -----. So I asked him what was the picture about and he said it's the heart that's in our body. It almost brought a tear to my eye. It was just amazing!

Love

Candace

Working with a Pre-K class can be a bit of a challenge, when it comes to them sitting for circle time or even walking in a line to lunch. Sometimes stickers can go so far but all most 99.9% of kids love skittles. So I decided  to buy a bag. When we are doing circle time and I see someone not sitting the correct way, I won't say anything to them I will just go to the next person and say thank you John for sitting on your cris cross with your hands in your lap. Frank, the child that wasn't sitting the correct way will instantly sit the correct way cause he wants one . I call the Skittles " Positive Reinforcement" because I want to reinforce a negative behavior in a positvie way. It helps out a lot cause it cuts down on the chattering during circle time and in the hallway while walking to lunch. NOW, I don't give these out everyday, niether do I give them out all day . It's just a certain time. I don't want them to get use to it and I don't won't them to think just because they are sitting quiet that they are suppose to get something . So I let them know, this is how we sit in circle time or this is how we walk in line at all times. 

Love 

Candace 

I am sooo sleepy this morning. It's the second week of school, I need to get back in to my routine. I feel so lazy. I'm so tired when I come home, I take a nap. Then when I take a nap I can't go back to sleep til 12- 2am in the morning. I'm still in school as well so I have to factor that in with all that I do, I help my kids with their homework try and cook dinner or throw something together and try to factor in a work out cause I'm getting fat.  I'm really not a coffee drinker but I do drink it if I need the extra boost and everyday I have been drinking it. Well hopefully I will be back in a routine by the start of September. I'm giving myself another week to get back in the grove of things! Have a Wonderful Wednesday!