Travel Teach Repeat

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! 

So I wanted to type this up on Friday but I got WAYYYY to busy. So, here it is Saturday at 12:44am and I'm typing this before I go to bed. The first week of school was pretty good! It's really a learning and adjusting process. Learning the kids names, the new schedule, any new policies that the school may have . Adjusting process because the kids have to adjust to you and you have to adjust to them as in behavior and routine. 

After taking my last child to the bus, I felt accomplished! Got all the kids off and has a spectacular week! 

This is a picture of the door we decorated. The theme was "storybook " so every one had to decorate their door from a book! 

I have about 13 Pre-K kids that catch the bus. It's kind of hard for me to remember everyone's bus number and of course the kids don't remember it. So a teacher gave me the idea to put clothes-pins on them. So I wrote their name and their bus number on a clothes-pin and clipped it in their shirt. I also lined my students up according to their bus number, so if I have 2 students riding  the same bus I would put them together and so on. After we have reached the bus and I have made sure they got on the bus I would take the clothes-pin and keep it, to use it for the next day. 

   This is my first time blogging. I really started this cause I started following other teachers on Instagram and I seen they all had blogs. They would blog about their day or a cool activity they did, something they did with the kids or just how their day went. So I wanted to start my own blog. I am really not a good writer, my grammar is not all that great but hey may be starting this blog and blogging every so often just might improve that!
     A little about myself, I am 31 yrs old, I have been married for 10 years and we have 2 kids together a son that is 10yrs old and a daughter that is 8yrs old.  I have been in the early child care field for 16 years now. I really wanted to be an Actress and a Cosmetologist. I started going to school for hair but I was working in daycare center for 4 years at that point, so I just decide to go to school for Early Childhood Education. I have worked with all age groups, at this point in my life. I love working with high school kids cause they are less independent. I have also owned an in-home daycare for 4 years. I got burnt out with that and didn't want to do that any more, so here I am at Oakley! 
   I was hired at Oakley Elementary a week ago from today! To work in the Pre-K classroom, so today was my first official day working at Oakley! I was super excited to start working with Fulton County period! So when I first arrived I felt like I was thrown to the tigers(our mascot) lol because I really didn't have time to plan anything and to converse with the other teacher on the weeks lesson. So we both arrived at the same time in the morning and we jumped right on in. I had lunch duty that morning and every morning so I went straigt to the cafeteria and started helping kids opening milk  and making sure they knew where to sit. After breakfast I took them to the classroom and we started right away with our morning circle time. Now this is the beginning of the school year so you have to let them get use to you and they have to get use to you so of course everybody was ever where LOL. So we have to put a couple of rules in place so we can have a more controlled classroom ( less chaos ). 
    So we spent most of the day getting use to the kids and learning there names and labelling items. We was following  a schedule from last year that was up, so we laid them down at the wrong time, we laid them down an hour earlier so that threw the rest of our day wayy off, But we improvised. When it was time to go home I took the bus riders and the van riders with me. This was way hectic than I thought. There were way to many kids in the hallway for my little kids to be in the hallway, I didn't want to lose anyone. Sure enough one of the little girls wondered off, but I put a pin on her; that said her name, my name and the bus she gets on. So when the teacher found her, she let me know I found one of your students and I put her on her right bus. I was so upset with myself. So now I have to find a better way to make sure all my kids stay together in large crowds.