Color Days/Weeks

Our school has school-wide color days each week.  So far this year we've done red, blue, and yellow.  Besides everyone (in the entire school) wearing the color of the week on a specific day, here are just a few of the things we've done so far to celebrate!

Each week we decorate our doorway with streamers and cut out shapes on the designated color day.

 

Each week we cut out (the color of the week) items from magazines and catalogs and glue them onto contstruction paper.

 

For red week we used tweezers to sort pompoms.  All the red ones went into the red mini garbage cans!

Blue Week Snack: blueberry pancakes and blueberry yogurt on blue plates!  YUM!

Little Boy Blue in a pocket chart!  Students used the blue chart highlighters to highlight the word blue.  They used the other chart highlighters to highlight the letter h (our letter of the day).

 

Yellow Week Snack: lemonade, bananas, and vanilla wafers (I wish I would have known about lemon Oreos I would have done those instead!!)

Animal Clinic

To go with our theme of My Family and Pets this week I set up a Animal Clinic in our Dramatic Play center. 

 

On the left side of the dramatic play center, on the top shelf, we have a phone, a box for patient records, and a doctor's prescription pad.  In addition, there are three different clipboards.  One has a patient sign in sheet, another with patient information sheets, and a third with doctor's notes sheets.  On the middle shelf we have containers for cotton swabs, cotton balls, tongue depressors, & medication (we used foam circles, I never want the kids to mistake real medicine for play).  We also have leashes, collars, & toys.  On the bottom shelf we have food dishes, doctor's tools, & dog treats.   

 

On the right side of the center we have the different animals (fish, cats, dogs, snakes, and a frog).  One of my students also decided we needed a microscope in this center and added it to this shelf. I thought this was awesome!

In the middle we have a waiting room.  Next year I'll move the hooks for the doctor's and nurse's jackets and bags, but they were there from last week's Post Office Center and I decided not to waste the command strips to move them! 

We also have a light table set up with "x-rays" on it for them to check out!

Checking in for an appointment.

 

Filling out patient information sheet.  This sweet guy asked, "Does your dog need a shot?"  Haha!

 

Writing down doctor's notes!

 

I had so much fun making this dramatic play center! Here are some close ups!

the patient information and doctor's notes pages.

cards to label animals in center, word wall cards, and prescription pad

 

number sequencing puzzles, fun with spinners counting game, cards to label items in center, number recognition cards, patient record page

 

 

Click here to purchase Dramatic Play Animal Center.

 

Pete the Cat I Love My White Shoes

During the first week of school we read lots of Pete the Cat books.  After reading Pete the Cat I Love My White Shoes they drew on shoes I had cut out of white cardboard.  As they were coloring we talked about the colors and what might have caused them to turn that color.  For example, if they colored with green maybe they stepped in green Jell-O, etc.  It was a great way for me to probe color identification in a fun way.
 

After we finished our shoes, we dyed shoelaces using liquid watercolors.  These came out so nicely!  I was very pleased with how vivid the colors were!

 

When their shoelaces were dry, they laced their shoes up.  (I had punched 6 holes in each shoe).

Finally, we used them to display next to the shoes I had up from the welcome to school bulletin board I had put up for the first day of school.

Number Sequence Puzzles

I've seen a ton of number sequence puzzles lately, but they all seemed to count from 1 to 10.  I wanted to be able to differentiate, so I decided to make my own puzzles! I made my puzzles so youngsters can practice counting by 1's, 2's, 5's, and even 10's.  I had so much fun with this, I plan on making a lot more of these in my future (and perhaps even some alphabet ones, too!)!!  Keep reading to see some of the puzzles I made and to grab the freebie!!

I'm excited about my Cool Cat set!  I'll be doing a lot with Pete the Cat the first week of school, so these will be perfect!  If you want to check out my Cool Cat set, click here.

 

 I also love seasons, so of course I had to make a set of puzzles that included the four seasons.  How cute is that worm?!  If you want to check out my seasons set, click here.

 

 And finally, perhaps a trip to grandmother's house through the woods? Click here and you'll be brought over to TeachersPayTeachers and can download it for free.

 

Happy sequencing!

Counting Fun with Spinners

As I'm waiting for everything to arrive in my classroom, I've been spending a lot of time on my computer.  Here's my latest project.  Be sure you don't miss the freebie below!!

This activity provides practice counting up to 5, 10, or 20.  Each background has three different pages. The first page has a spinner with the numbers 1-5 and one ten frame. The second page has a spinner with the numbers 1-10 and one ten frame. The third page has a spinner with ten numbers from 1-20 and two ten frames. 

 

 Here are just a few of the other ones I made.

 

And of course, what type of blogger would I be if I didn't have a freebie for you??  This one was inspired by the mini erasers many of my teacher friends have found at Target over the last week or so.  I'm a really jealous happy that so many of them have found these cute erasers, that I made this little caterpillar set for them.  Click here and you'll be brought over to TeachersPayTeachers and can download it for free.

 

 

And if you'd like to check out my other sets, click on the links below the images.

 

 

 

Counting Fun with Spinners

Counting Fun with Nature Spinners

Counting Fun with Seasons Spinners

Counting Fun with Thematic Spinners

 

Counting Fun with Spinners Bundle

  

Happy counting, friends!!

Long time, no see....

It seems like every year I have to post something like this...."Sorry I haven't posted in a long time, I'm the worst blogger, blah, blah, blah..."  Well, once again, it's true!  Hopefully my posts, even though they are few and far between are helping someone, somewhere in their classroom!!  And maybe this will be the year that I figure out how to blog on a regular basis AND teach fulltime!  This year I'll be moving from fifth grade down to PreK, so I'll definitely have a ton to blog about!

Here's my classroom being built...I know it looks super big, and it is.  However, technically this is two rooms with a accordion divider between the two rooms.  That said, the other half of the room isn't used because these two rooms are our school's safe rooms and we have to have room for all the kiddos.  Therefore, I'm using all of the cabinets in the other side of the room, plus we'll be napping on that side (and the cubbies for mat storage will be there, too).  We'll also be using it for whole group activities that need more space than our rug in our classroom will accommodate.  I'll also be putting a group table, for small group work, in the middle where the two rooms are divided.

 

This is part of my storage room.  It's HUGE, yet I know I'm going to run out of room just the same!

 

These are two of the things I'm having built for the classroom.  The cubbies/lockers will go in the vestibule right outside of our classroom.  And the loft will go in one of the corners.  The loft is 12' by 5' and it is amazing!  The stairs hadn't been installed yet, but they go on the far left of the loft.  The top of the loft is our reading center.  It's got a kid size bookshelf, sofa, chair, end table, coffee table, and 3 bean bags in it.  The downstairs is our dramatic play area.  It'll have a kitchen, baby doll furniture, table and chairs, etc.  Eventually I'd like to add another kid size living room set down there.

 

This is the only thing I've really done so far, and I really only did it to test adhesives.  None of my furniture is in yet, so I'm patiently waiting for everything to arrive so I can set it up.  The chairs and laminator won't stay here (the laminator WILL be on the other side of the room on the counter though.  I want quick and easy access to it at ALL times!! Haha!) The empty cabinet door is going to be for our Color of the Week Scavenger Hunt.  Our entire school celebrates a color of the week through mid-November, so after that I'll reassess and decide what's going up there!

 

As I set up the room, I'll be sure to post additional pictures, along with what I'm including in each center, etc.

 

Thanks for reading!