My Button, My Button, Still Have My Belly Button!

I have taken a few too many weeks off of blogging and am excited to be back! It is extremely humbling knowing how many people read my blog and asked when it will be back!?

So many things have happened in our classroom since Christmas break including another classroom party-Valentine's Day, reaching the 100th DAY OF SCHOOL!, and learning about following directions and patterns, the jungle, dinosaurs, love, and rhyming. There have been so many fun projects and activities that I wish I would have shared, but that would take up a 5 page long post, so instead I'm going to focus on this last week of rhyming with a quick post and prepare for this next week as we have SO MANY fun activities learning about the Rainbow! :) And to partially quote one of my preschoolers "There will be almost no worksheets, it is gonna be 'Off the Hook!'"Haha!

This past week on Tuesday, we learned about rhyming words from one of my new and absolute favorite characters "Pete the Cat." He made a few appearances throughout the week in our 3 stories "Pete the Cat and His Four Groovy Buttons," "Pete the Cat and His Brand New White Shoes," and "Pete the Cat Rockin in his School Shoes." Now we have had some funny times in our classroom but this was by far one of the top afternoons watching ALL the kids groove to the songs and seeing their amusing actions. In one of the Stories, Pete is wearing a jacket in which he is singing about his groovy buttons, eventually they all pop off one at a time and Pete is left with just his jacket until he looks down and see's his belly button! He then continues to sing "My button, my button, still have my belly button!" As I am turning around one day after singing this song for the 3rd time I find my preschoolers presenting their bellys and singing "My button, my button, still have my belly button" with their tummy's! It was was the most amusing and cutest thing ever! And then two boys decided to belly bump after! Haha I don't think I have laughed so hard!
I highly recommend YouTubing Pete the cat so you can better picture this! ;)

Our art project also centered around Pete this week and we made our own Pete the Cat's with the color shoes of their choice to go along with the book "I Love my White Shoes." They were so proud of them they wouldn't even let me hang them up, they just HAD to take them home! :)

A few other activites included a Snowball Toss, in which we had rhyming words with their picture on pieces of paper. They were crumpled up and put in a basket and on the count of 3 I tossed them up. Each child had to grab a "snowball," check it out, and find their partner that had a word that rhymed with theirs. Another activity was our Rhyme Run which had the same sort of idea to it. Each child had a rhyming word with picture taped to their shirt and on the count of 3 they had to run to find their partner on the other side of the room. We had to repeat this a few times changing up our words, which resulted in some water breaks and sweat towels ;) Ha!

I unfortunately forgot my notebook of funnies (promise to get them in next week!) so instead I will close with a great quote I found which perfectly describes my afternoons :)
Have a great sunshiny week!

 

Princesses, Penguins, and Polar Bears

Tis the season full of Christmas concerts, parties and get togethers, basketball games, and conferences! The last two weeks have been busy ones full of good pics and activities! Hope you enjoy :) 

Last week we discovered some exciting new and old fairy tales from "Rapunzel" to "Rumpelstiltskin" to "The Three Little Bears." Our activities from the week played along well with our stories and it was exciting for all. On Tuesday, we read "Jack and the Beanstalk" and worked with beans and numbers for a more or less game. They practiced their counting skills, number recognition, and tally marking. 

Wednesday was our craft day and we got to make Princess hats and crowns to go along with our story "The Princess and the Frog." We also completed a graph that day on who would kiss a frog if they could get anything they wanted, it was a very giggly and entertaining conversation. Turns out over half of my kiddos would kiss a frog, but four of them were disgusted at the the thought! Ha 

Thursday was "The Gingerbread Man" and Friday was "The Princess and the Pea" story. I made gingerbread clay for them to play with (which smelled amazing) along with Christmas cookie cutters. On Friday, they then got to recreate the princess and the pea with a fun craft with their substitute :) 

This past week we learned all about Arctic animals and how they survive in the cold. Penguins and Polar bears were at the top of most of our discussions and we discovered some fun facts about these unique animals. Our craft on Wednesday involved making our own penguin friends, which was quite amusing. I put all of the pieces on the table for them and they got to decided how and where to put all the pieces :) 

We learned many things about how mom and dad penguins work together to care for their young and take turns watching the egg and heading to the sea to feast. We found out their are 17 types of penguins and NONE of them can fly! We also learned how to waddle like penguins and practiced carrying the egg like penguins do with some Nerf footballs.

Friday we discussed polar bears more and how they care for their young and keep warm. This conversation erupted in laughter after discussing how polar bears eat. We learned that Mommy polar bears are the only ones that care for the babies. The book we read made it seem like we were the polar bear by talking in first person, which was very neat, but apparently confusing as I ended up with this comment, "HEY! I do to have a dad at home!" haha They then explained that polar bears drink milk from their mom's just like cats and dogs until they are big enough to travel to the sea with their mom. A hand popped up then with this statement "When I was a baby I drank milk from my mom's boob!!" (ensue hysterical laughter) Ha! It took a few minutes to get them back on track, but quickly moved on to our other activities then. 

Half of the students got to practice their counting with "snowballs" (mini marshmallows) and fine motor skills by using tweezers. When they had all 12 in their cup (our number of the week) they were then able to eat them. The other half then got to do a blubber experiment with me. They dunked their hand in ice cold water and then got to do the same thing, but inside a bag of "blubber" (Shortening) to see how polar bears and other arctic animals keep warm in freezing weather. This was a fun experiment that I would definitely do again, as they were mind-blown how it wasn't even cold anymore!

Now for a few funnies from our week! 

"Miss Cronin, my dad spent all our monies to buy a new car. We don't even have one money anymore!" lol

Discussing how polar bears lick their young to keep them clean:

"Hey my mom licks me clean too!" 

"Oofta you're all sweaty, were you playing pretty hard today?"-Me

"No its from the pool" 

"What pool" -Me

"The pool we went to at the end of the summer before they closed…I just never get dry!" Haha

I have also put up our December Family Project's so be sure to check them out! This month they were to disguise their gingerbread man so that he doesn't get caught and eaten. This one had me in a fit of laughter so thought I better share…. :) 

Have a good final week before Christmas! 

Miss Cronin

5 Senses Shenanigans

The past week and a half have been busy ones for me and my little ones. We started last week with learning about our 5 Senses and finished off this week with two short days of learning about why we celebrate Thanksgiving. We also completed our 1st semester testing for conferences coming up this next week, with the help of my great substitutes the kids did great and the days went off without a hitch!

We had quite a few opportunities to practice using our different senses to show how important they are to us. One of the first activities was using our hearing to determine different sounds around the room. I blindfolded them all, which they thought was the funnest part, and then made different sounds (jingling keys, opening and shutting the fridge door, writing on the marker board, etc.) and they had to tell me what the sound was, which they did very well with!

The next day we focused on our sense of smell with our art project. We have officially covered all of our basic colors, so this week was a review with a paint matching craft. Before they arrived however, I added extracts to all of the paint colors so they had to smell the color and tell me what it smelled like :) Red- Peppermint, Green- Mint, Blue- Almond (like the ice cream ;), Yellow-Lemon, Orange- Orange, Black- Vanilla, Brown-Maple, and Purple had no smell because I couldn't find a grape extract so we used it as a comparison as to what they smell like without the extract! 

We all enjoyed this activity and I got some fun answers as well. Red they said smelled like a candy cane, Green smelled like gum, Black smelled like chocolate cake (which I never thought of but after smelling it again it really did!), and Brown smelled like pancakes! Had a few wanted to taste test, but luckily avoided that mess! Ha

The next sense we worked with was our sense of touch. I had 5 brown paper bags which the kids could not see in. They had to feel whatever was inside and use describing words to tell the class how it felt instead of what they thought it was. Took a few tries to catch on, but when they did I got some very creative words and even some made up ones like "roughy" Lol. After everyone had a chance to feel each item and use describing words, we took guesses as to what it could be and then I had a helper come up and pull it out to show the class. My 5 bags contained feathers, play dough, velcro, wet noodles, and licorice. Their favorite one to pull out was the noodels as you can see from their faces! :) 

P.S. It was also pajama day at school to celebrate National Education Week, I promise we usually don't show up in our pj's for class ;)

Finally our last day of week we worked with our sense of sight, hearing, and taste. This day I was busy testing, so I had a helper to take care of our stations, which you will see from the pics was very entertaining for the students and helper! Our first station was to show students how difficult life can be if you born or become blind. They were instructed to draw a picture of themselves and then were blindfolded and told to do the exact same thing except without their sight. The next station used our sense of hearing to match sounds with different items hidden in plastic Easter eggs. Two eggs contained rice, two marbles, two coins, and two beans. Turns out you need to be very specific with the directions here on using only your sense of hearing to match them and not open the eggs because after the first group the rice and beans were split all over the floor and the coins were making their way into some tiny pockets! Ha The final center, and my favorite, was the taste testing station. Students were to use their sense of taste to guess what was on the plate and tell how it tasted, bitter, sweet, sour, etc. We then discussed how some of these things such as salt taste icky by itself, but when put with something else they become some of our favorite things like french fries. The 5 plates were salt, sugar, cocoa powder, limes, and lemons.
The lemon and limes were by far the most priceless!! 
 

The following week, we discussed the approaching Thanksgiving holiday and practiced up on some of our skills with a few Thanksgiving themed projects.
On Monday, while completing our testing the students made Thanksgiving day bracelets with a helper to learn more about the first Thanksgiving and why we celebrate it. The next day we reviewed our numbers and colors with some new centers. The first was a color matching Turkey Skittles sort, the next was a small motor center in which they had to use tweezers to remove corn kernals from the cob, and the last one was a candy corn counting/number match. They all did very well and it was a great end to our short week!

Now on to some funnies! :) 

"My dad's not working today cause he made lots of monies, so he's takin the day off"

"My daddies not working today either cause he had to stay home with my brother. Mommy needed some alone time away from him" :) 

A conversation between a few students after telling us she ran away from home:

"Ya I packed my bag and I put legos, my phone, polka dot blankie, and princess peach my puppy in there. Mom made me come home though cause it was too cold out. So we're gonna run away today after school, but she already knows!" 

"Ugh, something smells bad!!" 

"That's you."

"No way, men don't smell like that!" Haha 

Hope you all had a GREAT Thanksgiving Holiday with family & friends! :) 

Thanks for stopping, 

Miss Cronin 

The Cheese Stands Alone!

The past two weeks have been an exciting time in our room learning all about the farm, tractors, crops, and animals. While I've been teaching my little turkeys quite a few things I have found out some useful information as well :)

Last week was our introduction to the farm and useful tools and jobs that farmers have and what they can produce. We discussed many different crops and I was pleasantly surprised by how much they already know. When asked what kind of crops or food items we plant around this area (quite a big question, but thought it was worth a shot!) I received answers of corn, wheat, sunflowers, peas, and soybeans!

Our craft on Wednesday also had to do with crops as we made our own corn with bubble wrap! They turned out great and didn't even have too many kernels popped! ;)

To bridge last week into this week, which was focused on farm animals and why we raise them, we read the story Farmer in the Dell, which was a big hit! They were quite entertained and even requested that we act out the story :) So this past week I was busy putting together masks and outfits for our little game. It turned out great and we all had a blast trying different masks and acting like that animal as we sang the song.




This past week we really discussed a lot about what we use animals for and how you have to take care of them. From collecting eggs, to feeding pigs, to sheering sheep, and milking cows. Well discussing these chores and looking at books is quite a different feel than actually seeing something in person and experiencing it, so I made some models to let them see for themselves!

I split them into two group and with some latex gloves, milk, and cups, they got to see what its like to milk a cow! (PS the word utter is apparently hysterical to 4-5 year olds lol) The other group then sheered some sheep with a balloon, shaving cream, and wooden craft sticks. We had a sheep sheering contest! 

Our craft this week was quite time consuming, but they turned out very cute! Little turkeys for the Thanksgiving Holiday fast approaching

 Also, if you have time, be sure to stop and check out our November Family Project. This month they were asked to disguise a turkey to save it from being Thanksgiving dinner! They did such a fantastic job, and are very entertaining to see. We ended up with a few princesses, peacocks, soldiers, a mermaid, farmer, and even a bride, and many more!

Now for a few new things that I learned this week :)

 "Do farmers butcher their own pigs?" -Me
"No, Grandpa Jim does!!" :)

"My grandpa has red tractors, but I don't like them, only green tractors!"

"It's finally going to be Thanksgiving this month!! I've been waiting my whole life for this!" Haha!

"Don't drink too much coffee, especially at this age, it will stunt your growth" -me
"Ya! Like Alice in Wonderland, when she drinks the coffee she shrinked!!"

"I don't want to get married"
"Why not"
"Cause then I have to drive my wife to the hospital when she has a baby!"

"I want to drive cause then I can speeeeeeeeeed like my dad!!!"

Now most of the stories I get go a lot like this, just because they don't want to miss a beat to get a word in during circle time, even if they have nothing to say ;)
"Miss Cronin, one time I went somewhere with something…annnd there was someone there and they had….some treasure!"

Have a great weekend and thanks for stopping!
Miss Cronin

Batty for Halloween!

Our week 9 was a highly anticipated one as we have been counting down all month to get to our first party of the year, Halloween! Leading up to our party we learned about bats and other nocturnal animals. Our letter of the week was H/h, perfect for the our first holiday. 

On Monday, we discussed words that begin with "H," haircuts, and also learned through the story "Nightsong," how bats use echolation to help them see at night. 

A few things we both learned: 

1. Out of all the h words in the world it was decided that "Hot baby!" was the best/funniest one. ;)

2. Echolation is a mouth full for a preschooler and when explaining what an echo is, be prepared for them to practice this multiple times (without an actual echo but repeating the same word over and over lol) 

3. We have had a few instances with cutting our own hair recently so I decided to bring it up and discuss how and where scissors should be used. At the end I asked "Ok now who is only allowed to cut our hair?" (Expecting to get a response of a hairdresser or mom/dad) instead I had about 3 students yell "Kelsey!" haha (must have had this discussion at home already! 

Throughout the week we discussed more about bats and owls and learned some fun facts, such as 1 bat can eat 600 mosquito's in 1 hour! When asked about this throughout the week, it did turn into (6 million, 66, and 6 billion infinity) but at least the 6 stuck! We also learned the name of the smallest bat, a bumble bee bat which is 5 inches long and the longest bat, called the flying fox bat that is 6 feet long. They were pretty entertained with this information, but I did have a few confused why they didn't look like foxes or bees if that was their name :) 

We also read the book "Stellaluna" and learned how bats and birds are very similar, but very different as well. They loved this book and got quite a few laughs as Stellaluna, a bat, tries multiple times to act like a bird to fit in with her new bird family. I recommend reading this book! 

Our art project focused on bats as well as they worked with their fine motor skills and painted the outline of a bat with Q-tips. 

 

My hard little workers also had time this week to explore their take home bags, try some new games, and practice using their cards with different activities. I was so happy to see how much fun they were having with their bags and how well they were using them! Bags were then sent home Thursday and  I have heard many good reports thus far, and can't wait to see their progress grow!                          

After a week filled with new knowledge, my little munsters finally got their party! We had a fun afternoon filled with candy corn bowling, black cat bean bag toss, a pumpkin walk, Halloween candy corn bingo, and pin the spider on the web. We then had some yummy snacks, a Halloween craft, and trick-or-treat bags! Thank you to all those that helped out with our party, the kids had a great time!! :)

Now a few funnies for your weekend :) 

Talking about her dream: 

"Miss Cronin there was a wizard in my house and he dropped water all over my house!" 

"I have a girlfriend"

"You do? Who is it?" 

"Well I don't know, I haven't chose yet, I'm still looking"

"How do I look right now?" (Smiling trying to get them to say happy for another H word)

"Ummm pretty!" :) 

Waiting for some parents on the steps-

"Ahhh its a cop! Everybody sit back!"

Seeing a familiar pickup outside

"Miss Cronin my dad's gonna teach that kid a lesson!" 

Have a great weekend and enjoy your extra hour of sleep tomorrow! :) 

Miss Cronin

There's no such thing as too much Glitter….or is there??

Week 8 was filled with important lessons on caring and sharing with our friends and family. It is important to help one another out when it comes to chores and taking turns and if you don’t listen to mom and dad……you might get put in the “dog kennel!”

Our art project this week was focused around the story “The Rainbow Fish,” and how it is important to share. The kids got to make their own rainbow fish with one shiny scale and lots of glitter and jewels, which they shared with their table mates. I admit, when I first thought of this project, the idea of glitter + 15  4-5 year olds did not seem like the brightest idea I’ve ever had, but they had a blast and the fish turned out great, which they are excited to show off! I did go home with glitter caked on my forehead, strung through my hair, and on/in my dress clothes, but sometimes everyone needs a little more sparkle! ;)

Speaking of sparkle, one thing we discussed we don’t want to share are germs. It is important to wash our hands properly, not share drinks, and cover our faces when coughing and sneezing. To show how quickly germs spread I put “glitter germs” into a sanitizer bottle and put some on my hands. I then had them get in a line and I pretended to cough on my hands and shook the first persons hand. They then shook the next persons and so on until our glitter germs had spread all the way through the line. This was such a fun way for them to see how important it is to take care of ourselves so we can care for those around us.

The kids have been busy learning and growing in many ways, and I can’t wait to see where this year takes them. Throughout the weeks, we have been learning VOWAC with our letter of the week as an important way to connect letters to the sounds they make. To see how well this is catching on, rather than just repetition, I spelled out some words on a white board to sound out. Together they read the words BAD, CAB, and GAB! J I was blown away with their progress and have been looking forward to the end of this month now that I know they are ready. I myself have been busy outside the classroom preparing Take Home Bags for them to further their progress with some fun 10-minute activities and games. Included in the pack is 1 set of lowercase D'Nealian letters, 1 set of uppercase D'Nealian letters, 1 set of shape flashcards, 1 set of number dot flashcards through 20, and 1 name card with proper starting points and arrows. I introduced the kids to the packs the other day and they were pretty excited to each get their own and now have “‘homework’ like my brother!” (So glad they are excited for that word still!) Ha

Now on to some funnies to start your week out right!

“My boyfriend Daniel is only 100 years old Miss Cronin and he’s takin me to Disney World some day!”

“When my brother is naughty we put him in the dog kennel”

“I’m getting my nipples cut off at the doctor today!” (Skin tags lol)

“When I was 4 I wouldn’t go in that big tunnel at the Carnival cause I was scared, but now I can cause I’m a man!!”

Referring to our Halloween party and 100 day of school party

“Yes when we get  to this day we get to have a party!”  -Me

“And drink beer!”

Happy Halloween Week J

Miss Cronin