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

Silly Surprises

Week 7 was filled with many questions and fun discussions on our feelings and emotions. We learned how to express ourselves appropriately and how sometimes its ok to feel scared, angry, sad, and even silly, which was how most of our discussions turned out to be!

On Monday we got to meet a new letter person Miss F Funny Feet and discuss some things that confuse us. These were a few of the answers I received:
"Airplanes" (Great answer for a 4 year old, they can be quite confusing!)
"When my dad is silly" :)
"Kissing dogs on the lips" (Haha this one got a few laughs!)

On Tuesday we discussed what we do when we are scared and who can help us if we are afraid.
"Crawl into mom and dads bed and hide under the covers!"
"I don't get scared, I just go out and sit on the couch and watch TV when everyone is sleeping"
Upon which I which I asked if he eats a midnight snack too, which opened up a whole other bag of chips (or Cheetos I should say….)
"When I'm scared I just stick Cheetos in my underwear!"
"I put on my dad's underwear and stick pizza in them!"
I had no words for the last comments as everyone was swallowed up with giggles! So on that note, I ended our quite silly conversation!

On Wednesday I decided to focus our art on the letter F. Before our art, we sang the song "5 Little Speckled Frogs" and reviewed our numbers from the past few weeks. Then we made our own little speckled frogs! The black people as some of them look, were supposed to be flies….apparently flies look like tiny humans to 4 year olds! :)

 

 We ended our week with some play dough and mirrors to help us learn more about our expressions. Play dough face mats were used to show different emotions and we also got to make faces in the mirror and then chose one to draw in their journals! Very exciting for them and entertaining for me as I watched them explore and discover new things!

 Finally, to end off our Week 7 the preschoolers got to enjoy some scary snacks from one of the students and they had a lot of fun playing and eating them! Here was our Friday snack, mummy juice boxes and eyeball cookies :)

 Enjoy your week and make it a sunny one!
Miss Cronin

Imagination is Contagious

Its been a busy couple of weeks in Preschool so I have decided to combine the last two weeks. Week 5 was focused on our Families and Week 6 was all around the theme of Fall. Throughout these past two weeks my preschoolers have been blowing me away with their growth, ability to grasp a concept so quickly and their big imaginations… :)

As part of our unit on Families, my students discussed healthy food choices and eating things that are good for our bodies. We discussed family meals and how important it is to share that time with your family. I had one student who claims he shares that time with his dog so when it came time to count the number of people in our family he was determined to include his buddy! Our craft project this week centered around family meal time and our favorite things. They got to make place mats with one side showing their hand prints in paint (Yes, I brought out the paint again... And with a very thought out plan and set-up, it went excellent and no hand prints were saved for the bathroom walls!!) and the other side was a magazine collage of pictures showing their favorite things. Now this was quite entertaining for me as some kids chose things that fit their personality very well, while others focused on "fun" things like zombies, mummies, and punch bowls. Ha! I had to chuckle at this because you could definitely tell which preschoolers took this into their own hands, or dad was left in charge! ;)

During week 5 we also were introduced to comparing cube trains in math. When reviewing this lesson I was a little skeptical as to how well this would be picked up as it is quite a large concept for 4 and 5 year old minds to grasp. However, I was pleasantly blown away with my smart little minds as they took it a step further and decided to tell me how many more or less each cube train had. They then told me how many more it would take to make them equal! I decided to give each student an opportunity to make sure everyone was understanding the lesson and was so impressed when each child completed their turn! Very proud teacher moment!! We expanded this concept then in Week 6 and I had then adding pumpkins and even using the words 'plus' and 'equal' :)

Week 6 was full of fun learning opportunities, which came at the perfect time as we had a lovely fall week to explore all of the changes happening around us. Our projects this week included pumpkin painting, pumpkin carving, a nature walk, and tie-dyed shaving cream leaves (which turned out great and made for lovely window decorations).

Our pumpkin carving project was very entertaining as every time I pulled a shape chunk out they would scream in delight! After I cut the top off they each got to pull some of the "guts" out to feel and smell. Some students were so skeptical about touching the inside, but when I finally got them to it was so rewarding to see their reaction. You sometimes forget how many things are unknown to them, but it's so amazing how many new things they learn and experience everyday. After we finished carving our pumpkin we then named him "Steve." Lol and the kids would greet him with hugs or high fives to the head everyday haha

Our pumpkin painting created a fun learning opportunity as some of the paint ended up mixing together and we figured out how to make new colors!

 (Making purple from red and blue)                                                 (Brown from green and yellow)

Our nature walk was an exciting addition to our week as they gathered different colored leaves, pine cones, cherries, aaaand beer cans…. Note to any parents and teachers do not take your class or children on a nature walk by any bars, you will in fact have a fun new array of items that NEED to go into your nature bag. (Side note: this was after a big wedding dance, and none of the students touched any trash, although they were tempted!) One student even belted out "HEY….that's what my dad drinks!"

Finally, the most entertaining things from the past two weeks was our circle time discussions, which leads me to my Blog title. Imagination is contagious. Once one student picks a subject, everyone has a story to tell, which as you will see is often made up, but oh do they make for great stories!

"One time there was a flying spider in my room cause my dad left the window open at night!"
Another student- "That's called a moth"

"There was once a giant spider outside and so my dad cut a house out of a mushroom and put all our stuff inside and we hid in there while my dad chopped the spider up! Then we got to go back to our real house."

This was a nightmare one of my students had that decided they NEEDED to share.
"Everyone had chicken pox in the whole world except for me and they all started scratching them and they were trying to give them to me and I was was sooo scared Miss Cronin, and you know what I didn't even have a teddy bear!"

After reading a story about Clifford the Big Red Dog and how Bulls don't like the color red.
"My momma was in the pen with a bronco and she had on a brown coat and the bronco charges at her cause broncos hate the color brown. But shes OK though"

"My daddy thinks he's so funny and that he reads the best stories but he really doesn't. He only reads the best bible stories and momma reads all the other stories the bestest. My dad thinks he's my bestest friend he always says I'm your best friend arnt I and I say YESSSS daddy your stiiiiill my bestest friend. He does that alllll the time, he thinks he's so funny." Lol

Thanks for stopping :)
Miss Cronin