Christmas Items in the Teacher Stores

 New in the teacher stores....

 In the pack you will get the pdf files to print:

Two 11"x 17" patterning cards for completing ABAB and ABCABC patterns:

Decorated Christmas Tree Math/Playdough Mats in both 11" x 17" and 8.5" x 11" sizes:

"Naked" Christmas Tree Math/Playdough Mats in both 11" x 17" and 8.5" x 11" sizes:

Decorated Gingerbread House Math/Playdough Mats in both 11" x 17" and 8.5" x 11" sizes:

"Naked" Gingerbread House Math/Playdough Mats in both 11" x 17" and 8.5" x 11" sizes:

 Three 11" x 17" Cookie Sheet Math Mat with Cookies (just waiting for "decorations"):

 Two 11" x 17" Cookie Sheet Math Mat without Cookies:

 Nineteen 4.25"x 5.5" Christmas Vocabulary Cards:

Ten 4.25" x 5.5" Christmas "Clothespin Counting" Cards:

Printable "Five Little Christmas Trees" Pocket Chart:

Hot Chocolate Math Grid Game with Instructions and Marshmallow Cards:

Sugar Cookie Math Grid Game with Instructions and  Candy Cards:

It's a lot of fun files for just $8.00.  You can find it here and here.  Thanks for looking!

"Who Picked a Pumpkin?" Class Book

Here is another book that I just finished.  It has pictures from our "Pumpkin Party" on Halloween.  Since our field trip budget was completely cut this year and we could not visit the pumpkin patch, we decided to bring the pumpkins to the room instead.  Everyone got to pick one to take home, which led to this class book:

The book pages are die cut shapes cut from poster board.

I like to print the captions for the book on labels.  Not only does it make it look neat and clean, I can use the file from year to year.  I just change the name of the students each year.

At the end of the year I add these individual pages to everyone's End of Year memory book.  That was it's a two-for-one deal:  a class book for during the year, and another addition to their memory book.

A pumpkin picked a pumpkin! Ha!

Making Stone Soup in Preschool

I've been catching up on making some class books the past few days.  It seems like both October, November and December have a lot of activities that we like to make books out of.  Plus, the Little People love to read class books that have their pictures in them.

One that I finished today is the story of how we made Stone Soup last week.  This was a great activity.  We read the actual Stone Soup book first, and then talked about how we were going to make our own Stone Soup at the end of the week.  We told them that everyone could bring one thing to put in the soup.

The Little People were all over it, and it turned out wonderfully.  Here is our book describing the activity:

The way that I spelled "travellers" with two "l"s stresses me out a little bit, but apparently the British write it this way, so we'll just say it's jolly good.

These are pictures of them frowning and saying "No!"  They loved that part.

In hindsight, I really wish we had taken a picture of the stone in the pot.

Actually, some people said that they liked the stone/water combination just fine. (Oops, wrong answer.)  We tried to get them to see that while it tasted like fine water, it wasn't very good soup.

Every Little Person brought something for the soup.  I cooked the raw vegetables the night before we made the soup, and we put everyone's contribution in a cup so they could add it to the pot as we acted out the story (made the soup).

We also let those who brought bowls and crackers put some things in, too.

Remarkably, almost all of the Little People gave the soup a "thumbs up".  Yes, there were some "no, thank yous", but it was a very small percentage.

 Granted, it wasn't the prettiest class book I've ever made, but the Little People don't seem to care about that.  They only seem to care about seeing pictures of the day they made soup - and Stone Soup at that!

What're We're Talking About in Preschool This Week

This week in Preschool we're talking about Fall Harvest.  Roughly translated this means that we are talking about Thanksgiving.  We're making hand-print turkeys for our memory books, and we're graphing whether we like the taste of cranberry sauce and if our families eat turkey for Thanksgiving.

On Friday we're having our A to Z potluck.  This means that everyone brings a food to share that starts with the same letter as their first name.  This is the third year that we've done this.  The first year we had lots and lots of food, but then we clued in to tell the families to bring enough of their food for everyone to have a sample.  (It's not an actual meal, since we will have had lunch that day like we always do.)

It's always a fun event.  This we're having families sign up for what food they're going to bring.  This is largely to prevent us from having to scramble around at school on Friday trying to find a food that starts with V and J and D because Valerie and Johnny and Derek didn't bring anything.

The signing up part also helps know to intervene in situations where someone brings a food that we're really can't pass out, like when a "V" child brought vitamins last year.  Or the year before when an "M" brought brownies...and we had to call them "Mmmmm....Brownies" (makes me smile just thinking about it).

As always, I'll do my best to let you know how it goes.

Sorting out the Laptop Files

Well, I was able to have a new hard drive installed in my laptop this week, and tonight I'm sitting and doing some file transferring/sorting/cleaning.  Actually, I am finding this kind of enjoyable, especially as my son sits with me and we watch a "Duck Dynasty" marathon on TV.  (Yes, my new favorite show.)

In school this week we talked about foods, and ended the week by making Stone Soup.  It was a little bit labor-intensive, but also turned out to be a really fun experience.  

Next week we're going to talk about Fall Harvest.  Unfortunately, between now and then I have to write two papers for my Early Childhood Special Ed class (one had to be delayed from last weekend because of the laptop issue).

But tonight I'm just going to enjoy the sorting...and the Duck Dynasty-ing.

Overheard at School Today

Today as we were walking to the cafeteria, one of my Little People all of the sudden made an announcement:

Little Person: My mom wants Obama to be the president.
I said: Oh, so she's going to go and vote today?
She said: Yes, she's going to vote.  Because women can vote now.

Who says that preschool and suffrage lessons don't go together?  I think I'll just call her my Little Suffragette.

Thanksgiving Printables in the Classroom Store

Well, I have been away from the blog for a few days as I a)traveled on a ten-hour bus ride to help chaperon my elder son's band trip, and b)found out during the trip that the hard drive on my laptop was messed up beyond repair.  Ah, technology.  So wonderful when it works, and so terrible when it does not.  Sadly, my laptop is dead to me now.  However, the good news is that a new hard drive is on the way to me and should be installed this week (and was still under warranty by just a few weeks).  The even better news is that I was able to copy (and thus save)all of my files and pictures!

As a result of that copying, I was able to get my Thanksgiving Printable pack in the stores this morning.  Here are the thumbnails:

 

You can find this pack in my Teacher's Notebook and my Teachers Pay Teachers stores.

Thanks for going by and taking a look!