I know you are all thinking I have abandoned my blog and to be honest I've felt a bit burdened every time I open up my computer to write.
It has been a circus here in my household with many many new things happening. A quick update. Since I wrote last back in April (WHAT?!) we have moved to Texas, my husband and I have both started new jobs, we are looking to buy our first home, and my sister is getting married in less than a week! Wow I feel like I should be even more tired than I am. I guess my trenta cool lime refreshers are keeping me going! ;)
It has been a circus here in my household with many many new things happening. A quick update. Since I wrote last back in April (WHAT?!) we have moved to Texas, my husband and I have both started new jobs, we are looking to buy our first home, and my sister is getting married in less than a week! Wow I feel like I should be even more tired than I am. I guess my trenta cool lime refreshers are keeping me going! ;)
Like I said, I started a new job. I am now teaching at a preschool that my home church congregation hosts. This summer I am teaching 2's and 3's and in the fall I will begin teaching the pre-k class. Many of you know I have not finished school (having kids can slow that down!) but I was studying early childhood education and it is very close to my heart to teach little ones, so when the opportunity was presented to start teaching, of course I jumped on board! My first few weeks here in Texas have been filled with classroom decorating, lesson planning, and pinteresting....a LOT of pinteresting. I know that's not a word but it gets the point across.
I informed my student's parents this summer that I would keep them updated through my blog of our daily activities. I will post about craft ideas, lesson plans, and much more so stay tuned all you educators!
Okay so our theme this first week of school was Summer Fun. When I think of summer, I think of water! So I decided to branch off of this theme and do a water unit this week. Our week consisted of crafts, music, dance, sensory table play, and of course our daily bible devotional.
Since our bible verse this week was 1 Peter 2:21 "Following in His footsteps," I told my kiddos the story about Jesus calling the disciples and we talked about how we are also called to follow Him. We played a game of follow the leader to help them understand the bible concept. I also had them color a footsteps coloring sheet and glue on tissue paper. This was an easy peasy activity but it was nice for them to be able to sit at their tables and to work on a quiet project for a few minutes. This gave my students an opportunity to build classroom community skills by sharing their crafting materials and by helping those around them.
I informed my student's parents this summer that I would keep them updated through my blog of our daily activities. I will post about craft ideas, lesson plans, and much more so stay tuned all you educators!
Okay so our theme this first week of school was Summer Fun. When I think of summer, I think of water! So I decided to branch off of this theme and do a water unit this week. Our week consisted of crafts, music, dance, sensory table play, and of course our daily bible devotional.
Since our bible verse this week was 1 Peter 2:21 "Following in His footsteps," I told my kiddos the story about Jesus calling the disciples and we talked about how we are also called to follow Him. We played a game of follow the leader to help them understand the bible concept. I also had them color a footsteps coloring sheet and glue on tissue paper. This was an easy peasy activity but it was nice for them to be able to sit at their tables and to work on a quiet project for a few minutes. This gave my students an opportunity to build classroom community skills by sharing their crafting materials and by helping those around them.
After our Bible activities, we had a discussion about water. We discussed where we find water like in oceans, rivers, and pools. We talk about how water changes. I wanted to demonstrate this by filling up an ice tray and letting the kids see what happened to the water at the end of the day by being in the freezer, but time ran out so we skipped this part of the lesson plan. We also talked about what kinds of things need water like animals, plants, and people! I was so impressed with how well my students sat on the floor at circle time and participated during our whole discussion! After circle time, we made rain sticks! This is such a fun craft and requires materials you can find around the house!
This is all you need:
paper towel tubes
dry macaroni and/or dry beans
glue
duct tape
decorating material (we used feathers, foam shapes, sequins, and pom poms)
Amanda, who is my wonderful classroom aide, taped one end of the tube shut and let the students do their magic! Yes they got glue all over them along with sequins and feathers but it was fun! I poured in the beans and macaroni, taped the other end shut and voila! A rain stick! I turned on The Water Cycle Boogie by The Banana Slug String Band and let the kids dance and make music with their rain sticks! It was a success.
This is all you need:
paper towel tubes
dry macaroni and/or dry beans
glue
duct tape
decorating material (we used feathers, foam shapes, sequins, and pom poms)
Amanda, who is my wonderful classroom aide, taped one end of the tube shut and let the students do their magic! Yes they got glue all over them along with sequins and feathers but it was fun! I poured in the beans and macaroni, taped the other end shut and voila! A rain stick! I turned on The Water Cycle Boogie by The Banana Slug String Band and let the kids dance and make music with their rain sticks! It was a success.
On Thursday I had a water sensory table out. This consisted of different size containers and water colored blue with food coloring. I laid out measuring spoons, funnels, a dropper, syringe, and strainer so the kids could find different ways to play with water. This was a wonderful fine motor skill activity! I also had different kinds of plastic water animals for them to play with and we discussed what we learned about water as I just let them play freely at the water table.
At nap time, I read the Rainbow Fish to them. This was one of my favorite books growing up and it fit our water unit quite well. We had such a wonderful first week! I look forward to my time with these precious kiddos and hope I can share many more fun activities we do this summer!