Frazzled Monday

I took home work this weekend and was super excited as I worked on them.  I could not wait to share all my hard work with my class.  I was even looking forward to it this morning as I got ready for work and ate my breakfast.  I started to gather everything I had done over the weekend to put where I had intended it to go.  My kids were rather calm and seemed excited to see what I had brought.  But then I was over whelmed withe worry about things not going as I planned.  I should have pushed it down but BAM! things were starting to go awry.  A teacher had called in last night and could not come in today so the part time girls had to help cover her spot.  My break time went out the window along with the extra 10 minutes I was looking forward to gathering my thoughts with.  This is not the first time that this has happened. I have been put in this situation many times before and able to handle it with ease.  There was something though about this time that seemed to really make me struggle.  I had to text my boss about what was going on and she explained that my co-worker who could not come had a family emergency that required her attention.  I am very fond of this co-worker and so I added worry about her to my growing list of stressers for the morning. My kids barely mad it through recess with my sanity intact. I had a hard time focusing on circle time.  I barely kept it together at during activity time as well.  This Monday was just not looking so good. SO here I am at lunch time thinking about the morning and wondering how I am going to make it through the rest of the afternoon.  I feel like I am totally unorganized and unprepared for the week ahead of me. I hope i can pull myself out of this funk and have fun with my class.

Time for more change

I am trying to be more productive with family, work, Girl Scouts, and life in general.  I find that I hit a mode where after work I just want to escape into the non thinking world of TV.  Now I totally support the need to do this occasionally but not as a way to shut everything and everyone out.  My family needs me to be more on top of things.  My husband needs me to support his efforts to help around the house.  My kids need me to actually pay attention to what they are or are not accomplishing at school or with other activities.  My school is the only place where I feel passionate about anything.  I have not cared about the state of my house in a very long time.  I have not kept track of the kids school nearly well enough.  I do not hang out with friends nearly as often as I need to.

I feel like I can change and have in some ways.  I need to continue to aspire to be more.I just am not totally sure how to get there at this time.  I think in time I will find what I need.  I just need to keep looking.  

New Blog

So the past few months I have posted a few things about my new preschool teaching job.  Well I have decided to create a blog just for this.  So if you are following me and are interested in that aspect of my life you can go on over: http://thepreschoolexperimentblog.blogspot.com/

Germs

A few weeks ago we talked about germs. I had a parent bring a book that was such fun to read to the kids on a daily basis. The book is titled "Those mean, nasty, dirty, downright disgusting, but invisible germs"

We made these really fun "germs" and hung them from the ceiling. It was great seeing the kids let loose creatively.

Halloween in the class

So I got very excited to have an older class for Halloween this year. I have done a ton of decorating and activities and crafts.

We decorated the playhouse to be out Haunted or Halloween house (depends on who you ask ;).

Today I made a spider web on the wall with clear tape and let the kids throw "spiders" (balled up newspaper) at the spider web. They loved it!!

On Halloween we will be bowling and playing a Halloween punch game and more. :)

Incentives

So in conjunction with my behavior chart I have decided to come up with an incentive for my kids to strive to get to purple/outstanding each day, painted rocks.

In the parking lot of my work they have garden beds layered with tons of river rocks. I picked out probably a dozen or more rocks, cleaned them with a water bath and then started painting. I did simple yet fun designs. I also did things that related to the most recent themes we have talked about. Then When they were dry I did one coating of a varnish to seal it and make it Last longer. After all the rocks were dry I it then all I a large tin can and when a child gets to purple they get to pick their favorite.

I tried this out today because I had 5 kids out of my 10 total make it to outstanding (very good day) and I let them pick a rock. They were so excited and proud to show it off to their parents.

Classroom management

I recently took over the preschool class at my child care center. It was a great step up for me but the class was out of control and had no idea how to listen to a teacher let alone do what I asked of them. I created a behavior chart and we as a class came up with rules we all had to follow. During our rule discussion I asked "what kind of rules do you think we should have?". One boy responded "happy rules!" so our class rules are happy ones that are phrased in positive, what you can do , ways instead of negative no, don't, can't ways. The combination of the behavior chart and the easy to read or understand rules has turn my class of 9 physical boys and one sweet girl around in two short weeks.

Happy class rules: I found a class rule poster on pinterest that had simple drawing of faces and feet and other things to remind the kids visually what rules to follow. So I sat down with the kids and asked them what rules were important to them. The only one I helped them with was the sharing URL. The rest they said to me. I turned them into positive phrases because who really like being told what they can not do. I know I don't. I have found that the more often that you remind a child of what they can do instead of what they are doing, the more likely they are to do the actions we want them too.

After I completed the rule poster I showed it to the kids and talked about what each rule was and the picture that goes with it. So now when someone has a hard time remembering what rule they should be following I just tell them the rules number and even though they can not read yet, they can tell me what the rule is.

Behavior chart: I also found this type of chart on pinterest but for kindergarten ages or older. The ones I saw just had words on it. I wanted to add faces do the kids had a visual picture of how their actions effect their day. It has been challenging to monitor exactly when someone needs to move up or down because at the preschool age they are so active and still figuring out how rules work. But they get really excited when they move up and so heart broken when they have to move down. During our rule discussion we also talked about why we move down and what happens when we get to red.

Bug week

Here is a cute idea I found on pinterest. You let the kids make bugs using finger and thumb prints. The kids had fun making this with me.

Preschool center idea

I was at the dollar store looking for things to enhance the centers I have in my preschool class. I found the little butterfly clips an knew I needed to use them for something. The skill of being able to open them with their fingers will lead to better muscle control for writing. So I got some pencils for the kids to practice clipping them too.

I tried this activity today and they loved it. Or at least those advances enough to open the clips with out help. They matched the clip colors to the pencil colors and they also clipped them to the side of the bowl. One girl put as many clips as she could on a pencil and then counted them. 13 in all fit on the pencil. :)

My pets

Here is a barrage of pictures of my pets. I have three beautiful dogs and I love taking pictures of them. They can be so expressive. :)