Mouse problem

So we are not filthy people but my husband and I work full time and we have three kids.  Our house is never perfectly clean.  We have started to get mice in our kitchen. I hate finding mice dropping every where.  GRRRRR!  This is the second time this year that we have had this problem.  We bought the snap mouse traps (the others were expensive) and we caught several mice.  The mice droppings stopped so we thought we got them all. We probably did get them all but then they came back again.  I read on a site (don't remember which one) that a good way to kill mice, beyond the snap trap, is to put out a small bowl of cola.  They drink the cola and then can not burp and die.  I did this. Checked on the cola the next morning and it was clearly drank, but now I am thinking this mice or mouse went off and died and it is going to cause quite a stink.  Well if it did it had others because I found more droppings on our counter. UGH!  Guess it is off to the store to buy some snap traps.

Trying to Stay Positive

I am finding it harder and harder to stay positive during the mundane parts of life.  I came up with and idea, I am sure its not original and there is probably a book out there talking about exactly this idea.  Well oh well.  I am going to try for today to list all the things I did that were positive contributors to my day.  I might try to do this other days but anytime I say I will commit to something I have a hard time sticking with it so I will say that its just for today and go from there.

I got up willingly with the alarm.
Showered
Did my hair.
Got dressed.
Took my vitamins.
Ate my yogurt for breakfast.
Chatted with my sister on facebook.
Drank my energy drink.
Calmed down two emotional students after a hard drop off.
Let my students make Leprechaun traps and decorate the class trap.
Let my students color their shamrocks for crystal making.
Made the solution it takes to make crystals with all 11 students.
Had a dance party with my students.
Read books to my students.
Got most of my students down for a nap.
Made a rainbow at lunchtime for our balloon race.
Drank another energy drink.
Let my students color and make Leprechaun hats.
Let my students color leprechauns for our balloon races.
Gave a student a "Lucky to have you as a student" badge.
Pushed some students on the swings.
Straightened up my desk. Organized!!
Came home.
Changed out of work clothes.
Started dinner.
Made this post on my blog.

Looking back at how many positive things I have accomplished today makes me feel really happy. I am sure that there are more things I could have added but did not think of.

Looking Back

Last night I went down memory lane on this blog.  It was interesting to see how my emotions have played so much into my sharing.  I was also surprised at how well I can express myself.  At certain times I was certain that I was not behind the wording.  It was really fun to see old pictures of my kids.  Seeing them now and comparing to how they are now is fun. 

Well because of going down memory lane last night I ended up staying up late, so now I am completely exhausted and not feeling very witty or informative this morning.

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.