Fabulicious Freebies!

Better late than never! 

Click on the picture to get your freebie!

****Update as of 2/3/13:  I apologize that this didn't work before! It should be working now. *****

Writing in Preschool

One of my favorite ways to incorporate important literacy skills is through our Preschool Daily News.  

 As you might guess, this is a daily occurrence in our classroom; it's part of our circle time routine.  Each day, I pull two names from a cup and I ask those children to think of something they would like to share with the class.  It can be whatever they are thinking about at the time. (And sometimes it gets really interesting!) 

I write their thought on the "newspaper".  Our "newspaper" is a sheet of chart paper that I laminated.  I use dry erase markers to write on it.  If they have spoken a whole paragraph, I let them know that I am only able to fit so much, so I will only be able to write the first part of what they said.  As I am writing, I am sounding out the words, and asking for help with the initial sounds.  Later in the year, I will talk about punctuation and the difference between letters and symbols.  

After everything is written, I have another child come up and point to the words with a pointer as the class "reads" the messages together.  

I do this with both my three and four year old classes.  Even though these children are still in the pre-reading stage, this activity provides many benefits, including:

*print tracking skills

*one-to-one correspondence

*showing students that their words have importance and they can be written down

*seeing how letters are formed (discuss some of the letters as you write them)

*initial sound practice

*name recognition practice

*helps students get to know each other

*demonstrates value of each individual's thoughts

How do you promote literacy in your daily preschool routine?

Hot Cocoa {mini giveaway!}

How is it already January 20? I can't believe how time is flying this month.  While my primary job is teaching my preschoolers, I am also the program director, which means I have to market and promote my school to get new families to enroll.  January means one thing in early childhood: Enrollment Season! I have been so busy creating marketing materials, attending meetings, and promoting at preschool fairs, I can certainly see how January has simply gotten away from me.

Luckily, along came this 3 day weekend to save me from insanity! I have been using it to update some of my old products on TpT.  This month marks my anniversary as a seller! I used to teach first grade, so some of my products are more geared toward lower elementary students.

Here is one with some major updates, and it's FREE!

 Another one with some updates (and it's only$1.00).

And last, but not least, my latest creation: Hot Cocoa Activities! 

This comes with two poems that I wrote, and its activities focus on sequencing, counting, writing, and tracking print through poetry.  I will use these with my 3 and 4 year olds, but the writing portions are obviously better suited for K and 1st grade.  

{Click on the picture to view on TpT.}

Here's a little preview:

And now for the {mini} giveaway! I will email this packet to the first 2 people to comment on this post with their email addresses.  

Thanks for reading!

TpT App

Just when I thought I had all the apps I needed on my iPhone, Teachers Pay Teachers introduces one of their own! Woo hoo!

Now we can all be super multi-taskers. 

Speaking of which, hasn't it been nice to slow down and do less multi-tasking this last week? As much as I love my job, I have really enjoyed thinking about other things for a while.  

Like these guys, for example!

These are my besties from high school.  We still get together whenever possible.  I'm all the way on the left and the little guy on my lap belongs to the lovely lady next to me.  Clearly the kids in this picture would have rather been doing something else!

Go download the TpT app if you have an iPhone!

Silence for Sandy Hook Elementary

Freebie!

It was just one of those weeks, wasn't it?  Maybe it was just me, but I was exhausted and playing catch up all week for some reason.  I don't think I even took any pictures of the stuff we were doing! 

You know the feeling!

Anyway, I was able to create this fun little activity this afternoon.

Your littles will LOVE to hunt for the gingerbread man around the school. And, best of all, it's FREE!

{Click the picture download.}

Candy Cane Science

Today I did some Christmas science with my 4 year olds! 

I explained that scientists ask questions and then try to find the answers.  Today the question was, 

"How do we make the stripes come off of the candy cane?"

We put on our scientist hats and pulled out some candy canes.  The first candy cane went into a container of water. 

We took guesses as to whether the candy canes would dissolve in vegetable oil (second container from the left), corn syrup (3rd container), and rubbing alcohol (last container).  

It surprised me that the rubbing alcohol took as long as it did to remove the red from the candy cane.  According to my husband  (a chef), alcohol actually has preservation properties, and therefore the candy cane did not dissolve as quickly as it did in water.  

It took about 5 minutes for the one in the water to look like this:

 And of course we had to test how long it would take our saliva to remove the stripes! 

Every hard working scientist deserves a candy cane!