Diet Coke and Mentos Experiment

I bought a pack of small 12oz bottles of Diet Coke on sale $3.33 at Target and a 6 pack of Mentos for this experiment.  It was a cheap experiment that my students loved!  

They put three mentos in a paper tube while pinching bottom of tube.  They then turned the tube upside down and inserted mentos in the diet coke.  The students loved watching the mentos explode the diet coke!

Pumpkin Themed Games

I love fall and I love doing a pumpkin theme in my classroom!  This year
I came up with a few new sight word/letter games.

Pumpkin Toss

I bought cheap pumpkin trick or treat buckets (only $1 a piece) at Target and used some ping pong balls I had at the house.  My students took turns tossing the ball in a bucket.  Then the bucket they tossed the ball in, they drew out a card or pumpkin.  My advanced group read the sight word.  My middle groups said the sound of the letter and my approaching group said the letter. I try to do the same thing in every group and just switch up the drill so that my students don't realize they are doing something different.  The students loved this game!  It worked their gross motors by getting them up and moving around.

 Pick a Pumpkin

Another pumpkin review game we played was Pick a Pumpkin.  I bought these orange plates for only $1 for 20 of them at Target.  I stapled a stem on them and wrote sight words on some and letters on others.  We worked on the same skills: letters, sounds, or sight words.

You can use both these games for almost any skills and even with older children: numbers, multiplication, division, addition, subtraction, colors, shapes, etc.  Make it a competition and almost any age would enjoy it.  I'm pretty sure our 8th graders at our school would even enjoy trying to toss a ball in a bucket! You can make it a matching game and have students work with partners matching uppercase A with lowercase a or 4+5 on one and 9 on the other etc.

Pre-K Progress Report

Every year I work hard on creating and editing a progress report for our preschool program.  I think I finally created one that hopefully will be final one; however, depending on my students each year, this one could end up changing as well.  I have searched the internet for pre-k standards, expectations when entering kindergarten as well as other pre-k and preschool report cards and progress reports.  Considering how much I have searched and looked at other reports, I wanted to share what I created with you.  If you would like me to email you a copy you can edit, let me know. 

CLASSROOM SCHEDULE

I wanted to share my busy schedule.  With the 90 minute reading blocks for all the older classes, we were given all morning specials! Talk about a busy morning!  The hardest part is we have some students leave at 11 as well as some only come three days a week; therefore, we have 3 main days of learning and the rest review days.  Below is what my schedule looks like:

As you can see my schedule is crazy this year! Not much I can do about it except ask for a more consistent specials schedule next year! Most things I can't get in every day.  There is just no way possible to go to every special and fit in all that we have to every day, so this year I had to be real creative in planning my daily schedule.  Calendar I add in literacy and of course we do math so that the students are receiving a lesson in those areas every day.  Of course with calendar, the students are learning numbers, patterns, days of the weeks, months,etc. but we also added in a daily message for the students to practice letters, sight words, and even some writing during that time.  I work in a Christian school; therefore, we try to have some form of Bible story, praying, Bible craft or activity every day.  Eventually we will start going to church every Wednesday with the  rest of the school, and that will take the place of Bible on that day which is our busy day already! We also had to  add in library on Wednesdays during our small groups time.  Our small groups are our Literacy and Writing groups.  The students rotate between four groups during this time: some form of writing (journals, practice writing letters in the alphabet, describing a story or something to go with our science theme to  get science in more), reading (picture reading, retelling, sight word and letter books, etc.), listening (listening to story on headphones), and some form of art, game or activity to go with the letter or sight word we are learning depending on student and what level they are.  Math and science groups work almost just like literacy groups except there are only three groups (You can see on my schedule, we only have time for this three times a week.) and they only go to one a day and rotate to a different group the next day we meet in science and math groups.     We usually do one science group and two math groups.  In math we start out the year  doing shapes and colors and then switch to numbers.  Eventually we get to patterns, sorting, adding, etc.  Science we usually stick to the Scholastic Clifford themes. 

This is our afternoon schedule.  There isn't much to it except the Daily Five. We usually do four groups instead of five and two of the groups are led by the teacher each day.  The students' alone groups are listening center and reading center. (They can read alone or together with a buddy.)  The teacher leads working on writing and working with words or letters most days; however, there are those days that the students will play a game, write the room, etc. by themselves while the teacher assesses students or works one on one with a student.  

Mr. Potato Five Sense Book

My sister-in-law asked for everyone to bring a book instead of a card to her baby shower; therefore, I decided to make my new little nephew a book instead.  I decided to do a five sense book and thought a Mr. Potato one would be fun and interactive. 

My Title Page

Individual pages:

 My last page: 

In the white envelope on the right side has different fleece pieces cut out into body parts and accessories for the potato on the right.  When my nephew is old enough, he'll be able to play with this last page.  

 My 6 year old and I tried it out.  Check out our potatoes:

Camping Themed Classroom

Below are pictures from my classroom this year (more pictures to come):

Reading/Library Center:

 In my reading center, I have my son's tent , sleeping bag, and camping chair along with themed books throughout the year.

Above: The children can pick a big book or themed book (that is rotated throughout the year) and read it in the tent or on the chair. They also may read their leveled and sight word books in this center during daily five.

 Rules Board

Writing Center:

This board will be my word wall.  I'll start out with just the students' names and add sight words, color words, numbers, etc. as we learn them.  This center also has several letter activities and writing utensils such as pens, pencils, crayons, chalk/board, dry erase markers/board, paper, envelopes, old cards, etc.

Above: Containers include all sorts of different writing utensils: skinny and fat pencils, pens of all different colors and types, crayons, markers, and chalk.

Below:  The white tubs will hold my small group activities.  The green containers will be the students' personal mailboxes for finished work, letters from friends etc.  Also included in this center are chalkboards, dry erase boards, clip boards, letters and word cards, paper, lists pads, and blank books.  As the year goes on I'll rotate new items to the shelf.

Literacy and Math Groups:

We do two sets of small groups throughout the morning.  Math groups consist of three groups a week and we switch to a new group each day.  Students know to look at these boards to know which group they are in each day.  I have an orange, red and green group.  After seeing which group they are in, they go to the table with that color above it.  Literacy groups work the same way except they go to every group every day.  This chart just shows them where they go first.  

Below: Math Center-I have my crayons and markers sorted by colors.  This gives the students sorting practice every day.  The tubs hold manips of all sorts!  I also included shapes for tracing and naming and sorting containers for the students to use. The colorful containers will hold my math group items. Each color container will be placed on the table with that color above it (See pictures below).  Students will find their name on the chart above and will go to the table that matches the color of paper that is to the left of their name. (Chart is not finished yet.) 

Red Group

 Yellow Group

 Green Group

 Blue Group

 Calendar Board:

We sing Dr. Jeans' Days of the Week and Months songs along with discuss what comes next in the pattern on the calendar and what number should be on it.  We discuss the weather, Rise and Shine song, and Today is, Tomorrow will be, and Yesterday was  as well.  Then if students still need  to get their wiggles out we may do another fun song.  

Campfire Meeting: This is where the students gather between groups, during Calendar and Morning Meeting time, and shared writing time. 

 Lunch/Attendance Chart:

When students come into the classroom, they sign in. (They start out the year signing first name.  As they learn how to write their first name we switch to last and then middle names.  After writing their name, they find the picture with their name on it.  This year their names are written on bugs.  They pick their bug and choose their lunch choice on this chart.  

 Discipline Chart:

 At our school, Preschool-2nd grade does the stoplight discipline system. We can do it however we want in our classroom.  I decided this year to have green be a beary good day, yellow is medium moose day, and red is a stinky day.

More pictures of my classroom centers

Listening Center: Used during Daily Five and Literacy small groups

Dramatic Play Center

 Blocks Center

 Science Center

 Art Center:

Computer Center