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A NC Mom to 4 wonderful boys, Wife to GREAT Husband, & TK Teacher!! Hey... Add a comment if you want!! I'd love to hear from you!!!

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Friday, April 3, 2015

#2getherwearebetter Link Up

Although I am just getting back into the swing of blogging, I thought it would be a great idea to link up with Ashley and Angie for their #2getherwearebetter and Greg from The Kindergarten Smorgasboard.
 
http://www.schroedershenanigansin2nd.com/
Schroeder Shenanigans in 2nd
 
I am in total agreement about needing the support from other teachers to be the best we can be.  Unfortunately, I am in a school that is a little disjointed right now.  Our teams aren't really working well together right now and it has caused morale to suffer.  It bothers me, but I don't know what to do about it.  It seems that there are a lot of teachers that doesn't like change, or at least change that they weren't a part of making.  They don't mind there own changes, that affect them positively, and yet seems to keep our school at a status quo.  I try to just do my job, and do it to the best of my ability, but when you don't have a working relationship with some of the teachers where your babies are headed, it's hard.  The teachers in the next class up don't even want to know about the kids, they want to learn about the kids on their own.  I understand to a point, but when you have children that have quirks, emotional families, etc... shouldn't you be prepared??  I don't know, I feel like I can learn all about the students coming into my classroom and still be able to see them as ever growing and changing little beings.  Just because they were hyper the year before, doesn't mean they will be as bad as they grow and mature over the summer.  Oh, dear... I need to stop this rant!!!!
 
Okay, back to the reason I am here... schedules. 
 
 
 
 
 
In TK we have a more open ended schedule.  We are not required to have set language, math or writing block.  Although we are not required to have these blocks, I try to incorporate them into our day.
 
8:00-8:30           Arrival - Open Center Time
8:30 - 9:10         Circle Time/Morning Meeting
9:10 - 9:30         Handwriting/Language Arts
9:30 - 10:30       Center Time - Small Guided Reading Groups Pulled
10:30 - 11:30     Recess
11:30 - 1:15       Lunch - Nap
1:15 - 2:00         Math Block - Mini Lesson, Games, Review
2:00 - 2:15         Snack
2:15 - 2:40         Whole Group Game to Review Math or Alphabet Skills
2:40 - 3:05          Pack Up, Carpool
 
So that is how our day typically goes.  We have 5 specials interspersed throughout the week.  We have Music on Monday, Science Lab on Tuesday, Gym on Wednesday, Art on Thursday, and Foreign Language/Library on Friday.  We work around them and still are able to get in enough time to learn and play.
 
I think Circle Time is my favorite part of the day.  We use our Smart Board a lot and there is a lot of singing, dancing and gross motor movement.  I like to incorporate a lot of cross the midline activities while we count, and it just get's the kids up and moving.  I think I may need to take a few photos and post them. 
 
TK isn't Kindergarten, but I really try hard to keep our learning active, hands on, and totally child centered while giving my little's the social, emotional and academic skills they need to be successful in kindergarten. 
 
Thanks for stopping by!!!
 
 
 

Wednesday, April 1, 2015

Building and Huffing and Puffing

TK has been studying construction the past few weeks.  We have looked at building things us, as well as taking things down.  We love the story of The 3 Little Pigs so we built our lessons, this past week, around that story.  One of the things we had so much fun doing was building our own "houses" and seeing if the "Big, Bad Wolf" could blow it down.  We paired the kids up with a partner, gave them a tray of "building materials" and gave them 15 minutes to create some sort of "house."  They were so excited!!!  I think the pipe cleaners were the hardest to figure out, but I am so glad we used them.  The kids really had fun working with all the materials. 
I got this idea off of Pinterest, which led me to the blog, Sewing School.
 
So below you will find the trays we had ready for the kids to choose from...
 
 
I wanted to show pictures of the kids building their houses, but I always forget that I can't show faces, and I always not only get the kids I am photographing, but there are ALWAYS a few in the background!!!  So, instead below you will see the Big, Bad Wolf trying to blow down some of the houses!!!
 
 
We made the big, bad wolf our of my hair dryer, adding the ears and eyes by taping them on... again, not my idea, got it from Sewing School.
So cool isn't it!!!!
 
 
Unfortunately Godzilla House didn't hold up... after much discussion, we decided that the dominoes were just to slippery to stand up to the huffing and puffing of the big, bad wolf.
 
 
The Sugar Cube House didn't do to bad, it moved a bit, but not to much.

 
The big, bad wolf tried as hard as it could to blow Mr. Gumball House down... but to no avail!!!
 
Along with learning about how air could blow down houses, we learned that the air from our lungs could do move things too.  We started out with blowing paint around the paper (it will become some kites later on).  The kids realized that the big, bad wolf had much better lung capacity than themselves. 
 
 


 
We had a lot of fun with this unit.  We also worked on our writing by creating a class book about the "houses" we built.  We took the dominoes and made addition sentences with them and counted out how many dots there were.  It was a fun week!!!