Flannel Boards!

I can remember when I was a kid loving the bible stories my Sunday school teacher would tell with the flannel board.  It was so much fun retelling those stories on our own when it was our turn. 

 

This past year I brought the flannel board back in my classroom!

 

 I made some fairytale flannel board sets and the kids LOVED them!   I simply took one of my bulletin boards and covered it with fabric.  After printing and laminating the pieces to each set, I glued a piece of felt on the backs.    The language, expressions in their retell, and vocabulary were awesome to watch and listen to. 

 

 I just finished getting those flannel board sets ready to share with everyone.  Take a look below and click on the picture to get yours at my TpT store. 

 

 

Enjoy the rest of your summer! 

Warning! Preschool Booby Traps!

During centers a couple of weeks ago, one little guy went over to the yarn and started quietly stringing it under, over and around everything in sight.  Instead of jumping in to make him stop I sat back and watched for a few minutes.  He stayed focused on his work as the other children played around him.  I finally asked him what he was working on.  He looked up at me with a smile and replied, "I'm making booby traps!"  He wasn't trying to catch anything or harm anyone.  Just simply making booby traps for fun.  This went on for a few days and soon half of the class had joined him!  I couldn't bring myself to stop them.  It was so much fun to watch the creativity, teamwork and problem solving unfold.  

So I decided to join them!

  One morning when they arrived they found a note on our door warning them that our classroom had been booby trapped. Enter at your own risk!

They had so much fun passing their coats and backpacks to friends on the other side so they could belly crawl into the classroom.  

(This was high enough for them to have to go under but low enough for me to step over!)

 I also had a "Laser" maze set up over our rug.  

This was a fun way to reteach positional words.

 (Crawl under, step between, jump over)

Dinosaur Fun!

Here are a few games I made to go in my centers this week.  

You can find them in my TpT store.

Colors and Shapes

In just a few more weeks, I will be starting over with a fresh batch of preschoolers. 

 One of the first games I will teach them is how to go on color and shape hunts. 

 My students LOVE these games every year! 

Not only is it a great way to get kids up and moving as they learn but a great way to build language skills too.   I have students take turns sharing the name of their color or shape and the name of the item they found.

 To freshen up the game this year, I made these cards for the kids to hold during their hunt. 

Blocks and Storytime Outside

Another beautiful day and rain coming tomorrow. 

 Out we went again today! 

  We gathered up our blocks and took them outside.   

 Each student took two blocks, taking turns we slowly 

added them together to build bridges in different habitats.

 We had to stay on the bridge or the animals of that habitat might see us!

This is such a great ABC book to use when learning about animals. 

 Great pictures of the animals and shows children how to move like the animals.

Get those kids moving!

"F" is for flap your wings like a macaw!

"H" is for howl like a wolf pup!

"Q" is for quack like a duck!

"R" is for ride like a young gorilla!

(We have an odd number of kids so I got to be the momma gorilla!)

I LOVE SUNNY DAYS!!!!

What's inside an egg?

This is one of my FAVORITE science activities to do with preschool! 

 We labeled the parts of an egg first.  Then each student cracked their own egg

 to investigate what is inside.  They came up with some great describing words

 for the inside and outside of an egg!

Some deep investigating!

 More egg sorting during centers!

Frog Life Cycle

Short week this week, snow day on Monday and spring break Thursday and Friday! 

 Today and tomorrow we will be learning about the frog life cycle. 

My kiddos were so proud when they built the frog life cycle on their own!

Don't you just love it when those unplanned teachable moments happen!
  I had not planned this activity.
 I caught her drawing frog eggs and tadpoles on the white board and it lead to this!

Some frog themed rhyming!

You can get my "Frog Life Cycle and More" activities at my TPT store.
Just click on the photo above.

All kids love Easter eggs!  We sorted today by color.
Tomorrow I'm going to put various objects inside them and have the students sort by sound!

Puzzles!

 During center time today, I introduced our new farm puzzles.  The kids loved them!  Thanks to my aide, Mrs. Cole, I also have a great way to store them now.

Great way to practice sequential order.

This little guy was so proud that he could spell horse!

We can already read and build equations!

Click on the picture above to get these puzzles for your students!

What's inside an egg?

Today we labeled the parts of an egg and took a closer look to find out what is inside an egg. The students came up with great describing words.



Cracking an egg is not as easy as it looks!



How does it feel?  Great sensory experience for some of my kiddos.