Again, sorry for being MIA for awhile, but I am excited to get back into the blogging routine and share with you all some of the fun things we do, new and important topics we are dealing with as well as other tips and tricks I come in contact with!
I am sorry to those that have been actively following my blog...things have changed within the last 10 months or so and I chose to step away from the blog. This is partly due to the fact that my job status changed and I am not working directly in one specific classroom at this time, but more of a support staff for the teachers and classrooms at the facility I work at. I am looking to spend more time actively blogging this coming year and using the experiences I have from all the different classrooms I am able to be in to shape the way I post on my blog. Working with infants, toddlers, preschool and school-age definitely has some diversity to it and so I plan to share more as the year progresses.
Again, sorry for being MIA for awhile, but I am excited to get back into the blogging routine and share with you all some of the fun things we do, new and important topics we are dealing with as well as other tips and tricks I come in contact with!
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We have been making TONS of progress since the beginning of the year in Pre-K and we continue showing progress each day, even in the smallest of way! Typically I like to recap my week and include lesson plans, but for this post I want to share some photos and experiences from the last several week, highlighting different activities we have done. Here are a few of the different activities we have had out on our shelves to promote interest, creativity and learning! At the beginning of the year I like to keep the art experiences simple and easy to carry out. Here are a few things we did! During small group time and circle time we have been touching on many different topics and skills. The following are a few of the different activities we did! The sensory table has been a big hit as well as our fine motor activities. Here are a few examples of what we've done! I have really been enjoying the last several weeks, getting to know the children and families. We have worked hard to establish our classroom routine, expectations, and a sense of community. Planning each week can really be a chore, right!!?? It's typically a love/hate relationship for most teachers and while there are parts of me that like the planning process, there are many parts that don't. It takes much time and dedication out of your week to get everything planned. And, if you're anything like me, you tend to over-plan in hopes of the worst possible situations that could arise during the day. My plan book is like my bible, and I would not survive the day without it. What is your process? I hope that the first several weeks (that have turned into months) have been going well for you and things are off to a great start! Happy Fall Y'all!
Wow! Where did the summer go? The summer has been super busy and full of new adventures. I took a new job and so I spent the summer in transition and doing LOTS of prep for the new year. As I prepare for the first week, we finish up our last couple of days with school age kiddos and those getting ready to start Kindergarten. I will officially start with my Pre-K kiddos on Wednesday. I am excited to get the year started! Because I work in a learning center (birth through school age) I have had the opportunity to meet all of my new friends that are moving up and start to build those relationships. This will be a great benefit to me as they transition to Pre-K. I have not blogged in quite some time, but if you follow me on Facebook or Instagram you have seen my posts throughout the summer. I thought that I would share a few photos of my new classroom. Here is another angle view of my classroom. Yes, its a pretty big room...but I am use to a small room, so it's taken some getting use to. You can see my Circle Time area with teacher supplies and teacher cabinet behind that with bathroom on either side. Tables in the middle and you an see through to the reading area and front door. As I prepare for the first week (3 days) we will work hard to establish our classroom rules and procedures as well as practice some basic skills. Like I said before, most of the kiddos I have are moving up from the Early Preschool room at our learning center so they are pretty use to centers and what that means, but we will review our expectations of that as well. Here is a peek at what I have planned. Thank you to Tami Sanders over at Learning and Teaching with Preschoolers for the awesome LP layout again! Just love it!! Download my full set of plans here!
Here are some of the resources I used to prepare for the first several weeks of school. It has been quite some times since my last post and I can say that things have been pretty crazy with me. After 2 amazing years at a job that I loved I decided to take the plunge and accept a different position based on financial reasons and I was also tired from working 2 jobs plus part-time at my church and everything else going on in my life! Craziness!! I don't even have kids so I can't imagine what others feel like! In the past month or 2 I have really taken some time to reflect and do lots of PD through blogs and books. With switching jobs I have been working on prepping things for my new Pre-K class and setting up my room (it's been rearranged several times). I am working with the School-Age kiddos this summer at the Early Learning Center that I work at. I have been blessed with a great group of kiddos and we have had lots of fun! Just recently, in the past week, I have been following the TpT conference in Vegas via Periscope and it has been amazing! I have wanted to go since I started my TpT store in 2014. Basically, finances and not being able to get the time off has prohibited me from going to that conference, but I know that one of these years I will make it there! With all of the periscope broadcasts I have been watching I have become inspired to dig a little deeper, spend more time in the TpT and blogging world, and really take the time to embrace it a little more than I have been. I started a blog to connect and started selling on TpT to make some extra cash. What I have gained from these things in much more than that! I have had the opportunity to get to know so many wonderful educators through their blogs or TpT stores. I am putting out things on my Social Media accounts to try and connect and looking to find more collaboration with other educators, specifically those that teach in Early Childhood. If you are interested in becoming connected, please let me know! I am not really interested in starting a group and managing that group but if someone else does, I would join in a heart beat!
Enjoy, and be blessed! It has been quite sometime since I have made a post. Things have been BUSY this spring! We had WOYC (Week of the Young Child), and the last couple of weeks we have been prepping for our preschool graduation. Lots of things have been going on. We studied Community Helpers the last two weeks and this week we are starting a month long study on Ocean. I am excited to start this study and see where it goes! Here is a peek at what we will be up to this week! Skills addressed this week...
Changing the Centers Lesson Plan (Sample) Download my complete set of plans for the week here!
I hope you all enjoy your week! I am sure most of you are on the countdown to the end of the school year. Here, we are year-round, so I am looking forward to the summer months to see a change of pace as we veer from our normal schedule and curriculum to explore and study with lots of projects, field trips, and more outside learning time! Check out these resources for some of the activities used in my plans! Click on the picture to go directly to the link to purchase! Have a great week, and remember...enjoy the little things!
We had lots of fun last week with St. Patrick's Day activities. One of our favorites were the Magic Leprechaun Rocks. Here are a few pictures! This week we will be incorporating some spring and Easter activities into our week. This week we will focus on... Regrow Celery 3D shapes Counting in order to 10 1:1 Correspondence Counting on from a certain number Review letters R, S, E, B, F, W Super Friend Class Book Letter Recognition Letter Writing Beginning Sounds Simple Addition -at Word Family Changing the Centers Plans for the Week Download my Complete Set of Weekly Plans Here:
Spring Freebie! Thanks for following my blog! To say thank you, here is a Spring themed Rhyming Center for FREE! Grab it here!
Resources Used
Enjoy your week and take a little time to remember why you do what you do, and know that you are appreciated!
Whew! What a fun week! Celebrating Dr. Seuss' birthday is always a fun week in the early childhood world. I chose a different book for each day of the week and then planned some special activities around those books. Here are a few of the highlights from our week. We started off our week with the iconic Cat in the Hat. Of course, rhyming is present throughout all of the Dr. Seuss books, but I chose to use the red/white pattern as the focus for the day. We used red and white squares to practice making patterns in many different forms. We also had fun assembling our very own Cat in the Hat snack! It was very simple to do by using strawberries and bananas and skewering them. The kiddos LOVED them! Wednesday we read the book Bartholomew and the Oobleck. What a fun story! What makes it even more meaningful?? Make your own version of Oobleck! We used a fun recipe from Jamie over at Play to Learn Preschool (click to see recipe) by mixing cornstarch and dish soap. The traditional recipe is cornstarch and water. It is a fun, gooey mixture that the kids love to sink their hands into! On Thursday, we read the book Oh the Things You Can Do That are Good for You! which focused on healthy habits. We too this opportunity to review our food groups and then used the healthy foods cards to sort them by the number of syllables they have. These are a few of the extra activities I had set out. The first one is a fish patterns activity and a fine motor activity with red pom-poms and tweezers. I find that setting out these 'tray' style activities adds some interest and extra practice during the free-choice, child-directed center time. This was another game that we had set out during the week, and it was a HUGE hit with all of the kiddos. They really enjoyed the challenge of finding the matches as well as recognizing the characters throughout the week as we read different books. This was a great investment, for sure! Find it here.
Whew! What a fun, exciting week! We truly had a fun time celebrating the wonderful life of Dr. Seuss! Next week, we will talk about being Super Friends! I am excited for the coming week and interested to see how the children respond to the idea of being a 'super friend'! I will share more about my plans as they are finalized later this weekend. Thank you for reading, and happy teaching! Dr. Seuss' Birthday always comes with some fun and exciting things on the plans. Check out my plans below to see all the fun and exciting things we will be up to this week! Changing the Centers Preview of Plans Download my full set of plans here!
Enjoy having fun with all the Dr. Seuss themed activities this week!
Whew! What a week! We survived another holiday week and surprisingly it went pretty well. Here is a look back at our week! How onto next week... Who has Monday off for President's Day? I do not! Boo! Here is a look at what I have planned for the coming week. We will continue the theme of love/friendship/kindness. We will use two of the Froggy books and a great resource from Tami at Teaching Preschoolers to get us through the week! During small groups we will be working on the following skills:
Here is a look at my plans! Changing the Centers MondayDownload my full set of plans here.
Resources Here is a quick and easy Valentine's Day Gift for your students that involved NO candy! Check out the instructions below and grab the FREEBIE printable!
Enjoy!
Happy Valentine's Day Week! Brent |
About Me
Hello. My name is Brent Martin. Currently I am a Lead Pre-K Teacher at a private learning center in Wichita, KS. I am also the president of our local Early Childhood Organization as well as on the state board for our AEYC. Thank you for visiting my site! Archives
July 2015
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