Welcome back to "Crochet for the Classroom"! This week I am featuring one of my favorite crochet projects so far- my coconut tree! I found this adorable pattern on Moogly Blog and fell in love. I knew it would be perfect to go along with Chicka Chicka Boom Boom
Although Moogly Blog uses this tree to store her adorable finger puppets, I have another idea for it. I am planning on putting some bottle caps with letters written on them inside this bottle. I can either put one of each letter in there to encourage the children to put them in order or I can put one capital and one lower-case of each letter for matching or even two of each letter in capital or lower-case for simpler matching. There are many possibilities!
Welcome to the second installment of "Crochet for the Classroom"! Today I am sharing some ice cream! My assistant teacher and I are planning to add a new ice cream theme to our schedule this year so I thought this would make a fun addition. I found the little ice cream dish at the Dollar Tree. I don't have a book to go with this set (yet) but I thought of a cute Math game/song:
Have small pom-poms and a dish for each child playing and sing the following song:
Ice cream, Ice cream, in a dish
How many scoops do you wish?
The child then states how many scoops he or she would like and you count out that number of pom poms into his or her dish.
Hello! I promised that I would be more active on this blog and to prove it, I am posting this series of crochet items that I have made for the classroom using free patterns found on the internet. Each week I am going to feature another free pattern and show you how it will be used in the classroom. If you don't know how to crochet, grab a crochet hook and some yarn, and look up some Youtube videos! All of the patterns I have used thus far have been fairly easy and I know that you will learn how to crochet like a pro in no time!
The first pattern is from my favorite children's book of all, The Very Hungry Caterpillar. I was originally planning to make this caterpillar (and I may still make it later) but opted instead to make the hand puppet. I made a few changes and here is the finished product:
Since Summer is in full swing and quickly winding down, I am finally getting some energy to start really preparing for next school year. As a Head Start teacher, I always say I'm going to be more prepared "next year" but next year always brings surprises and I always seem to find newer and cooler things to add to my classroom throughout the school year.
Last year was the first year I really used Youtube videos to my advantage and the children learned SO MUCH from them that I could not teach them from a book or photos. I try not to use videos as babysitters or to teach things that I can teach hands-on but the children get very engaged when I pull up a video of something new and interesting. Here is a list of my top ten Youtube videos for my classroom (please share your favorites in the comments so I can check them out and pin them!):
Songs for Circle Time:
Hip Hop Humpty- The children love this song and especially love trying to imitate the hand movements
Goodbye song- we would sing this everyday before going home. They loved it with or without the video
Books:
Pout Pout Fish Puppet Show- we didn't have a copy of the book and I just happened to show this video when we were discussing ocean animals and it became one of the most requested videos in our class!
Firetruck- Not sure if I should list this as a song or book but it is SO CUTE! I was singing it throughout the day along with the children! It has a catchy tune and is also informative.
Informative:
Caterpillar to Butterfly- Hosted by two little boys and shows the complete metamorphosis process
BBC Hermit Crab- Another gem we found while learning about the ocean. The children loved watching the little crabs running around in the ocean.
These videos are neat because even our young three year olds learned how to spell the words after learning the songs on these videos
How a pumpkin grows
Other:
These just dance clips are great for indoor recess and using during center time for movement. Our class especially liked the Mario one!
Nocturnal Animal Noises- our children loved identifying animals by sound!
It has been forever since I posted on this blog! I had huge plans to post everything from last school year as it happened and slacked off quite a bit. This year I am beginning with new resolve! I am hoping to have everything planned better so that I can easily share all of the fun stuff we do on this blog!
Well, since it is summer, I've started looking around for some materials to use next school year. After contacting about 20 companies, I realized that they are not going to help me so instead I turned to thrift shopping! I wanted to hit yard sales but we found out my dad has cancer and now he's in the hospital so I've been busy helping my mom with all that.
Today I went with my mom to a thrift store on the other side of town. I hadn't been there in a while and didn't realize that she has much more merchandise than last time I was there! It was mind-boggling! Anyway, I bought $15 worth of stuff there, some to go together and some to go with books I already owned. Here are some pictures of what I matched up:
This is everything I bought today for $15- My favorite is that viewmaster projector in the back! I can't wait to use it in the classroom!
What do you think? I am trying to match all of my theme books with a corresponding plush. I think these turned out pretty good. What do you do to connect literacy with your young students?
All links in this post are affiliate links to help me afford to buy all these cool toys and activities for my students!
Last week we did a unit on the book, "Chicka Chicka Boom Boom". I have TONS of pins on my Chicka Chicka Boom Boom Pinterest board and used them for inspiration.
We made headbands-
First the children glued the letters to the headbands. We have young three year olds so this was more one-to-one correspondence of matching the letter tile to the dot of glue while the teacher named the letter but older children can create the names themselves.
Then I traced the children's hands and cut out five of each, using two different shades of green construction paper.
I stapled the headbands together and stapled the hand cutouts to form the leaves. The children wore them home proudly!
Hello! I just wanted to post an update and let my readers know that I will be posting more often this school year. my assistant teacher and I have decided that we are going to document our school year and I thought my blog would be a great landing place for the photos and ideas that we come up with! I am looking forward to another fun year!
It's been about a year since I have been on here posting and I apologize. So much happened last school year that I didn't get a chance to create things that I planned to create. I am preparing for this school year (starting Tuesday!) and I am making this adorable class book for the first week of school. I thought this would be something others would be interested in, too. I got the idea from Chalk Talk via Pinterest.
Among the books that I am crazy about is "Chicka Chicka Boom Boom". It is a simple children's book that teaches letters. We used this book for our theme the entire week last week! Here are some highlights:
We created our own coconut trees using apple slices, piroette sticks (those coffee sticks in the $ Tree!), malt balls, and letter shaped animal crackers (found them at Kroger)
Our theme this month is Language Arts so we decided to stretch the weekly theme onto our board!
I forgot to get a picture of our handprint coconut trees! We used the children's handprints to make the leaves and we drew a trunk. They glued foam letters onto the tree.
Last but not least, we listened to this catchy tune all week! My children still don't want to sit for story time so we let them dance while we hold up the book.
Well, our room is mostly ready. There are no pictures of the inside of the teacher closet! I have "everything else" in there. I feel like our room is still a little sterile but I guess it will brighten up when there is beautiful child-made artwork hanging on the walls. This is my first time working in a brand new building! I am really excited to get started this year. Our old center was actually a re=purposed FUNERAL HOME!! Complete with VIEWING LIGHTS in MY ROOM!!! So, as you can guess, I am in Heaven in this room!
This is my "housekeeping" area. It is in the little alcove that my room somehow ended up with. I actually love it now!
My Block Area
Sand and Water Taable in front of my huge window! I love all the natural light we get!!
Science Area
Writing Center. In the corner is my big hat from a teacher who passed away a few years ago. I need to figure out how to clean and hang it up.
Our little Library
Paint/ Art Area
Our sink!! I love having this in the room!!
One of my two bathrooms!
Our music cart
Sign In area
My wreath. I need to hang it!!
Sign in area. See my pen bucket?? Love it!!
I hope you enjoyed this little virtual tour of my room! I am hoping to have some free printables for you this week! Tomorrow is our first day of school so I don't know if I will be able to post tomorrow. I may be WORN OUT! ;)
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