Enthusiasm

Have you seen Worst End of School Year Mom Ever , the post circulating through Facebook (yes, I am on Facebook!), Twitter, and other social medias.  It is very well written and extremely funny, disturbing to me but funny.  In this blog entry the author, Jen Hatmaker, talks about how her lack of enthusiasm during the last part of a school year.  I know, it is suppose to be funny!  I giggled, I laughed then . . . well to be honest then I got upset.  I got upset because this subject is too true, too real and it shouldn't be.  The article talks about how she is "limping, limping across the finish line".  She hasn't "checked homework folders in three weeks".  Again, I know she is trying to be funny!  The problem I with this is that it is really happening and happening as early as preschool!  IT MUST STOP!  I have noticed through the years that parents have become unenthused more quickly each year.  COME ON PEOPLE, PRESCHOOL IS FUN!  Each and every year we start off with nice new plastic (we learned paper will not last with preschoolers!) folders.  My class all have the same color and since we are learning to recognize our name and the names of other people in our class, each folder has a special little decoration on it.  These aren't very fancy, just dots, flowers or hearts that I draw on them but it helps the children associate the design to a name.  All our little take home notes and announcements are carefully put inside each day for the parents to read.  Sometimes these little notes are questions to help the parents get their children to talk to them about our day (i.e. on Friday the note may read "ASK ME ABOUT OUR SCIENCE EXPERIMENT!").  Again nothing fancy.  Most weeks several of these little notes arrive back at school on Monday morning.  REALLY???  Are parents THAT busy???  So busy that they can't even get their child's preschool folder out???  If so, then something needs to change.  Now, I'm not talking about the occasional "opps".  I referring to those folders that go unchecked for weeks, heck months at a time.  To be honest, I have now started handing my children their art projects instead of putting them in their folders.  OKAY, sometimes they are way too big to fit in a tiny folder but at least a parent will see it when the child walks to the car with it.  Preschool is fun!  We do not have homework!  Our job is to have fun!  Preschool sets the tone for a child's educational experience.  I've always said that one of my responsibilities is to help children love school.  My enthusiasm is not suppose to (nor does it) fade as the school year goes on, so why should parents get a pass?  When I have mentioned this to others (who in my opinion have let their enthusiasm fade), I get a variety of answers.  Here are a few of my favorites AND my replies -

"Oh, you don't know how it is to have to be in two places at once."  Yes, I do.  You may not realize it because I've been teaching here since dinosaurs roamed the earth, but my son (yes another excuse to post a picture of him)

was in school once too AND I have held every PTA office and been on every school committee, with the exception of PTA Treasurer, since the day he stepped into a public school. 
"But it is XXXXX (fill in your own sport) season and we have sooooo many games and practices".  REALLY?  That's the best you got?  My son played every sport EVER invented, including little league, high school AND college baseball.  I officially have been diagnosed with "bleacher bottom".  Plus, I worked as a volunteer each and every year (Just a note, try not to volunteer for "Uniform Mom", that is a tough job!).
"You only have one child."  WARNING:  THIS ONE MAKES ME MAD!  Well, there are a few methods that you can use to keep away unplanned pregnancies.  If you didn't want them then don't have them.   Or better yet, give them to someone who actually wants a child.
"You don't know what it is like to work full time."  Right!  Because being at school each day, planning and organizing our school activities does not constitute a "job"!
"I just don't have time."  Oh that's right YOUR day doesn't have as many hours in it as MINE does.  And if you omit a few items you will have time (I'm guessing getting off the computer and/or that fancy cell phone might help).  Your child does not have to be signed up for EVERY activity offered in your community.  All children really want is time with YOU.
"I'm just not very organized."  Then get organized!  It is your child for goodness sake!

Now I know that some of you who read this will get mad.  (Heck, I'm not sure that I will even hit the "publish" button.)  Others will see humor in it.  But maybe, just maybe there will be that one person who says, "I will make more of an effort when it comes to my child".  These amazingly precious years will go by so quickly.  Pretty soon these wonderful little preschoolers will head on to "big" school, middle school, then high school.  Before you know it they will be in college (and working if they are lucky) and the only time you will see that sweet face is on Facebook.  Now do you understand why I am on Facebook?

Under the Sea

Our "Under the Sea" week turned out to more fun than even I expected!  Usually by the time we get this deep into the school year, the students tend to get bored more easily.  NOT WITH THIS UNIT!  WOW, we had so much fun! 

This is my classroom!

I don't even remember where I got this large poster.

Someone threw it away and I retrieved it from the trash!

One of the most fun things we did this week was walk down our  hallways.  REALLY?!?!?!  Yes, we had so much fun swimming like a fish, crawling sideways like a crab and even floating like a jellyfish down the hall.  A real plus here is that fish are very quiet, so it was a wonderful way to keep us quiet as walked.  Okay, now let me show you some of the fun (and messy) things we did this week.

For the past couple of years, we have made a giant ocean scene.  It takes a couple of days but it is really fun.  First we have to paint the water.  Now that just didn't seem fun enough for us, SO we decided to do it the Mrs. Karen way!  First we squeezed on paint different colors of paint (green, blue, turquoise, and white).  Next, we used different types of rollers, brushes and scrappers to spread around the paint.

 

While that was drying (and it did take a full 24 hours to dry), we made different sea creatures out of our hand prints and cut out seaweed.  

Everyone was so very proud of their work!

One of our favorite books this week was Please Don't Eat the Teacher by Nick Ward.

 

This quickly became a class favorite and I was asked to read it everyday!  After reading it, there was no way my students were going to let me get through the week with a shark art project.  I think I nailed it!

 

Of course, there were those who wanted to make a hammerhead shark!



 

Here is a close-up of his/her mouth.  The children painted the inside of a small paper plate.  Then they cut (I drew the lines) little triangles all the way around the plate.  When you fold it in half it makes a perfect mouth!



 

I saw this amazing file folder game on PINTEREST but unfortunately the link did not work.

I loved the idea and I wanted everyone in my class to be able to do it.  Guess what?  We did!  Here is our Counting Octopus.

The octopus is a girl.  See her hair bow!

 



A close-up of our legs.

I will admit this activity is not for everyone.  There was a lot of circle punching involved in this, but I think it was worth it.  The children loved counting the circles and gluing them onto the legs.

Friday was our "Q" day.  We tried (really, we did) to be quiet, but as you can imagine it was more fun to be quick!  We also started working on our big Friendship Quilt.  This year we used real material.  Everyone picked out their favorite color construction paper and glued on different shaped pieces of material.

This is where I get to say "OPPS!"  I forgot to take pictures of the finished pieces, but I will and I will post them in a day or two.  We will join all the pieces together to form our giant "Friendship Quilt" and it will be on display for our end-of-the-year Art Show, which will be this Thursday.

 

Thanks for stopping by and visiting with us.  I hope you come back and visit with us soon.

We are Wild About the Zoo!

What a fun week we have had!  I think we spent more time this past week just "talking" about our topic than ever before.  Zoo Week was just plain fun!  Our circle times were lively and not only full of questions, but animal sounds too!  Here are just a few highlights from our busy week.

We celebrated "Earth Day" on Monday.  We talked about "reusing" items to help protect our planet.  One of the things that we do in my class is recycle lunch containers.  It seems that at least one child brings applesauce to school each day in a disposable container.

The students love to rinse them out for me so we can use them to hold paint or glue when we do an art project.  It may not seem like much but we are trying to do our part!  In case you missed it, here are a couple of our beautiful recycled spring flower -

 

Everyone loves monkeys so our very first zoo art project had to be a monkey!  Ours was so cute and so much fun to make.

 

 

It is probably hard to tell by the pictures, but the students actually cut the arms, legs and tales out my themselves.  We let them dry just a bit before we accordion folded the arms and legs.  I just love them.  We also spent the ENTIRE DAY talking about monkeys and apes.  Of course there was a lot of monkeying around too!

 



I was really excited when I saw this next art project on PINTEREST .  I instantly fell in love with it.  I also knew my class AND their parents would really like it.  But of course, I had to add the "Mrs. Karen" twist to it. 

The original art work used the child's hand prints for the zebra and the grass.  We needed something a little more fun.  Can you guess what we used to make the grass? 

If you said a "fork", you are right!

 

Everyone really enjoyed painting with an old plastic fork, which by the way we had leftover from lunch on Monday!  (Don't worry, we washed it!)

 

On Tuesday, we painted old paper towel tubes green and after they dried, we added dots with fun little paint dabbers.  Now that was just plain messy, fun but messy!  Everyone kept trying to guess what we were going to do with them.  Finally on Thursday they all found out! 

 

Let me be the first to say that this art project DID NOT turn out like the original one I saw.  Here is it-

http://eighteen25.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/arts-crafts-tp-roll-snakes.html

But to honest, I like ours better!  They were silly fun!  We also spent the entire day talking about snakes!  (Footnote:  I do NOT like snakes!  But my class does, so I an forced to keep my feelings to myself.)

 

One of the topics that came up during our circle time was zoos versus wild.  Hmmm . . . kind of a deep subject for a group of four year olds, isn't it?  Well, that started a unique discussion about the pros and cons of being a zoo animal versus being an animal living in it's natural habitat.  WOW, my class really surprised me with their ideas and comments.  So, we did an art project that represented the animals in their natural environment.

We found some jungle stamps in our supply closet that had never been used.  It was fun to use "new" supplies.  Again, since our cutting skills are SO GOOD, I feel like I must mention that our "tree trunks" were cut by the children!  I really wasn't sure how much the children would enjoy this art project.  It really didn't say "FUN" to me.  I WAS WRONG!  Everyone loved picking out their favorite animals and stamping them in the jungle.

Friday was our "ZERO DAY"!  This year's class loves to do BIG group projects.  We covered our tables with butcher paper and laid out different circle shaped objects along with some colored pencils and markers.  Everyone had a blast tracing the circles and make ZEROES! 

 

Honestly, several of the students could have done this for HOURS!  I will say that the trick to making this successful is having a LARGE variety of traceable objects.  This was just an easy and fun way to work on our fine motor skills AND our sharing skills too!

Thank you for visiting with us.  I hope you can use some of these ideas for your classroom or just to do with your own children.  Next week we will be talking about the OCEAN!  I hope you drop back by and see what we have done!

Earth Day 2013

HAPPY EARTH DAY

from

Mrs. Karen's Class!

 

 

 

My Class Soared with the Birds

This past week was very interesting to say the least.  Our topic was "Birds" and letter of the week was "Y".  That sounds pretty normal for a preschool week, right?  Okay, now throw in our class photos AND our annual Spring Concert and you have the makings for a humdinger of a week!  SOOOOOOOO. . . . here is our week in review!

On Monday morning I introduced the class to our new friends, worms!  My teacher-buddy, Mrs. Christi, dug up some good 'ole earth worms from her yard and I made them a cozy little home.

We added some old coffee grounds to the dirt and gave them lettuce and yellow squash to eat.  By Tuesday morning they were happily tunneling and seeming very content.  Each day we check on them.  Everyone loved them so much that I decided they would stay with us the rest of the year.

Like I said before, we had to have our class pictures made and Monday was our day.  I usually don't do messy painting projects on our picture days (it seems to upset the parents when we get paint all over those "special" clothes), so we enjoyed a simple bird art project.

I hope that you can see the yarn on the nest.  We talked all day about how birds build their nest and the different things they use. 

 

One of our favorite things has been rulers.  To a preschool child a ruler is totally fascinating!  I love to put rulers, markers and paper on our writing table then just sit back and watch.  Using rulers is a great way to work on our fine motor skills AND our eye/hand coordination at the same time.  We used our ruler skills this week with one of our art projects.  I gave the children half of a circle and a ruler. 

Everyone had a good time drawing lines and making our hand prints.  I added my big 'old hand print too and the final piece is really very sweet.  

 

The words read, "It is almost time to spread your wings and fly!  But I will always be here for you!  I love you, Mrs. Karen".  We spent the remainder of the day talking about how mother birds have to be brave and let their baby birds learn to fly and be out on their own.  Personally, I'm already missing my "baby birds".

I have an old book entitled "Weird Birds".  I don't even remember where or when I got it, but every year I pull it out and we all get a good laugh at the different types of birds all over the world.  The hands down favorite each year is the Blue Footed Booby Bird.  We had a wonderful discussion during our circle time as to why he has blue feet.  I loved it when some said the birds looked like "God dipped his feet in blue paint".  Hmmmm . . . they could be right! 

We also made a few simple birds this week.  First, we water colored a BIG parrot.

 

Now, if you read my blog regularly you know I do not like worksheets or color sheets.  But, this big bad boy is fun and I will periodically pull him out.  I don't think you can tell by the picture, but he is really BIG.  He was copied onto a piece of 14 x 17 inch piece of paper.  After he dries, I cut him out.  No instructions were needed, we just painted.

I love hand prints!  Maybe it is because my son is all grown-up.  Or maybe it is because I see those few hand prints of his and wish I had more.  Who knows???  Whatever the reason, I love them.  This week was the perfect time to squeeze in a hand print peacock.

Everyone had a fun time picking out their favorite colored sequins!  I just love him!  We spent the entire day talking about how the daddy bird is the one with all the beautiful colors and the momma birds are plain. 

Our big spring concert was Thursday and we had to squeeze in one more rehearsal.  But that didn't stop us from doing a fun and interesting alphabet craft.  I cut out some large "Y"s from scrap poster board and handed everyone some yarn.  Away they went . . . .

Yarn wrapped "Y"s!

 

Our Fabulous Fun Friday had to be special.  It had been a rather unusual week and I knew we all needed something "extra" (and I include "ME" in that statement!).   First we made a beautiful spring wall hanging.  We traced and cut out the children's hands and part of their arms.  We used half of an old plastic Easter egg for the bird and the children added some feathers and flowers.

The results were very sweet and definitely cute!

Okay, that was fun but it was NOT special enough.  Here is when things got totally FUN!  After our circle time I ask each child to go and get a chair.  They could put the chair ANYWHERE they wanted to in our classroom.  Next, I cut long pieces of different colored yarn and sat back to watch.  Here is what happened . . . .

 

 

 

The children had an amazing time wrapping and tying the yarn around everything in our classroom.  We even had yarn tied around our door knob.  Nothing was off limit and everyone had a great time!

After lunch we headed down to the kitchen to "eat dirt and worms"!  Yes, I had been hinting all week long that we were going to "eat dirt".  Luckily my class is use to me so they usually giggled and told me (more than once) that they "trusted me".  Of course we ate . . . . dirt pudding!

Complete with a couple of gummy worms.  I cheated a little and mixed up the pudding earlier in the day but the children really loved crushing up the chocolate cookies and adding their worms.

All in all it was a fun and exciting week.  Thanks for stopping by.  Next week we will be discussing the letter "Z" and "Zoo" Animals.  I hope you come back and see what we did!