Oh Snow, Where Art Thou ?
Now that all the snow has left our area we are starting a unit on ice and snow. I guess I can take solace in the fact that the kids do have more background experience on ice and snow than other classes I have had in the past. Today was a typical Monday in our home . The kids were busy working out differences and sharing and doing all the things that preschoolers do to learn how to get along with the people around them. I would say that they seemed to do it all a little louder and with more passion today. Dallas and Randy and I persevered to Keep Calm and Teach On. This all has become a little easier on ” rough days ” since we started conscious discipline. We are able to breathe and honestly believe that it is not ABOUT US. These kiddos dont wake up and say ” what can I do to make Ms Debbie have a rough day today. ” Also, we are no longer fireman ( running around the room putting out fires ) or referees . The children are encouraged work out their differences together with a little help from us. So, that means on days like today, we all learn. The kids learn how to work together as a family to share and get along and we learn as teachers that we cant control everything and everyone and that us solving a problem or interfering takes away a fabulous opportunity for the child to learn.
New toys were placed on the tables today during free play. There was a set of animals that live in the arctic to pretend with.
There was a tic tac toe game. Aiden and Fernando sat for a long time playing Tic Tac Toe. Learning to take turns is a huge accomplishment. Also they worked on a healthy sense of competition.
In the writing center we placed new write on wipe off pages for tracing practice.
Kaden enjoyed putting a puzzle together that had a number line 1-20.
There was a fine motor game with cotton balls . Here Vivian worked to transfer cotton balls with a set of tongs from the container to a tray. When you encourage the child to place one cotton ball in each section of the silver tray the fine motor experience becomes a math game as well as they practice one to one correspondence.
In small groups today we played two games. We played the penguins missing letter game. We had to place the missing letters of the alphabet in the grid so the penguin could skate .
The other game was a sorting game. We sorted summer and winter articles. ( hats, flip flops, beach ball, snow boots )
Another activity we did today was creating a snowman with the letters of our name.
We also ( as if all the above wasnt enough ) did our weekly reader today that was talking about colors in the snow. We reviewed red, blue, yellow , green and orange.
It was quite a day.
We ended the day by celebrating Alina’s 5th birthday. I knew Alina had a birthday last weekend but completely forgot our new routine of cooking pancakes with sprinkles. I asked her if she wanted cookies or cupcakes and with a grin she chose cupcakes. It wasnt until I was setting breakfast on the table that I realized I had goofed. I told Alina I had made a mistake and asked her would she rather wait to do her celebration tomorrow and have pancakes and she grinned again and said ” cupcakes. ” So, we had cupcakes to create a sugar high to send our short friends home on today.
Tomorrow is a new day. I am already excited. We are cooking tortilla snow flakes and playing with fake snow on the table. Woot Woot ! I love my job even on CRAZY days that make me want to eat a cookie or 20 . 🙂