Preschool lesson plans: Using a Digital Camera

Why use a digital camera in the classroom? Well there are so many.
Let's see-

1) Documenting progress for the parents. They don't always see the value of the work we do because there's no visual evidence. But if we take and post pictures our lesson plan activities we inform them of the progress their child is making.

2)Including your parents in the daily routine.it's hard to leave you baby. We can make it easier by including parents.

3) organization. Cubbies, circle time spots, journals.... You name it.

The time it saves just with the "I wanna sit next to Tommy but not Sam and Isabel spit on me" argument is worth it!

Clean up- make your own picture Labels. It helps the kids to help put things away. (Translation- Less work for you!)
Have a great Day!


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

It's Time to Organize Your Classrooms!

This is a re-post of a previous one regarding classroom labels. Everyone is getting ready for the new year so it's relevant. Organize time-


We know that we need to have language every where in a preschool classroom. Kid's learn by osmosis at the preschool level, and seeing written language strengthens pre-reading skills. So a great way to advance pre-reading skills, and help promote self help skills is classroom labeling.

When you label items in your classroom it helps to have the word and picture. This helps the children understand the correlation between these symbols and the spoken word.

Another great reason to label in your classroom is clean up time. When a child can put things away on their own it gives them a sense of self sufficiency and pride. Besides it makes it easier on you. If they can pick up themselves then YOU don't have to do it all.


I found a great place to help this endeavor- Environments. They have resources for teachers that you can make up on their site and print out. You do have to register for a free membership but isn't worth it.

Here's a second website that has labels. I used those to organize my kids rooms!
http://orgjunkie.com/2007/11/organizing-kids-toys-with-cubby-storage-free-printable.html

Preschool Lesson Plans: Going Green

There is a lot of talk now about "going green". And if you have read my earlier post then you know I think teachers have been doing this for a long time. But why don't we really practice what whe preach. I have a few ideas about how we can "go green" in our classrooms. Here are just a few.

• Don't use paper paint cups. Use yogurt containers with lids. That way when you are finished with the paint for the day, you don't have to waste it.
• Use old wallpaper books for painting. Not only does it add to your project, it puts use to something that was going in the landfill anyway. Ask wallpaper stores for them. I have gotten the old ones for free, and I have had to pay a $1.00 for them.
• Make your own play dough. If you have read the ingredients of store bought play dough, you have seen things you can't pronounce. (And it is gross,but sometimes the kids eat this stuff.) It is easy to make and you know flour is not going to hurt the environment.
• Have a organic garden in the spring time. The kids will have a blast, and you can teach ecology at the same time.
• This last one seems obvious but it is big. Stop using paper towels or at least cut down. Buy a pack of 20 cloth hand towels, and wash them when they are dirty.

Walking softly on the earth is something we should all do.

Preshool Lesson Plans: Centers

Do you adapt your centers for your preschool lesson plans? If you don't, you should. That is really how you really enforce the concepts. We all know children learn through play, and during play is when the most learning takes place. So, if you arrange the environment and toys to reinforce the important concepts, you will be more successful.
An example-
If you are doing apples- have trees in blocks, have a bowl of apples in home living, have apples at the water center, have apple related manipulatives. Using a computer, making an apple file folder game is easy!

Here is a WONDERFUL book on classroom design. Check it out!!!

Preschool Lesson Plans: Cooking activity!!!

I saw this recipe on Rachael Ray this morning, and immediately saw it's use in preschool lesson plans! A few posts back I talked about the value of cooking activities in the classroom. And I do think cooking is important to every domain of development. But it also important that every cooking activity not involve a desert. This recipe from Rachael Ray is perfect for snack time, and it is healthy!

Have fun!

Your Classroom May Be Effecting your Preschool Lesson Plans

Is your classroom in chaos?? Are your students not behaving? Are you not getting finished with your preschool lesson plans? It may just be your classroom layout is to blame. Here are some things to think about when arranging the layout of your classroom.

• Is there too much "stuff"? If so, this may be distracting the children. When children have too many choices they become overstimulated and the classroom becomes uncontrolled.
• Is there too little "stuff"? If there isn't enough to occupy them they will become bored and misbehave. Also, have duplicates of favorites so there aren't as many fights.
  
• Are there large spaces in the room for running? If so, rethink your layout. you can even draw it out on paper to find the best layout.
• Are your "loud" centers too close to your "quiet" centers? You need to group "loud" centers (blocks, home living) together. And group quiet centers (reading, science, writing) together. This is so the loud center activity doesn't disturb the quiet ones.

If you have tips, please use the comment button!

Preschool Lesson Plans: 5 tips for Keeping the Preschool Classroom Tidy

when you have 20 preschoolers running around, it is really hard keeping things nice and organized. But there are a few tricks of the trade. Here are five of them.

1. Start with an organized classroom. I know it sounds too easy, but it is true. If it starts neat it will be a lot easier to get back there later.
2. Teach the children how to clean up. They don't come with that skill at birth. You have to teach it. And make it fun. Turn up music and have a "musical chairs" clean up race.
   
3. Pair down toys and books. If you have too much stuff, it will be overwhelming to you and the children at clean up time. Just have out what you need. Only have theme books on the shelf. That way everything doesn't get mixed up together.
   
4. Label every thing with picture labels- blocks shelves with pictures of the blocks, the storage container for cars with pictures of cars, and so on. You can cut out pictures out of catalogs, or go to this website and print them out.
   
5. Don't have large toy bins. Toys just get lost, and it is hard to clean up. Use smaller clear storage boxes with picture labels on them.

If you have any tips be sure to leave them in the comments!!! We all can learn from each other.

Cooking Up a Good Preschool Lesson Plan

Cooking and baking are so much fun and so educational! I don't know why teachers don't use cooking more in preschool lesson plans. It could be spreading icing on a cookie, making a peanut butter sandwich for lunch, or even making a salad. It adds so much.

In those simple activities what knowledge can they get from that? Well, hand-eye coordination, self help skills, and healthy eating for a start. But if you go a bit deeper, you find they would learn lots of math concepts (measuring, counting, fractions), science (one matter being changed into another by heating or cooling), or pre-literacy(reading a recipe).

So try and work a cooking activity into you lesson plans. It's worth the hassle!

Preschool Lesson Plans: Portable Circle Time Center

Here is an idea for a circle time center for home preschools, teachers with small classrooms, or who have kids who won't leave things alone. It is a portable circle time center. I came up with it as a part of a preschool co-op my friends and I started.

It is one of those presentation boards used for science fairs, and then just done like a standard bulletin board. This is also a good idea for an environmental print board, or other bulletin board in a small setting.

Enviromental Print in Preschool Lesson Plans

Well, I am big on literacy, and in turn creating strong readers. Print rich environments tend to be better at strengthening reading skills. I touched on this a bit with classroom labels. We need to put word labels on anything that will stand still. We need to have each child's name everywhere. We need to have environmental print in the classroom. Many times this is a designated bulletin board in the classroom, but it doesn't have to be. Have the children bring in labels and boxes and even pictures of print (ex. McDonald's fry package, pizza box, coupon from Chuckie Cheese). Parents can be great facilitators of this too. The more children see print, the better.

A great book on the subject would be Everyday Literacy: Environmental Print Activities For Young Children Ages 3 To 8

Preschool Lesson Plans: Challenging Gifted Preschoolers

It is a teacher's job to understand what each child needs to be challenged in the preschool classroom and adjust the lesson plans accordingly. With some of our students, we get to our wits end because they are so much more advanced that the others. Some say "it's preschool, just move them up", but the problem with that is the child is likely not advanced socially enough to move up.

But how do we help everyone? Well we add to our classroom a few more challenging activities. During a quiet time, take that under-challenged child aside and work on adding or reading. I found something, that may help in that instance: Get Ready to Read-Letter Names
and Get Ready to Read-Letter Sounds.
For the most part, they look like good tools. I haven't used it yet but I think I might look into it for my daughter.

If you have used it feel free to let me know what you thought!

Happy Teaching!

Preschool Lesson Plans for February

February can be an easy month to create your preschool lesson plans... Unless you have families in your classroom that don't celebrate Valentine's Day. If that is the case then you have to be more creative.

Some easy preschool themes for February could be Friendship, Post Office, and at the end of February, a Dr Seuss theme(March 2 is his birthday).

Some ideas for Friendship could be Friend painting(having them at the easel together painting together), have them make a gift for a friend, and you could even have a "Friendship" party in lieu of a Valentine's party. You could exchange "Friendship" cards they make in the writing center, or pre-bought ones. You could make "Friendship cookies" as a cooking activity for the party (use a gingerbread cookie cutter and make 2 cookies hold hands). In doing these activities, you are teaching the value of friendship, cooperation and patience.

With the post office idea you can plan a trip to the post office to see how the mail gets where it needs to go,(be sure to mail something back to the kids). Something else would be to set up a post office center in your classroom with a mail slot for each child(this is easily done with shoe boxes). And when the kids go to writing they can "write" notes to each other. Be sure your writing center is set up with stickers that resemble stamps and mailing labels, envelopes, and ink stamps too. This works well with the friendship theme preceding the post office theme.

And finally with the Dr. Seuss theme. Just have a Green Eggs and Ham day with a cooking activity, have a Red Fish Blue Fish day with a fish matching activity, and so on with your favorite Dr. Seuss books. Have a birthday party for Dr. Seuss, make Cat in the Hat hats, and of course read the books!
I find that if they know more about the authors, they become more interested in literature.

Preschool Classroom Labels to Help Keep the Classroom Tidy

We know that we need to have language every where in a preschool classroom. Kid's learn by osmosis at the preschool level, and seeing written language strengthens pre-reading skills. So a great way to advance pre-reading skills, and help promote self help skills is classroom labeling.

When you label items in your classroom it helps to have the word and picture. This helps the children understand the correlation between these symbols and the spoken word.

Another great reason to label in your classroom is clean up time. When a child can put things away on their own it gives them a sense of self sufficiency and pride. Besides it makes it easier on you. If they can pick up themselves then YOU don't have to do it all.

I found a great place to help this endeavor- Environments. They have resources for teachers that you can make up on their site and print out. You do have to register for a free membership but isn't worth it.

Easing the stress of Preschool Lesson Planning with Technology

Seven years ago, when I began teaching, there weren't many classrooms I came in contact with that had computer access for teachers let alone for the classrooms. But now, we have them every where, in the teacher workroom, in the office, and in the classroom. This world has changed, and technology can really ease the work load coming up with preschool lesson plans adds to the plate.

First of all, you can now use the computer to research and create a lesson plan, a digital camera to document your activities, and classroom computers to teach basic skills. This tools are wonderful at easing stress during your planning hour. Also, they help parents and administrators see whats going on in the classroom.

When I sit down to do a lesson plan the first thing I do is search the Internet and my private database for themes and lesson plan ideas. Before, I would have to search through my file drawers, drag out all my theme books, and spend nap time going from one to the other writing things down. Now I get on the computer, find what I need, fill it in on my planning form, print out and I am done.

When you are truly using DAP practices, there usually isn't a lot of product to show to parents and administrators (because sitting down and doing worksheets are not developmentally appropriate). But if you take pictures as you are doing the activities, and then post them in the classroom or on your class's web page, they see they are really learning important skills. This will help others respect you as a professional (which, as a preschool teacher, you may not get a lot of.
So don't shy away from technology in classroom. See how it can ease your task-filled to-do list and ease that teacher stress away!!

Let's Go to the Circus! A Great theme for January Preschool Lesson plans

This time of year it seems like every teacher I now is basing their preschool lesson plans around snow, winter and the like. I don't totally understand that, especially in the deep south where I live. It doesn't get cold enough to flurry, and forget about snow! So this kind of theme isn't really developmentally appropriate. Not to mention, after 3 or four years, it gets boring and redundant.

But every January the Circus comes to town. This is a great idea for the cold months because there is so much expansion potential. And you can do it all INSIDE. Which, even in the south, is nice in January.

Some of the things I have done for my preschool lesson plans are-
-Hang a colorful parachute (most preschools have them) in your classroom from the ceiling. Be sure to have the center a bit higher than the rest so it resembles a circus tent.
-Have a circus parade. Have all the kids dress in clown costumes and paint animal faces on them. Give them some musical instruments and you now have a parade. March around your classroom or through the halls of your center.
-Make a matching game out of clown hat shapes cut out of poster board. Color them differently so they have to match them. If you want to reuse them next year be sure to laminate them.
-I love the book,
And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street (Dr Seuss Green Back Book) To use for this topic. it isn't exactly about the circus but it works. It's a lot of fun. I have done author of the month in the past, and if your circus comes in February or march it could turn into a great study of Dr. Seuss. His birthday is March 2.

You could even add some ecology or ethics to the discussion by talking about being kind to the animals, or how some animals are endangered.

There are lots of theme resources out there for a circus theme. Just go to your local library or teaching store and you will find a lot.

http://www.buyteachercreated.com/estore/product/3063
This is a good start. I have it and use it a lot. some of the activities will have to be adjusted for preschool kids, but is a good resource.

What is the best thing about a circus theme this time of year(at least where I live)? It is relevant to most of the class because their parents will be taking them. And if its relevant to their experiences, its developmentally and individually appropriate curriculum.

Have fun at the circus!