Crazy Life!!!!!

I am a do-er.  I get it done. 
True - yes, except aparently, when it comes to my blog - UGH!!!
I promised my readers pics by the weekend - and then the weekend came, and with the weekend came more kitchen remodeling (I went to Lowes 12 times in 2 days!!).  The kitchen came out great, so we painted the kitchen - and the living room.  And the hallway.  Just went back to Lowes today for more paint - the kids rooms (let them pick their own colors). (PS - we bought house Dec 2010. House was flipped, so it was all clean and painted. Newer - CHEAP cabinets, flooring etc. Bland - walls off white everywhere.  It looks like a home now :)
I brought home my camera - the dumb memory card is too small for my memory card reader.  Guess where the cables were to connect to the computer - um, school!
And so it continues. Lots of pics in the camera - none on the blog.
My ONLY goal for this weekend - blog pic uploads.
I WILL do it this weekend.
Anyone who is out there - please be patient.  I'm trying to get it all done (and boy did it get crazy busy fast!!)

Forgive Me :)

I was all into blogging - I even took pictures of my classroom and had grand plans to post them and share my classroom and some of our work with the blogging world.  Then...life changed.  Kids arrived - holy cow - we SHOPPED!!!. School clothes, school supplies, so much food!!!  Nightly homework, more trips to the store - Oh, my!  And in the middle of all this -  I bug my wonderful husband to knock down a kitchen wall this past Sunday and redo the kitchen, and yes he did it! (we are about 75% done with the mini project - will finish this weekend)
So - as my title begs - please forgive me. Pics WILL be posted no later than this weekend.
Posting and normal life will resume!!
Thanks - hope everybody had a great Valentines and plans for a wacky Dr Seuss week :)

Today I had a rhyming activity as part of m morning message.  In addition to "reading" our message, I used some valentine theme rhyming graphics and the kids had to find  the matching picture card.  I only had 1 choice for each of the 4 pictures posted. Surprisingly, they did really good!  I think one got really lucky - as she picked cat to rhyme with hat (I'm not sure this child gets rhyming - as she has pretty significant language delays, so I think she connected to the cat-hat, cartoon, book, etc).  Anyway, I am repeating the activity tomorrow - but with different rhyming words. We'll see how it goes.

On a side note, I also have changed our daily counting activity.  For the first 100 days of school (our 100th day was Feb 2nd) we had a zoo animal chart I purchased from really good stuff that grouped animals in 10, each tenth animal having its number written in red, the rest in black.  Now we are counting down the last 80 days til summer vacation.  I printed out 8 blank tens frames and posted each on a different color of card stock.  Each school day we add one smiley face sticker to a ten frame.  When the 1o frame is filled, we move on to the next one (they are taped to my wall in a top to bottom descending order) with the last box on the last tens frame being highlighted  (woohoo!!! Summer Vacation here we come.)  They are getting really good at "seeing" how many are filled in the ten frame, and how many are left. I am so proud of my little ones :)

Thrilling Thursday!!!

Well - I know this is supposed to be a blog about my journey as a prek teacher. Well, on Thursday Feb 9, 2012, my life changed dramatically - forever.  My husband has been in a huge custody battle with his ex for his 2 children. We hoped for more visitation. On Thursday - we got primary custody! So now I am a fulltime stepmom to 2 kids and a fulltime prek teacher.  Boy- things are about to change!!

On a side note - I am so excited that some amazing teachers are checking in on my little blog.  I will try not to disappoint!  Thanks SO MUCH to Erin from Creating and Teaching for my blog design and mentioning my blog so others can check it out :)

Monday Madness! :)

Is Monday ever really any other way?  No matter how much I do on the weekend to "feel" prepared, something undoubtedly pops up and throws my AM hours into a tailspin.  Today was no different.  While the event that stirred up my day was personal (needed to go to building dept to get permit to do my roof), it was one of those things that got my happy morning routine in a tizzy!  The kids don't seem to mind - but I definitely feel flustered and like I need to catch up all day.

Enough about my crazy Monday morning.  On to school stuff.  One of the new things I have started doing in class with my prek kids is a daily morning message. We read the message I wrote (before they came in that morning) and there is usually some task to complete. For example today was missing numbers.  I had a 3 number sequence and one of the numbers was missing -  the kids had to figure
 out the missing number and we talked about how to correctly write the number ( thirteen is a 1 and a 3).  I have a number line near the easel the kids could use to check their thoughts.  They did great!!!
(I have got to start taking pics - I know.  Stay tuned for visuals)
  

A thought about my week...

That really started the week before.  I attended a training with Kim Adsit (DI for the Little Guy) in Tampa on Jan 26th.  I was super fortunate to have SAC pay for my registration :)
I was so inspired!  I have been to many wonderful tranings since I have moved to Florida and began my public school teaching career - but due to financial issues with the county (and mine, too) - I have not attended any top notch trainings in about 2-3 years!!!
Anyhow - back to Kim's training.  First of all - if you get the opportunity to attend one of Kim's trainings - GO!!!!!  You will not regret it. She is funny,  smart and has a wealth of  experiences to share. 
One of the things that invariably happens at these trainings for me is I get energized to do more and start planning all the changes improvements that will take place upon my return.  First order of business - my room arrangement.  I know I'm going to have to bite the bullet and post some pics - kinda unwillingly.  I am in a portable (trailer).  A not big trailer.  I have A LOT OF STUFF (school stuff).  I have 19 kids. Therefore we are cramped!  I don't even do centers in my room (we go to another trailer that is set up in centers for the kids to work in). On the way home from Tampa I called my wonderful husband who came with me to school and he moved all my big heavy furniture for me :)
The next morning I got to school at 6:30 AM and was finished with just about every detail by the time the kids arrived at 8:45 AM.

Whew - I can get long winded! More on some classroom/curriculum changes next time!

Introductory Post!

After months of lurking on the fabulously inspiring pages of prek and k teachers, I have officially joined the world of bloggers!  I hope to post some of my class' trials and tribulations, highlight some of our successes and share my world of creating kinders!  I hope you can find something worth stopping by for :)