Peek at my Week

Well hello there!
How is everyone doing this evening?
I am so sorry I didn't get this up prior to today, but its been a busy weekend. Between my son not feeling the best in the world, and his baseball season now up and running, its been hectic in my house.
But on to the topic....I haven't posted a Peek at my Week in a while, mainly because I just haven't had the time to create a normal lesson plan and this, so I've just been taking care of the one I see every day. We've all had those weeks lol And now I'm a day late for this week :( But I'm here!!

So, a lot of this stuff came from random teachers that I saw with farm themed pages/ideas. I posted the pages I founded things from. There are a couple of pics that just didn't have a "go-to link". If anyone of these pages are yours or a friend's, please let me know and I will give credit where credit is due!
Mrs Wills did not post a peek at my week yesterday, but you should still hope over and check her blog out!
Hope everyone had a wonderful Monday!

Daily Schedule

Hi there Everybody!

I've been getting a lot of questions from prospective parents asking what I teach, so I wanted to not only be able to talk about it with you, but to also direct you here so you can have a visual of our day as well.

I am an in-home pre-kindergarten teacher aiming to help kids get ready for kindergarten. I know a lot of parents are so busy that you just don't have the time to work with your child on academic items no matter how much you would like to and try to. That's where I hope to help you.

When I first opened Little Eagles, I could not get enough of other preschool or pre-kindergarten teachers' blogs. They helped me plan my day, think of activities, arrange my classroom and just gave excellent advice all around. I have gotten so many great ideas from so many great teachers!

So here's what our day looks like, on most days.

I currently only have 4 kids, so our groups are very small and divided evenly. The kids can arrive anytime between 6am and 8am. When each child comes in, he/she puts their things in their cubby and completes the arrival activity I pick out for that day, answer the question of the day/week and then can go play at any center of their choosing.

During Circle Time, we discuss what we will be learning that day, sing songs and read books and poems about the topic. We go over the calendar, weather, shapes, alphabet, numbers and colors. 

Table Time is our fine motor skills time. This can be games, sorting, anything that helps the children with fine motor skills.

Craftivity is our art time. Each day's art goes along with the week's theme. Children will take all of their arts home, but sometimes I like to display them for a little while so the kids get a reminder of the jobs well done. But you will get them all.

Music and Movement is a wild dance off! I turn some music on and we just dance, or jump, or run, anything to get us moving for a little bit to get all our wiggle worms out.

Read around the Room is where we get most of our letter recognition, number recognition, etc. Its a fun little game that has children not only learning, but up, moving around the room.

Centers/Small Group, all, are times where I am focusing on just 2 kids at a time while the other two are enduring educational free play. The kids in any center get to pick which center they want to play in and how long they want to play there. Each small group is no longer than 20 minutes, but doesn't always last that amount of time. If we finish before the 20 minutes are up, the kids in small group can go play at any center for the remainder of the time. I rotate the groups so that no child is at the table back to back. If a child finished the day before in small group, they will start the next day in centers.

For Writing Workshop, I print out traceables. Letters, numbers, names, anything that will get the kids writing. They can write with crayons, colored pencils, markers, regular pencils, anything they would like to write with that will get them used to holding and using pencils in the future.

During Whole Group, we engage in activities that we all do together as a whole group. These activities can be fine motor or gross motor skills, games, coloring, anything where we can spend time as a whole group.

More Centers and Small Group time. The kids would rotate. Whoever was with me for small group last time, now has center time, and the kids at center time last time are now working with me.

Outside/Gross Motor.....if its a pretty day, we head to the playground. (I live in an apartment complex that actually has one! Yay!) If its raining or has rained, we stay inside and play active games like "Red Rover, Red Rover", "Duck, Duck, Goose" etc.

During quiet time, the kids do not have to sleep although they usually all do. But sometimes I'll have one or two kids that don't. If I have non sleepers, we can quietly look through books, color, or quietly play at any of the centers.

More centers time. I'm thinking about adding a second whole group time between these last two small group times. That way the kids get to play more with the other kids as well and not just the other 1 in their group.

The kids usually start slowly leaving around 3:30 in the afternoon. Because I don't want any of the kids getting left behind in any activity, its free play after the first child leaves. They can play together or individually, they can play at centers, they can color, or they can play with some of the games we have out for the week.

And that's how our day goes almost everyday! There are times when I have a kid or two who just don't want to participate in anything at all. When this happens, I ask that child off and on all day if they would like to come play with us. If they still don't want to, I'll leave them alone and let them play by themselves for a little bit longer. This usually doesn't happen very often, but we all get these days sometimes. Even us parents! 

I hope I have answered all of your questions, but if I haven't, please let me know so I can help you better understand what Little Eagles Pre-K is all about! Each week I link up with other teachers and we post and talk about our lesson plans for that week. If you would like to see some of the actual work we will be doing, then please, have a look at a "Peek at my Week" post. It should help you better understand the things we learn and give you a visual of each day's plans. Again, please let me know if you still have questions!

March Currently

Okay, so I'm gonna try something new this month. I used to do it when I was blogging as an education student, but stopped for a lllllloooooonnnnnngggggg time lol. But I'm gonna give it a go again! Another teacher hosts a kind of blog party on the first of every month. We teachers, all get together and jump to other blogs. The Currently posts are about what we are currently doing at the time we are writing these posts. It's a big hit in the teacher world! So here goes!!

 

Okay, so....I am currently listening to nothing but a couple of space heaters! I'm such a cold girl, I need more than just the central heating lol!

I am currently in love with the fact that I have gotten back into the teaching world! I am so so happy when I teach!! 

I'm currently thinking I could fall asleep at any point now!  I get sleepy around 8pm each night! 

I currently want more kiddos in my classroom! I've got the room for a couple more, and it would be nice to have a full class again! It's been a great break, but I'm good to go now!! 

I currently only need two kids to have that full room! Any parents out there interested in a pre k class for your child?

Polling site.....I didn't vote today, so I don't know too much about this. But I agree, a school is not the place to have strangers eligible to walk around all day. I think something should be done about it! 

Alright everybody....head back over to Oh Boy Its Farley and check out her's and everyone else's Currently posts!! 

2/8 Peek At My Week

Hey Parents!
I'm so sorry it has taken me so long to get this post up. As you know, things have been a little crazy so far this week. But on with the agenda. This week's unit was created by Dawn at Little Monkey Printables at mamasmonkeys.blogspot.com. If anyone is looking over the layout and you see a worksheet or games or anything that you created and I didn't list you, I apologize. Please let me know and I will add your name and website.

So, on arrivals we will be working different things this week. We will be tracing over our names, playing matching games, finding the odd things, and dance around our centers.
For our math small groups, the kiddos will be using flash cards to count objects and match them with the correct number. I will be working with some of them on their cutting skills and others will work on their counting and number identification skills.
Our crafts this week are Valentine themed. I plan to send the ones I am not using as class decorations home Friday. Class decorations will go home around the end of the month.

During our second small group, I will be working with the kiddos on fine motor skills. Different games to help with that. Writing workshop this week will be fairly easy. Our whole group activities are different valentine themed games. For our last small group, we will be identifying sizes, sorting sizes, shapes and colors.
We will have lots of outdoor and free play time.
I'm sorry this week's Peek At My Week doesn't say a whole lot about our activities, but I'm a little late getting it posted, and the week is almost half over. I'm not gonna link to Mrs Wills blog so late in the week, but I encourage you to still go look at what she had planned. www.Mrswillskindergarten.com
Thank you for being so patient with me while waiting for this post.

Peek at My Week

Hi Everybody!
This week our theme is arctic animals. I'll mainly be using a theme pack I found from the www.notebookingnook.com, but there will definitely be more things from more people. www.MrsWillsKindergarten.com had a few things I liked, but she teachers a little bit older kiddos that me. If I have used anything that you created and you aren't mentioned, I give my sincerest apologies. It would have happened because I didn't see a link or name or website. Please let me know if anything is yours and I'll add you! 
But on with the week...

So, I know you can't see everything very well, but we actually have some fun things planned. My kiddos all arrive at different times, so until everyone gets here in the mornings, the kiddos will have a couple of different things to choose from to do until we're all here. Coloring sheets, games, or fun worksheets.
We all love Circle Time! We dance, we sing, we talk about our theme. We discuss today's weather. We're learning about the days of the week and the months of the year. We'll read a couple of books about all the animals that live in the cold. We try to make pictures of those animals using our shapes.
Our first small group of the day is our literacy time. On Mondays I usually review the alphabet and assess the kiddos. I only have two kiddos in each group. My other four will rotate through our centers. Sometimes we play thematic games at our table that we have already played in small groups this weeks.
During craft time, we will be making penguins, walruses, polar bears and igloos.

In our Math Small groups, we play new games each day. We identify our numbers, we add things together. We trace our numbers. The kiddos really enjoy math!
In our writing workshop, we  do some fun prewriting worksheets. We trace our names. We work on worksheets that go with the week's theme packet.
As a whole group, we'll be learning fun facts about all the arctic animals, how they build their houses, how they can swim in the super cold water without be too cold themselves. We'll play games about the animals.
In our last small group, we'll work on puzzles about the cold loving animals. We'll color about them, play matching games, all sorts of things.

My kiddos are only 4. I have yet to find a 4 year old that can sit still and learn for very long at all. I try to have our learning as active as possible, but there are some things you just have to sit and write about. So, of course they get a little uninterested and wiggly, so we get up and dance! Or move any way to get all our wiggle worms out!
Centers time is basically just an informative free play. We have to play with something that we've been learning this week, but it doesn't matter what. It gives them time to do more of the things they want to do and gives me time to do things in the classroom that a teacher needs to do. I look over things the kiddos have finished that day. I analyze it all to see who needs more help where. Things like that.

So, there you have it! Our first Peek at My Week. I plan to do this each week for you.

I have to give a shout out to Mrs Wills for allowing the rest of us teachers to link up each week! Go check her out here!

 

I hope everyone has a great week!!

First Created Unit!!

Hi Parents, Teachers, Friends!
I have some news that I am so excited about!! I have FINALLY created my first, very own "curriculum" unit! I have been using freebies from other, BETTER teachers. But I just couldn't help myself anymore. So I gave it a shot!
You think this puzzle would be bad for a class of K4 kiddos? I can't wait to use this unit in a couple of weeks!! 

 

Well, I am gonna go now, but I'm sure I'll be back with more to talk about soon!