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!
