ALS Ice Bucket Challenge!

What fun would the start of the school year be without Mr. Seaholm being challenged to the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge? Last week a student challenged Mr. Seaholm to complete the challenge, and sure enough, Mr. Seaholm did just that. Enjoy the pictures :).

Squares, Triangles and Circles Oh My!

As a teacher, shapes can be difficult at times to teach. The majority of the class can name most of their shapes and draw the shape with little to no assistance. However, being able to name the sides and vertices is not always as easy...and that is where the fun comes in :)! 

We spent the past two weeks learning all about circles, squares, rectangles, triangles and hexagons. We focused on mastering the many different attributes of each shape and all the different places outside our classroom that we see these shapes.

We prefer our pizza cut in triangles ;).

They really enjoyed creating their hexagon dinosaurs, with a little help from "Heidi Songs".

Here is the inspiration for our dinosaur project:

Check out our cute, little square MONSTERS!

Next week we will start our numbers 1-10 unit. We will work on learning how to write the numbers, as well as learning how to subitize and decompose a number.

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, We Have Fun in our Room!

I always enjoy opening the school year with my Chicka Chicka Boom Boom unit! It gets the kids to dive into literature, while going beyond a simple "read aloud". This week we focused on recognizing the repeating pattern that is in Chicka Chicka Boom Boom and practiced reading aloud together. It was fun to see all of their faces light up when they realized they could read too!

We made our own version of Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, but we called it Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, Look Who's in our Room! Can you spot your child's name and face :)? We will add this book to our classroom library so all the kids can practice reading on their own.

We experimented with a coconut as well! We sat in a circle and held, smelled and shook the coconut prior to forming a hypothesis about whether the coconut would sink or float in water. We talked about the word "hypothesis" and what it means. The students really enjoyed listening to the swooshing sound coming from inside of the coconut!

Here is our prediction chart. We had a lot of "floaters" :).

Below is a picture of student documenting his hypothesis...attempting a writing lesson is always a real stretch the second week of school, but the class did such a great job!

Check back in for a video that documents our experiment :)!

First Week Fun

As I have learned throughout the years, the more time you spend on teaching routines and expectations, the more productive the year will be. I try to spend A LOT of time going over simple things like how to raise our hands, how to line up, how to put away our folders, how to walk up and down the stairs, etc. If the class masters these routines, less time will need to be spent on behavior management and more learning can occur. Below I have shared a link that talks about the importance of routines and some of the things we do daily in our classroom:

http://teacher.scholastic.com/classroom_management_pictures/

This week we learned about how to use the scissors, and what we should and shouldn't do with them. In order to gain a better understanding of each child's ability, I started with a basic straight line cutting sheet. Each child did a great job showing fine motor control and responsibility with the scissors!

We also worked with glue bottles and learned the saying, "Only a dot will do!" with the help of a gluing sheet that was in the shape of an apple. They placed a dot of Elmer's glue on each little circle and once it was all filled, we sprinkled glitter over the dots to create a one of a kind apple!

Lastly, we learned how to use a paintbrush and how to paint with watercolors. Each child traced over his/her name with all different crayon colors and then used watercolor paint over it. They turned out pretty neat!

Back to School, Back to School, to Prove to Mommy & Daddy that I'm the Sharpest Tool :)

The first day of school is always a fun and exciting time. Every child comes from a different preschool experience and environment, so the first day in pre-k is always an adventurous one! We started off the day with basic morning work (coloring sheet), which allowed for each child to find his/her seat and release any nerves they might have had by socializing with some new friends at his/her table. We then slowly went through circle time, introduced ourselves and worked on creating a self portrait. I love seeing their self portraits and watching how they develop throughout the year!

We are missing quite a few of our classmates on our first day, but we are looking forward to being all together next week! 

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, what is happening in our room?

We kicked off our thematic units for the year starting with Chicka Chicka Boom Boom by Bill Martin, Jr. The class really enjoyed not only reading the story, but getting the chance to interact and experiment with a real coconut as well! We performed a taste test and then each student went around the classroom surveying whether his/her peers thought it was "yummy" or "yucky". 

Everyone got the chance to touch and shake the coconut. They all enjoyed listening to the coconut water swish inside :).

A picture of a student completing the class survey.

A student touching the inside of a coconut.

Every student wrote their name on a coconut and cut it out. Following cutting it out, they stuck it under "yummy" if they liked it or "yucky" if they did not like the taste. Surprisingly, "yummy" won!

In addition to our taste test, we also created our own class book called Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, Look Who's In Our Room. Everyone filled out a page with their name and a picture of themselves. 

One of the last things we did was create a "name" coconut tree. They jumbled up the letters in their name and placed them all over their tree. You can find all of the "final products" hanging outside our classroom :).

2013: First Week of School!

Welcome to our classroom! We have a wonderful group of 16 this year that are fun, loving, caring, curious and full of energy! To kick-off our school year, we read a story by Heidi Butkus called, Wiggles First Day at School. It talks about all the things to do and not to do at school through the use of a fun, spotted dog named Wiggles. Below is a picture of the book and a photo of some students working hard to create their very own Wiggles!