Go! First Day of Preschool!

You never know what to expect on the first day of school.  Especially when your class is made up of 5 one year olds!  Will they cry all day?  Will they like school?  Will they like you?  And after 7 years, it's always the same at the end of the day.  They are great, the day was great, I am hopelessly in love with each and every one of them! 

I always start each day with shaving cream.  It's just something I don't think little kids can ever get enough of.  I put it in the sensory table sometimes, and cover the table with it occasionally, but every day I start the morning with a picture made in shaving cream on our big toddler friendly mirror.  I like to see their expressions as they watch themselves playing in the cream!  I placed several maniplitables around the mirror, and instantly the kids were playing in it!  Some used the toys, and some immediately put their hands in it!  Several tasted it! One child "smushed" her face into it immediately!  None of them stayed away, telling me we are going to have a very creative year!

During snack, which was animal crackers, we read the book "Brown Bear, Brown Bear", and a book about colors.  I think one of my animal crackers was a cow, or at least resembled a cow, so we talked cows, which no one seemed to know what I meant.  I even showed them our classroom toy cow, no interest.  Then I remembered that I had a Chick-fil-a gift card in my purse with a picture of a cow on it!  Wow! You should have seen how quickly they made the connection, then!  Talk about commercialization!  But even recognizing the Chick-fil-a sign is a pre-reading skill.  They were then happy to make cow sounds with me.  We moo'ed in the class for about 5 minutes.  We pretended to eat grass, since cows don't eat crackers.  We crawled around on the floor and a few got carried away and hopped, but it was still imaginative!

It was a beautiful morning to go outside and play! Beautiful in that it was cloudy with a nice breeze, although it was already in the mid 90's.  We just let them play today, have fun and get acquainted with our playground.  They played in the sand box and on the slide.  One of my girls collected sticks, which I just love!  I lifted a little boy up to pick a leaf out of a tree.  He just studied that leaf, then turned it over to see the other side. 

Back in our classroom, we made a MESS! It was great!  One little girl took a blue crayon to our reading center, and colored our books.  I think it's completely age appropriate for this age to color on books, boards, anything.  I just want to encourage them to color and "write".  She also took out our puzzle pieces, colored underneath and then replaced the pieces. 

In our blocks center, our curriculum (we use Wee Learn) called for rolling toy cars down a ramp.  I set the ramp up and started rolling the cars down, and quickly was joined by all five children.  We worked on taking turns rolling our car down, and I tried different slopes to keep up their interest.  After two went on to other centers, I let the remaining 3 play on their own.  They laid the board across 2 chairs, making a bridge for the cars to drive across.  Then they got out our farm animals and walked them across the bridge.  On Thursday, I am going to take the board and cars outside to roll into the sand and grass.  Then we can also roll the cars down the slide. 

Have I told you how much I love my art center?  We have an easel and a designated table for art.  I had laid paper on the table before class and of course they used markers, crayons and watercolor paints on it.  They seemed to favor the watercolors, which were big cakes of primary colors.  One curious boy took out a yellow cake, and took a big bite out of it, thinking it was a cookie!  He immediately began spitting out the paint all over the floor!  I always encourage them to use all their senses, taste being an important one, but that surprised me!

On Your Mark.....

After 3 days of working setting up our classroom.......we were ready for Meet the Student!  Okay, it's really Meet the Teacher, but I am always excited about meeting the little 1 year olds that I am going to spend the next 10 months falling in love with!

Here is an update on the room centers, and how they were received....

Wood Working Center - I got these great little plastic screws today which were the biggest hit!  They are a little complicated for such tiny fingers, you have to match the shapes (I had to have it pointed out to me), but wouldn't you know these little guys were putting them together like crazy!  There was a little bit of older sibling assistance going on, but the little guys loved it!  I need to get some styrofoam, little hammers and golf tees, also! 

http://www.orientaltrading.com/pc-nifty-nuts-and-bolts-set-a2-60_3014.fltr?prodCatId=90000&tabId=3

Art Center - I have never been so happy with my art center as I am this year!  I have also never had such a big art center!  We now have a dedicated table, just for art, plus our easel & lots of uncarpeted floor space for butcher paper!!! It's going to be such a colorful year!!  Our first two units are Learning About Me and I Am Growing.  Tomorrow I am going to cut out lots of baby/young child pictures for drawing on, tearing, etc. 

Nature Center & Sensory Table -  Unfortunantly, this was my least popular center of the evening!  I don't blame the kiddos, it's bland!  I had some moss in the sensory table, and intoduced a couple of magnifying glasses.  I also placed some bumpy, pastel colored, light up balls to the center.  No, not "nature", but very sensory.  Our nature center will soon enough be spilling over with items.  I want to go out and cut some of the cattails I found last week with my kids during our Outdoor Hour Nature Study,  http://handbookofnaturestudy.blogspot.com/2009/09/outdoor-hour-challenge-autumn-series.html

Reading and Pre-Writing -  It's really small this year, and we haven't done alot to it yet.  Only one little guy pulled out a book, but oh how that will change this year!  I am going to spread out the books, putting more in nature, etc.  One boy and one girl loved the tree stumps we have sitting in there!  I highlight a literary character each month, and since September our color is going to be Red, we will have Clifford the Big, Red Dog!   I also need to bring my magna-doodles! 

Small Motor Skills/Puzzles - I put out a few puzzles.  For this age, I like the 3-4 peice, knobbed horizontal puzzles that we start working left to right.  It's a pre-reading exercize.  We have some fun blocks.  I will pull out all the legos but the red ones and one lego of a different color for contrast.

Dramatic Play & Home Living Center - We have our kitchen, our table and dolls.  One of our first activities is bathing the dolls.  I have normally used the sensory table, but I think I want to do that in the Home Living Center this year.  I am also planning to start keeping our real veggies and fruit, etc. in the Home Living Center.  Another huge benefit of not having a carpet in there!  The kids were all about the pretend food, which is always a great sign of some creative kids!

Blocks & Music Center - These are combined because..... well, because they are!  We have a transportation rug this year, but it's not going to take the place of our masking tape roads!  I didn't open the center last night.  We do a lot of Hokey Pokey during our first two units, and Heads, Shoulders Knees and Toes!

Tomorrow is our last day of planning before our big day on Tuesday!

Making The First Splash!

Today is the "official" first day of preparing for our first day of preschool classes!
We had training this morning.  It was nice to see everybody that I haven't seen all summer! 

The day included our staff pictures (yuck),
reviewing our daily schedules, Texas Minimum Standards
and
lunch!
Guess my favorite!