friends and manners

This week we are talking about being good friends, sharing, taking turnings, asking for toys and manners.
Our book of the week is, "How do dinosaurs play with their friends?"

We also started our shape and color of the week. Yesterday we used red paint and marbles to decorate our squares.

Today we made friendship bracelets. We passed the bowls of fruit loops around, taking turns, and saying thank you after the bowl was passed. Our manners are looking good!

Fine motor skills and working together...

We also worked with a buddy at art time. Each pair had two pieces of paper on the easel and they had to decorate both pieces of art. They had lots of practice asking for the color marker they wanted, sharing the papers, their space ect. They did an awesome job on their buddy artwork.

Lil M and A as a pair

L and A discussing what to draw

K and E, "you take the high road, I'll take the low road".

And C and A working hard!

We finished up our morning by flickin' a fly (our movement game) and learning about boundaries for our PE games. Lots more in store for friendship and manners week!

Friday's Favorite Pictures...all about Mia

My favorite pictures all feature Mia this week. This girl has enough spunk in her little pinky finger now then most people do in their lifetime.

This smile is what gets her out of trouble most days. This was taken the first day of school... which after this picture was taken, her smile did not return until Gaby and Kadyn got home from school. It was a sad day for her!

Most of her day is spent being Queen Bee... she makes me laugh, cry, pull my hair out, and smile at least 100 times a day. Mia is saucy!

She loves the water... we found that out this summer. She'll stay in floats for a short time then want to be in the water "by myself".

These are just a few of the many sides of Mia.

all about me... we are growing!

Today we made a growth chart... to see how tall everyone is!

Some are taller then others...

but that's okay!

Because I like myself...

We even had a special snack today...

And we even weighed our self... (Ms. Laura did not participate in this activity) to see how big we are getting!

We ended our morning by "Shakin' our sillies out" and making silly faces in the mirror.

We had a fun day learning more about me!

pictures to go with the last post...

random thoughts... daycare time

***pictures are not loading at this time*** will be added again shortly-sorry!

We have started preschool lessons this week and last and let me just say, "I love my job". I have been so excited about my younger group of kids this year. We have some awesome new themes, activities, and components and I am just happy.

We hare always working on our house, daycare projects, and trying to make our space better. Our first "huge" house project is about to take place. We are getting a new deck. I love our deck, I use it all the time as our "outside classroom" and much more. This past summer, we knew we would have to get it replaced. The time has come sooner then later. It needs to become more stable and safe for daycare and our family. We are able to add to the size and "beef it up" as our contractor told us! Here is our before picture... I LOVE our deck space!

I can not stop talking about everything that is going on at preschool. I ordered some new music to expand our music library and improve our music and movement time. My awesome hubby is getting all my music in one folder and on my Itouch! He rocks... literally!

I also am getting an equipment order too. We have some cones, no kink hula hoops, streamer bracelets and more to come. Again... I can not wait. Like I said, I am taking donations... ;)

Training I went to over the summer has really lit a fire under me to step my program up to the next level. I am have loved taking the materials and lessons and putting them into practice here, and the kids LOVE it as well. It is a win win situation!

Most of our "learning time" takes place in one area of my house. This August, this area got a mini make over...
I added display boards. Each week, our art is hung up on our boards and my peanuts really do have a gallery now. I added some classy little decorations and we moved our crayon discipline system to the kids level.

I am such a list maker... I make lists for my list. However, if I don't write our circle time plan for that day, we'll get busy and distracted. Instead of using post it's or paper, I started using my back door and a wipe off marker. This way I can make my list, wipe it off, and change it day to day. Not sure why I haven't thought of this earlier. This is really working for me! Love it!

This is the view of the other side of our preschool room. Again, we added the letter boxes and more decorations. Each of my families had a homework assignment to make a 8x8 scrapbook page of their child and family. We have them displayed now and the kids love looking at their special page and our new "friend" wall.

I went from reading 5-8 different books each day/ week to 3. With my group being younger, I think repeating the stories will help them understand them better. Our books of the week are now on display right by our picture helper chart.

I am entering year two of my grant program. I am excited. I know more what to expect and how to make this program work for our daycare. I am not as scared, I look forward to the feedback and rating. I know it will help me in the long run. This program takes a lot of time and energy but is really worth it. October is my rating month!

Like I said, I am so excited about this year. So many new fun things to teach, to learn, and to pass on to my group of peanuts. Keep checking back to see what we are doing each week!

Our favorite color...

As we continue our "All about me" week, today we talked about what we like, what makes, us special, and what makes me "me".

We colored on our favorite color of paper using the same color of crayon.

Cheesy lil' girls working on their masterpieces...

Our favorite colors...

All about me... our homes!

Today we talked about where we lived. We colored a picture of a house and tried to make it look like our houses. Well, actually, they colored the houses whatever they wanted to, and that was ok by me! They still turned out very cute.

My happy lil' campers...

Today's movement activities included "The Twist". We did the song several times so we could learn some words and some cool twisting moves.

Today we played in the kitchen, the kids were quick to tell me their kitchen didn't look like mine. They had a great time coming up with some interesting drinks and meals.

Our finished house craft projects. The kids love seeing their pictures on the houses. Some of the kids just stop and point out their house to others.

We are on week 2 of preschool routine and lessons. I am gitty about how well last week and this week have been going. I have a good group of kids and they embrace the routine and structure so very well. I have some awesome plans up my sleeves for this fall. Can't wait!!!
Check back in see more on "All about me" week!

All about me...

is our theme this week... today we started out by making hand prints.

We all used different colors....

and we all had different hand sizes...

we even had a friend visit us today, and he painted too!

This was our hand print art work because....

is is "All about me" week...

We even used our new circle time name mats, everyone feels super special when we uses these. Everyone LOVES to see their name.

We even had some movement time (This is an brand new component of our lessons this year. My friend Dawn and I completed over 12 hours of training to help keep preschoolers on their feet and active. We'll be doing movement songs/games 3x a day). Today we danced to " The Freeze".

We also read a book called, "I like myself". It made us all laugh!

All of our hand prints hanging up for the week... It's all about us!

back to basics...

One of our goals this week is to get back into the routine of our preschool day!
Today we had "center" time today- we played with blocks, magnet letters, and puzzles.

We broke in our new circle time mats by doing calendar and counting today.

We also talked about our crayon charts and pulling a crayon if we were not following directions. The goal is to keep all 3 crayons and at the end of the day they get 3 m&m's.

Here is our circle time area. The kids had a blast counting (since a lot of the days of the week doesn't make since to them yet) and singing our welcome song.

I think everyone is having a fun time getting back into preschool activities... I know I am!