International Talk Like a Pirate Day

We celebrate September 19th each year with International Talk Like a Pirate Day. We dress up, make our own treasure maps, view and listen to the story How I Became a Pirate, learn some preschool appropriate piratey phrases, learn about navigational tools like a compass, and go on a treasure hunt.

Me with some of my piratey friends. 

Treasure map provocation

Each child could create their own treasure map.

We began following the master treasure map
in search of buried treasure.

It led to the sandbox where everyone began digging...

...and treasure was unearthed.

This amazing "Jolly Roger" was gifted to us by
a former preschool family.

Preschool: Cutting with Scissors

Often when I ask preschool parents if their child has ever used scissors I get two responses. The first is that they haven’t let them and are afraid of all the things they would cut with them, including their own hair (many parents worst nightmare). The other response is that they haven’t really thought of doing it and/ or thought they were too young to use scissors.

Each year when we begin our preschool year, we don't have scissors out initially. After a few weeks we do a sit down lesson with the scissors. We talk about how to hold the scissors safely, how to carry them safely, how we only cut the paper put out for that purpose in the classroom, etc. Then we do the Mr. Smiley lesson.

Showing how to safely transport the scissors safely

We determine the child's dominant hand (if it's been determined) and draw two dots for eyes and a smile on the dominant hand thumbnail with a washable marker so that when they hold their thumb up they see a smiley face. 

Mr. Smiley is quite magical, no doubt.

We show them where to put their thumb and where their fingers go. I give each child a strip of paper that is about 2 inches tall and 8 1/2 inches wide. It has about 1 inch vertical lines on it, each about an inch apart. The goal is to see how they do with cutting on the line and stopping when the line stops.

Instead of correcting when a child turns their hand over while cutting, which happens a lot, we ask if they can see Mr. Smiley smiling at them. 

They automatically turn their hand back upright. 

This is a beginning of the year baseline so we can see progress from that point forward. After that we put out plastic scissors with the playdough and the children's Fiskars in the art area. We monitor the use to make sure they aren't cutting anything they shouldn't. Sometimes I put out old Scholastic magazines or old household magazines for them to cut on, sometimes we put out ribbons and tape in the art area for them to snip, and we've even put ribbons in our sensory table for them to cut.

We do this assessment at the beginning of the year
and near the end of the year to see the progress
a year makes.

After the introduction and the determination that the child understands the safety issues, the scissors become a permanent part of the art area.

Post-It Personalities

Last fall I had the privilege to go on a trip called Directors on the Move. We went to the Monterey area and visited several locations to find inspiration. We visited the Monterey Peninsula College Lab School and definitely found loads of ideas. You can view the album on my Facebook page at: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.197037990407742.37877.170943436350531&type=3  One of the things I immediately decided to try in my own classroom was what we've decided to call Post-It Personalities. I knew I wanted to do it at the beginning of the school year and posted it for the first time at our Back to School Night/Parent Information Meeting. The photo below shows the directions given at the lab school. Mine were handwritten as I ran out of time with all the other preparations for the evening. 

After signing-in for the evening, parents were given this assignment:  

This is the full view of the display. I always take a beginning of the year photo of each child on our first full day together. This photo gets used in the child's cubby, in a class memory game, on a namecard in the Writing Area, and in the end of the year slideshow. This time I also used it for this display. I matted the photos on either a dark brown or olive green piece of cardstock that I had measured to leave enough room for the Post-It Note. I adhered kraft paper to the door and matted the photos.

The first thing I love about this is that it caused the parents to pause... and really think about how to describe their child's personality in three words. Some parents did it pretty quickly, which was perfectly fine. Others talked together to try to find out which three words described him or her the best.

Here are close-ups of a couple of the Post-Its.

How they chose to list the words were entirely up to the parents. Some put bullets, some just wrote three words, and some wrote the child's name along with the three words. 

The other thing I love about this activity is the excitement when the children saw their photos on the door the next day and when they heard what their parents had said about them. Joy!!

What special things do you post or set-up for the beginning of the year?

Getting Ready for the New School Year; Setting Up the Physical Environment

 

Each year organizing, setting up and getting ready for a new school year is always an adventure. During the course of the year things get so busy that things don't stay super organized. My first year teaching one of the parents was teasing me and commented that my office was a disaster. I told her that my office was a disaster and I could keep it neat and orderly all the time and not do all the wonderful learning experiences I offered to her son or my office could be chaotic and we could do lots of fun stuff. She laughed and told me that she didn't care what my office looked like, not to change a thing about the program. 

Having said all that, of course I do like it to be neat and orderly when possible, so during the summer program or prior to the new school year starting in the fall, I always try to organize things. This makes it feel like a fresh start and is a great way to inventory just what we have available.

 

These are storage cabinets in the classroom.
Having all of our collage and stamping materials
sorted helps us know what we have available
and what we may need to replenish.

Love putting the construction paper in rainbow order with
skin tones on the end. We purchase the 12 x 18 packs and
I cut them in half for our daily use.

Hard to believe that when I began here there were virtually NO books.
Probably 95% of the books are mine
and have been purchased through Scholastic.
 I went through all the books and reorganized them.
There is actually almost one full shelf on the backside
 with Science/Nature Non-fiction books, as well.

These are the cubbies by the front door. I do put each child's
name and a photo in their cubby. I also post photos I or someone
else have taken with inspirational quotes around the room.

Here's the Manipulative Area for the beginning of the school year.
There are Ocean Animal finger puppets on the top of the shelf
 along with a marble maze. Puzzles, shape stackers,
Magna Tiles, Connecting Pieces, and Potato Head People. 

I transformed our train table into a base for the dollhouse and firehouse.

This is the view from the other side.

Got the Block Area ready. Hollow blocks, block area people,
beaded blocks, colored window blocks, forklift.

The Writing Area is almost ready. I have large crayons on order.
I will add another small shelf on the bottom left that will have paper with lines on it. 

Colored rice in the sensory table with magnet wands
and little color plastic discs with metal bands around the edges.

They run the wands through the rice and it pulls all the color discs to them.
Then they pull them off the wand into the bowl.
 From the bowl they get poured back and mixed into the rice. 

Dramatic Play is a Bistro/Restaurant: cash register, phone, dolls,
pizza set, sandwich set, customer clothes, and work clothes. 

The Dramatic Play provocation. I'd want to sit down and play.

An overview of the Dramatic Play area. 

Working on the Art Area. Will fill the tape dispenser with
the colored tape coming from Discount School Supply.
There are wooden sticks/stars, different sized pompoms,
felt shapes, glue, crayons, colored pencils, colored paper,
 foam letters, punches, calculator paper, scissors, and colored tape.
Will add construction paper and stiff paper for bases.
As you can see from the other interest centers,
 I don't usually put out plastic tubs.
I prefer baskets and wooden containers.
However, in the Art Area I want them to be able to see what is available.

These are a couple of the provocations that I put out to
inspire creativity based on the items available on the art shelves.

This is the beginning of the year library shelf.
I try to keep it minimal, so it won't be overwhelming
and try to include books about animals, colors, children,
numbers, a current theme (ocean) and comfort.
I try to make sure diversity is shown of cultures, ages, abilities,
and the like. We have books in the library, the reading loft,
 and in a basket in the room, as well as in a variety of areas around the classroom.

Science Area table: Books, shells, posters, starfish,
abalone shell, driftwood, Ocean Life chart.

The rest of the Science area focused on Ocean Animals:
 shells galore, ocean finger puppets, field guide,
nature observer, and block puzzles. Oh, and don't
forget the aquarium with live fish.

I have three of these magnetic books,
but in the original format only one child
at a time can play with them and I wanted it to work for two.

I color-copied some of the pages, laminated them,
and taped them on the side of the file cabinet AKA our Magnetic Board.
The face parts are stored below in the wooden box for them to peruse.

So excited about the light table. Found the glass bowls at the Dollar Tree.
 Purchased the translucent shapes from Discount School Supply.
 Found a double-sided adhesive and adhered a shape
on the side of each bowl then spread out others for sorting.

I'm trying to keep the wall items limited to natural colors and meaningful.
I ordered this kraft paper and trimmed it with green corrugated border
 behind our helper chart and calendar.

Our 3 Classroom Rules: Be kind. Be safe. Be neat.
Everything else kind of falls under those three.

Our Science Area is set up with Ocean Things
 to begin the school year so I posted some ocean pics/words.

ASL chart and Number Chart

Here's the room from several angles. From the front door.

From the group area. 
The completed Parent Board is
pictured below.

From the back wall by the sink

From the right corner in the Science Area

From one side of the room...

and the other side.

This is our Parent Information Board. I used more of the
kraft paper with a green corrugated border  to keep with
the natural colors. It includes our daily schedule, our
yearly calendar, our weekly curriculum plan, our
monthly classroom set-up, our monthly calendar,
our monthly lunch calendar, and staff bios.
You can see our digital frame that we keep going
all during class time.

A new year is always so exciting. I love seeing how much my old friends have grown over the summer and getting to know our new friends. I love having the room set up in a way to be inviting and engaging when they step in the door. Let the year begin!!