All About Me and My family

In case you didn't know, I have taken on the great challenge (and reward) of starting my own home preschool for Ike and 5 of his little friends (and Z of course)! We started at the beginning of Sept and are going T/Th mornings from 9-11:30. Ike is so proud and happy to be going to preschool and (I think) to have his mommy doing it:) I will address the comment that seriously so blessed put this week... I'm not turning "all polygafrump"- a funny post if you haven't seen it- although, I am a little more pressed for time. It doesn't seem that 5 hours a week could add up to that much extra work, but if you know me at all, you know I'm a perfectionist by nature, and an overachiever, type A as well... put it together and you have late nights sitting on the carpet laminating, cutting, and preparing in every way possible! The result is what I'll put here... fun preschool days and sleepless preparing nights:) And, I love every minute of it!
     So, week one and two were All About Me and My Family (the kids' not me- though that would be funny to do a week theme on ME- I can see it now:) I digress... some of my favorite things from this week were:


Journals- we have started Journals we will write an entry in every school day. I just use composition notebooks but I am LOVING the thought provoking entries and answers already! For example:
"Today I read a book about a pet boa constrictor. If I could have any pet, it would be... a small dog that doesn't jump!"- Ike


We did measurements: height/weight and a writing sample of their names as well.

We also played lots and lots of getting to know you games these two weeks b/c the kids for the most part, did not know each other... Some of our favorites: Who's missing? The kids closed their eyes (no peeking- yeah right) and I tapped one person on the head. That person got to go into the other room. When the kids opened their eyes, they had to figure out who was missing- Very good at helping them be aware of each other!
Pass the Ball- we passed a beach ball back and forth, but before you could pass it, you had to say the person's name who you were passing it to- the kids LOVED it, but it was challenging at first:)
Commonalities- "stand up if you have blonde hair" "hand on head if red shoes" etc... pretty fun to find commonalities among the kiddos.

Guess Who? Parents answered a short questionnaire about their child's likes/dislikes, families, etc. And then I described that person while holding their baby picture for the whole class to guess who was who. Again, a big hit!

Class Memory- I made memory cards with the kids' pictures I had taken and we played memory with pictures of the kids in our class- We are still playing this one 2 weeks later! The kids love it!



We are also "cooking" everyday. This is one of my favorite things and a way to incorporate science each day, as well as give the kids a Healthier snack than oreos or you know...

Anyway, this week, we made trail mix out of a variety of things... cheerios, popcorn, raisins, etc. Oh, and the secret ingredient: yogurt colored craisins.

Also, we made mini bagel faces with strawberry cream cheese, licorice mouths, and raisin eyes- pretty cute and a big hit.

For the first day/week of school, I had the kiddos bring their favorite book from home. This was a great way to learn a little about them and to find out what they might be interested in. It also gave them a little familiarity at school. We took turns reading these at storytime the first week.

I could go on, but this is a pretty good idea of the first two weeks:)

Reflection Paintings- I covered cereal box cardboard squares with aluminum foil (so they could see their reflections) and let them paint them with a cornsyrup/food coloring paint I made. There were 4 colors and they made AWESOME paintings. Again, this is hanging on our fridge.



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Paper Boys and Girls with custom shirts and pants/skirts made with different scrapbooking paper and textured paper... complete with little mary janes, belts, hair yarn, etc. super cute- I added a magnet to the back of Ikes- I think he has the fashion sense of my dad in high school... plaid pants, striped shirt:)

 





Class Quilt- Took a picture of each child and had them glue that pic to a 6x6 piece of cardstock. They then decorated their "quilt block" and I fastened them all together. This hangs in our classroom everyday... A visual that they indeed belong here, together:)







All in all, it was a really fun week!

Signs...

I have a friend who collects pics of ridiculous signs and I think it's a pretty good idea. Some people... you know what I mean?? Anyway, I'll post more as I find them. I'm constantly making Ben take pictures of them for me. In fact, I actually took a few pics in high school... Signs like "No Stopping or Standing" right in front of a crosswalk. This one is pretty special (inside the train, so we couldn't not touch it...)

This reminds me of a story about bizarre collections... Last summer my parents were visiting Jackson, WY and while my dad was at a urinal, a man came up next to him and took a picture. To which my dad replied something like, "Hey buddy, what do you think you're doing?" To which the old, presumably bored man replied, "Oh, everywhere I go I take pictures of urinals. I collect pictures of urinals from all over the world." 

What?!?! Who would've thought... I can't wait to see which of his kids inherits that gem!

Another collection... at my friend's garage sale, a man came up to us and asked, "You don't have any 35 mm cameras do you? I collect them." 

Oh! What an amazing collection you must have since all of us have at least 3 which have died over the course of our lives! Thats like collecting old remote controls:)

As you can see, I don't have much use for *most* collections, but I do respect the right of every individual (outside of my own household) to collect whatever they see fit... Just please don't will it to me:)