Dr. Seuss Literacy Night

Fun Literacy Night Event

For a fun family event we have a Dr. Seuss Party in my classroom every year.

During the event we share how we promote reading readiness in our classroom, display our literacy activities, and hand out tips for building reading skills at home. But we have found the key to having a successful family event is to make it fun and interesting for the kids and families to enjoy. So we have a party too.

For this event we celebrate Dr. Seuss's birthday!

To prepare for the event we do many fun Dr. Seuss activities leading up to the celebration that we later display proudly for the families on that night. 

Here are some of our Seuss Activities:

1) The kiddos vote: Do You Like Green Eggs and Ham?

2) Thing 1 and Thing 2 hand prints

3) Graph showing how we estimated, counted, and created patterns with  “One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish” rainbow goldfish

4) Dr. Seuss characters using various art supplies

 

5) We also made shape creations after reading “The Shape of Me and Other Stuff” by Dr. Seuss 

The caption on each picture says: "A _____ is just a _____ until you add _____ then it becomes a ________."

6) We also discussed and created emotions artwork after reading Dr. Seuss’s “My Many Colored Days”. 

Caption says: "______(color) makes me feel ________."

7)After reading "If I Ran the Zoo" we created our own unique Seuss-like characters using animal print paper

For instance, one student created: "A Dinosaur, he has frog feet"

On the day of the party we set up some cute Dr. Seuss snacks for the families:

Hop on Pop Popcorn

 One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish Sandwiches

 Truffla Tree Fruits(Grapes) & 10 Apples Up on Top Apples

Another view of our sandwiches

The whole spread:

For the link to the food labels I used click here.

 The grande finale was a special reading of "The Cat in the Hat" by the famous cat himself (a wonderful Dad who was a good sport)!

  

The event was a big hit with the kids and families! Can't wait for this year's celebration!

We are Bucket Fillers!

Have You Filled A Bucket Today?

A few years ago I was introduced to the wonderful book "Have You Filled A Bucket Today?: A Guide to Daily Happiness for Kids" by Carol McCloud. I immediately fell in love with the simple way the book takes such an abstract concept of kindness and makes it concrete for even the littlest of learners to understand. The book really resonates with my students and the illustrations are wonderful. The book also allows teachers to create a great character-development program in their classroom: Bucket Filling. 

Our Bucket Fillers Display

  Check out our bulletin board in our classroom above, where each child has their own bucket that they  get to fill with a “warm fuzzy” when they are a bucket filler. 

I got some of the great mini posters for our bulletin board here.

What is bucket filling?

Bucket filling is an easy-to-understand concept: Everyone carries an invisible bucket that holds our good thoughts and feelings. When our buckets are full, we feel happy and when our buckets are empty, we feel sad. 

Children quickly understand that they can be a "bucket filler" when they do and say things that are kind, considerate, caring, and respectful. They also learn that when they are mean, inconsiderate, uncaring, or disrespectful, they are "bucket dippers" who dip into buckets and remove those good feelings. Even the youngest child understands that actions and words can either fill a bucket or dip into it. 

We encourage all are kids to be "bucket fillers" and not "bucket dippers"!

To learn more about bucket filling check out Bucket Fillers Inc.'s website here. 

How We Encourage Bucket Filling in My Classroom:

1. I bought mini-buckets from Target ($1) and had each child pick one out and then labeled it. If you want to save you can make them with paper too!
2. I hung them up in a special spot in our classroom that the kids could see each day.
3. Each time they do a kind act they get to put a "warm fuzzy" (pom-pom) in their individual bucket. Check out our warm fuzzy jar below.
4. Every week or so we empty all the individual buckets into our "classroom bucket".
5. When the classroom bucket becomes full we do something special in our classroom as a reward (e.g., pizza party, ice cream social).
6. EVERY DAY, ALL DAY we promote this concept! We  are constantly encouraging, reminding, and recognizing every child's efforts to be bucket fillers in our classroom.
7. We encourage the parents to promote this idea at home. Several parents even bought their own buckets to promote bucket filling in their family!

Our warm fuzzy jar:

To get the warm fuzzy label click here.

To get the classroom bucket label check this site out. 

How it's going in my classroom:

The children have really been doing a wonderful job doing their best to be nice to each other everyday. It takes a lot of teacher encouragement but it has now become habit and wonderful acts of  kindness are now filling the classroom. It is so wonderful to see their faces light up when one of the teachers tell them they can put a "warm fuzzy" in the jar for doing a kind deed for someone. It was so exciting when the classroom bucket became full and we had a “Bucket Fillers” celebration recently. 

Our "We Are Bucket Fillers" Celebration

 

The children got to decide what they wanted to do to celebrate and they voted on bringing in stuffed animals from home. That morning before they arrived I set up little beanie babies around the classroom to surprise them. They were thrilled to see a squirrel getting tissues, a penguin doing a puzzle, and a crab playing a science game. The kiddos got to play with their special stuffed animals in our learning centers, sit with them at circle and lunch, and nap with them!  We also made special cookies and had munchkins, popcorn, and juice as a special treat for the amazing bucket fillers! 

Pictures from our "We are Bucket Fillers" Celebration:

Reading books to their special friends

Spotting the silly stuffed animals around the classroom

Playing with play-dough with their special friends

Playing our magnet game with his buddy

Now, they are even more determined to fill their buckets to find out what our bucket fillers celebration will be next time!
 
Have you filled a bucket today?

Preschool Center Signs

Hi! Are you looking for new center signs for your preschool or pre-k classroom?

Just thought I'd share the center signs I made for my preschool classroom. Not only do they label each area and include a nice clipart image but they also include learning objectives for each area. Click on link at bottom of page.

I used the My Cute Graphics website for the images. I love their images and use them all the time for various documents I create in my classroom. They're so cute and have diversity! To check out their images click here.

Here's an example of my science area sign along with some pictures of the science area in my classroom:

  

Science Area Sign

A magnet classifying game in our science area

One shelf in our science area

Another view of our science area

Click here for my center signs!

*There is a blue line that appears on left side of page (sorry can't figure out how to get rid of it) but you can easily trim it off after you print them.*

 

 What do you use to label the areas in your classroom?

My Makeup Favs!

I'm a big makeup junkie. I love trying new products and finding makeup that packs a big punch without spending a whole lot.

I just went on a makeup shopping frenzy to stock up on items I needed/wanted and spend the rest of my Christmas giftcards. 

Here's some of my favorites that I bought:

Holy makeup!

1. MAC Complete Comfort Creme

I was looking for something to rehydrate and also get red of redness and irritation from this crazy winter weather. The guy at the Mac counter says this moisturizer is great for that. You can use it morning and night.

2. Lancome Hypnose Drama Mascara

I am by far a eye makeup junkie! I love it and can't leave the house without mascara! I have tried probally ever kind of mascara from drugstore to high end versions and have found Lancome Hypnose Drama to be the best! It adds instant volume and length!

3. Don't you love the free samples they give you at Sephora with your points?

I'm excited to try this eye cream: Ginzing by Origins. The girl told me this would instantly de-puff and reduce dark circles. Perfect!

4. MAC Select Cover-Up

I have tried so many concealers and after testing this one time at MAC I fell in love with the way it packs a big punch without having to use a lot. I put it on for my dark circles and to cover up my redness and blemishes. 

5. MAC Prep + Prime Lash

I use this lash primer to plump up my lashes before applying mascara. It really works to add extra volume! It also smoothes and conditions your lashes. 

6. & 7. I love Stila products! Here's their Stay All Day Liquid Eyeliner & Stay All Day Liquid Lipstick

I got the eyeliner in Jet Black! Like my mascara, I love eyeliner and can't live without it. I have tried so many different liquid ones and found this to be the easiest to apply in a hurry and it lasts forever! I often sleep in my eye makeup and by AM my eyeliner is still perfect.

I saw this lipstick on Pinterest for the perfect long wear red lipstick. I got it in Beso. It's a true red. I love a red lipstick for special nights out and this one is perfect. It provides moisture, with boldness, and stays in place forever. It actually feels nice to have on as well!

Here's where I saw it on Pinterest: check out the blog post here.

What's your favorite makeup?

Valentines for Kiddos

Need super easy and inexpensive Valentines for your students or your child's classroom?

I would have loved to make some super creative crafty valentine this year that I've seen on other amazing blogs, but I'm recovering from surgery and needed a low-stress idea. Plus, I miss my kiddos so much and wanted to give them something that would really excite them.

Go to your local Dollar Tree or Target's $1 section. They have so many cute valentine items to make a simple treat bag for all the kiddos. It's so easy!

The loot!

And more!

I chose to go Dollar Tree and found these goodies:

• Heart plastic treat bags
• Frog jumpers
• Rings
• Magic Wands
• Valentine themed pencils 
• Smiley face spinners/tops
• Conversation heart candies 
• Stickers 
• Coins
• Valentine themed erasers
• Insects
• Heart shaped doilies

I put them in the little plastic bags and attached the heart doily as a gift tag:

Simple but cute, right?

What are you doing for your kiddos' valentines this year?

Favorite Book Character Day!

Favorite Book Character Day!

We traditionally do not celebrate Halloween in my classroom, but I found a creative way to allow the kiddos to have fun and dress up and still provide a unique educational and family involvement opportunity. I had talked with several other teachers in the building who had tried but failed to get this idea up and running so I wanted to make a change in my classroom.

Here's a few examples of what my cuties dressed up as:

Tin Man from The Wizard of Oz

Little Boy from A Sound Like Someone Trying Not to Make a Sound

Princess from Barbie fairy tale story

Pig from If You Give a Pig a Party

Princess from her favorite Turkish Fairy Tale

Here's how I organized this great day:

For about a month before our celebration I pumped up our families and kiddos up about the upcomgin Favorite Book Character Day! 

I talked and talked about what a great opportunity it would be and how much fun the children would have!

 Here's an example of a memo I sent home to families explaining the event:

As we have circle time and share books with the children, we talk quite a bit about the many interesting characters we meet, several of whom the children have come to feel they know personally. To celebrate this knowledge and love of reading, we will host a Character Dress-Up Day on October 31, 2013. On that day, each child is asked to come to school dressed as a favorite character from a story they have read.

Here's a little more description I sent them in an email:

We encourage your child to come dressed as their favorite literacy character and share the book the character is in with the class. We hope this opportunity will extend our efforts to help the children find joy in reading and make a nice connection between school and home. No need to buy a costume as this is a opportunity to allow your child to be creative and think of a way to become their favorite character with items you have around your house.

If you need any assistance with ideas please ask us! We will have a box of props/costumes for children as well.

I also sent along this link with some great book character ideas:  check it out here.

More of my kiddos as their characters here:

Ballerina Kitty from Ballet Kitty

Ladybug Girl

Clifford

Budgie from Budgie and the Blizzard

Horse and Bear from Brown Bear Brown Bear

The Little Mermaid

Pinkalicious

We put on a Favorite Character Parade around the school and invited families to attend:

Parading around to the other classrooms

Showing off to the ladies in the principal's office

My amazing co-teachers and me: The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Pinkalicious, Silly Sally, & Fancy Nancy!

More of how we did this event in the classroom:

In the classroom, each day leading up to the big day we promoted this special event, by having many discussions about characters we like in stories and promoting conversations about their favorite stories and characters in them. 

On the day of, after the children checked each other out, they were encouraged to share their characters' stories with each other. We spent time reading the stories and discussing why they wanted to dress up as a character from the book! In circle time, we did a show-and-tell like presentation of their costumes and stories. We also allowed them to keep their costumes on throughout the day (except recess).

We had some back-up costumes ready for kiddos who may not have come in dressed up. However, everyone participated! 

To be honest, some parents seemed a little hesitant at first as they were unsure how to fit this into their busy schedules. Yet, once we gave them some simple suggestions they got really excited about it and wanted to participate and help out. Many of them brought in special treats that day and spoke about how much fun they had organizing and planning their character ideas with their child.

Me as Pinkalicious

This would be a great literacy event in any elementary aged classroom at any time through out the school year!

It was such a great time and one of my favorite teaching memories to date!