Jellyfish and Jingle Bells

After the long weekend, my kids were super chatty and wanted to tell me all about their breaks.  I had one adorable little one who patted my leg and said, “Miss Rabedeaux, it feels like I have one of those robot birds in my ear.”  Thinking I misunderstood, I said, “In your ear?”  And he said, “Yeah, it feels like they are in there.”  I asked how and he said, “My dad probably put them there.”  Then he giggled uncontrollably for at least thirty seconds. 

Not long after that little episode, I hear the words, “She was killin me in that mini-skirt…” I wandered over to the table I heard it coming from and realized that a boy was singing a country song, word perfect, while he was coloring.  Not something I hear everyday—it made me wonder if any of my teachers ever heard me singing backstreet boys under my breath! 

We’re working on letter J this week—check out these adorable jellyfish my co-worker made with them during center time!!  One little boy won’t stop asking when he can take his home—I keep telling him I’m keeping it up the rest of the year.  He desperately wants it at home…to which I’m saying, “Too bad, it looks too cute in my classroom!” 

We also did the story Jack and the Beanstalk.  Someone asked me why the giant is wearing a tutu.  I have no idea.

I received this picture of myself today.  Look at those amazing letters!

We are in Christmas-mode in our classroom now.  They made these adorable manger scenes during center time.  If you don’t have a lot of time to cut, these are NOT the craft for you, but they sure are cute!

This is our little Christmas corner—we are having trouble not touching the ornaments…so we colored our own!  Here is a glimpse of our classroom :)

Okay, I know that is a super long post—coming soon: castle dramatic play and hibernation station!

Sish and Portapotties

I’ve written about this little one several times, but have I mentioned that he has a slight lisp?  As in, all of his “F” sounds come out as “S”.  Fish becomes Sish, Friend becomes Send—you get the picture.  I also haven’t told you that he often has troubles with another boy in our class.  He is a little rougher than other preschoolers, and he has trouble keeping his hands to himself.  And “Owen” CONTINUOUSLY calls this boy “Jonah”—and his name is NOT Jonah, nor is it even close!  It makes me laugh every time, but today he said, “Teacher, teacher, Jonah is going to sast (fast)!!!” while we were walking to the library.   Too funny.

Today I showed my students what we were going to be working on.  First I showed them the sheet and said, “What do you think this could be?”  Since they can’t read, the I is for Insect was no clue.  One boy shouted out, “A port-a-potty!”  And I guess…in a way…it sort of resembles one! 

I was reading a book about apples in my class—the book was going through the process of making an apple pie.  I stopped on the word “prepare” and asked if anyone knew what that word meant.  I was met with blank stares.  I explained that prepare means “get ready”—a sweet little one remarked, “Oh, like Jesus is preparing a place for us in heaven?”  My heart just about melted on the spot…I love their faith!

I passed a sign in the hallway that said, “Attitudes are contagious.  Is yours worth catching?”  What a great reminder to all of us!  I know there are days that I need a attitude check (particularly if a child has an accident in my room…I’m typically not a happy camper after that!).  I am so thankful for the place that I work and the people in our school.  They are tremendous!

Hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving, I am excited to celebrate at school and at home.  I’ll try to remember to take some pictures of our “feast” on Wednesday—sugar cookies, frosting, skittles, popcorn, and apple cider.  What more could a kid ask for J

(P.S.--This is NOT what they will look like...but it is the general idea!)

Dolphins and Puppies

I would like to share some great quotes from my little “Tinkerbell.”  When we were retelling the story of Jonah and the Whale (Big Fish, whatever), I was having them help me tell the story.  So after they threw him overboard, I said, “What happened after that?!”  Tink shrieks, “HE GOT EATED BY A DOLPHIN!” 

A side note about this picture--someone asked me why Jonah had no sandals...probably because Miss Rabedeaux couldn't find a Jonah praying so she used a "Shalom" drawing instead.  Oops!

Second moment—I was asking my class what different farm animals eat.  When I got to a cow, I got some typical responses, like grass and hay, but then Tink shouts (it seems she is always yelling) “Puppies!!!”  Cow-eating puppies anyone?

Monday was full of meetings—which I will willingly admit are not my favorite—but at least one great thing came out of them!  We were encouraged to make anchor charts for our “I can” statements for our letter of the week.  Check it out:

This week in science we learned about color mixing.  First we made some predictions with our primary colors, then we tested our hypothesis by using eye-droppers and colored water.  I read the book, Mouse Colors to keep reinforcing what we learned, and then they used q-tips and paint to mix their own colors.  It was fun to see the results!

This is a an example of someone who did it the right way... there were some that had a bit of trouble following directions...they looked a little more...brown?

Hurray for October 31st!

We don’t celebrate Halloween here, for which I am very THANKFUL.  So thankful, in fact, that we made thankful turkeys on October 31^st!  I honestly don’t have a huge issue with trick-or-treating, and most of my kids actually went (and some of them brought me some candy today).  Breakfast anyone?

But we did make thankful turkeys, and they are seriously cute:

When asked what he was thankful for, one little boy said, “WAL-MART.”  Seriously?  We live in the land where Targets are more plentiful than McDonald’s, and he says Wal-Mart.  I got some great responses, including chicken, fuzzy blankets, and frogs.  Overall, I think most of them got the message and said some real things they were thankful for.  Moms, dads, sisters, brothers, beds, and American Girl dolls were all very real answers.

We worked on letter G this week, and my fellow pre-k teacher made gumball machines with dot painters.  She worked on counting a certain amount of each color (though this example is probably not indicative of how many they were supposed to do…). Pretty sweet though. 

The start of November also means a new dramatic play area… we are now officially a pizza shop!

As you can probably tell, we are a mixture of a Papa Murphy’s and a Pizza Hut, but as we all know, Papa Murphy’s is far superior. Pizza Hut just has an easier logo to enlarge J

Enjoy your start to November—I know I will be.  There are sure to be some kids in a sugar coma!