Thankful Thursday

We only work Monday through Thursday because the preschool used to only have Monday/Wednesday and Tuesday/Thursday programs and that is what we taught. Now there is also a Friday option but someone else covers Fridays.

So for us Thursdays are "Thankful Thursdays" because it is our last work day.  We plan for Friday and do work at home but are not in the classroom.  So each Thursday we will try to post about something we are thankful for - other than having Friday off!

Today we are thankful for kids who think outside the box even at 3-years-old. 

Very clever, Logan!!

The Door is Done!

Hanging With the Threes - Part 2

We promised you more on the door and here it is. Monkeys of course.

Monday monkeys.  Saving room for the Tuesday class.

These were fun to make.  We got the basic idea from Pinterest. But we adapted it since we needed them to be smaller for our door. 

Since it is the beginning of the year we needed to check out the kids' scissoring skills. If we had done this later in the year the kids would have cut it all, but since we weren't sure how well they can cut we only had them cut the oval for the body.  

Pieces needed.  The body is 1/4 of a sheet of construction paper.  The head is a 3.5" circle approximately.  The ears are 1" circles.  The arms and legs are about 1.25" wide.

Here he is.  Some kids were able to do the folding.  Others rolled.  Whatever works.  This was about as close to a "cookie cutter" product as we will ever get.  Since it was the first day of school for both groups we did a lot more prepping than we would usually do.  Our goal was to see what the kids were capable of, not to frustrate them.  Although some were frustrated that they didn't get to do more and more and more!!

Here's another cutie.  For the tail we asked the child to poke his finger at us.  Then we wrapped the pipe cleaner around and around to make a crazy curly tail.  Taped it to the back.

SKILLS INVOLVED: scissoring, folding, gluing, speaking and listening, body awareness, following instructions, fine motor

WOULD WE DO IT AGAIN: Definitely.  It was a good balance of child involvement and prep for this early in the year.  Later in the year they would do more of the cutting themselves.  The kids had fun, the parents loved it, we finished on time - success!!

RECYCLE FACTOR: With the exception of the body ovals and the faces all the pieces were cut from scraps from the summer Cowboy Camp which most people would have thrown away.

Can you guess what was cut from this?

Faces, arms and legs.

Monkey ears and .... coconuts for an upcoming project.

What are the coconuts for?  That is the Wednesday/Thursday project.  Check in with us later and get all the details.

Cleaning the Closet: Ribbon Rack

Since I forgot to take a picture before I left work today you will get a peek at what we did this summer.

Some of our supplies were in a closet in the girls' bathroom. Some were in a cabinet in the boys' bathroom. Games, puzzles and misc stuff was on shelves in the "middle" room. Manipulatives were in another cupboard in the hallway.  When we made our lesson plans and gathered up what we needed for the week, we had to check four different places at least once each, sometimes more if we couldn't find what we needed.

The Closet Challenge was to get it all into the "middle" room.  But we had to empty the entire room first so that giant closets could be put in. The closet idea came from the higher ups; we had to work with it.  But it was a starting point.  Our storage would be inside the closets.  

The closet idea came from these closets in another part of the building.

After purging everything we knew would not be used in any of the classes, we worked at getting all the like items together. The supplies in the girls' bathroom were supposed to be like that already but since things did not get put away properly it was frustrating. Maybe it still won't work in the new closet but we sure tried.    

Ribbon Rack

Here is the new ribbon rack.  They fit perfectly in this little niche in the new closet. All it took was thin dowel that fit in the center of the ribbon spools and closet rod ends.  No power tools required!  I was able to screw in the ends with a screwdriver.  I cut the dowel to fit with a wire cutter - shhh... don't tell my boss that's how I used her wire cutter!  My little helper fit the ribbon spools on and it was done.  So much better than the 2 shoe boxes that the ribbon was spilling out of.

Kathy had the idea to hang a pair of scissors with the ribbon so there is always something handy to cut with. Teachers can just cut off what they need or, because the dowels can come out of the brackets, they can take the entire spool if they need it. 

The closet/middle room was a major makeover, so we'll share some of our other ideas with you in the future.

Hanging With the Threes

The phrase "make it up as you go along" was made just for me I think.  I try to plan things out in advance but my best work just kind of happens.  That is what happened with the door.  

We finally decided on the title and Kathy cut the letters on the Ellison machine, which she discovered cuts foamy - even glitter foamy - better than construction paper.  She had to cut the letters twice because I had a "better" idea as the project progressed.  She was a really good sport even when I decided to not use two whole words.  She just sighed and moved on.  

Back to the door. The vine was made by tying yarn around two layers of tissue rectangles and spacing them every 8" or so.  The tissue was just scraps of 2 shades of green roughly cut about 2" x 6".  The yarn had been cut in pieces so I just tied them together and let it add character.  After taping the vine to the door we opened up the tissue leaves to give them more shape and voila - a vine for monkeys to hang from. 

The vine on the bulletin board was made the same way except that the leaves are closer together.

As with most things we do, this is a work in progress.  Come back next week to see what else we - and the kids - will do to the door.

It Has Simmered Long Enough

This blog was started ages ago as part of an in-service class assignment.  It got put on the back burner where it has been simmering.  Well, we are starting a new school year and it has simmered long enough!

Our goal is to blog every school day to showcase something we did, made, thought of, were inspired by, etc.  We are two creative minds who love working with little kids, re-purposing materials and pushing ourselves to always make "it" better.  We tell the kids, "every day is better than the day before" and we really, really try to make that happen in the classroom.

So without further ado, we welcome you to The Amazing Classroom.  

It's hard to tell here, but AMAZING is silver glitter foamy!!

Thanks for stopping by,

Miss Kathy & Miss Melissa