Joy Anderson's Start a Preschool training

My new hero and inspiration: Joy Anderson

Have you heard about Joy Anderson yet? Everyone's talking about her because she just discovered something that might revolutionize the daycare industry. I have taken her Start a Preschool training online and loved watching her videos---her enthusiasm is contagious! I can tell she's a great preschool teacher just from her training videos. I looked forward to each week's video coming to my inbox. Thanks to Joy, I have a dream of my future and what I am praying about doing when I finally finish my ECE degree.

Let me tell you a little about Joy. A few years ago Joy became a single mom. And wanting to stay home with her 3 young kids, she had to find a work-from-home job that would give her a full-time income. She considered selling from multiple party plans (but that would have taken her away from her children and required hiring a sitter). Then she considered running a home daycare, but she didn't like certain aspects of running a home daycare business, like working 10-12 hours a day! (I have been there and done that in my home daycare over 12 years ago...it is exhausting even when you really love children).

So she removed all the negative aspects about the business and created something I was totally blown away by! She only works 5 hours a day and makes a full-time income! And she only takes children ages 3-5, which is my favorite age to teach. She says it's the best job for stay-at-home moms because you actually spend quality time with your children WHILE you're making money! I love the idea of taking out the fun parts of a typical daycare day: center time, circle time, activity time and playtime, and building a business on those times. No more hassles of feeding lunches, of getting kiddos to nap, or dealing with tired children who have been at daycare all day and just want to be at home. It really is the icing on the cake in my eyes.

You've got to see what she does! Check out her story by clicking on the link in the right side-bar or by copying and pasting this code into your browser bar:

http://www.1shoppingcart.com/app/?Clk=4567148

Plus, she's put together some really cool videos (and even a CD she's giving away for free) to teach you how to do it too! Get your FREE copy here today:

http://www.1shoppingcart.com/app/?Clk=4567148

What really impressed me was how Joy got her start-up money and how she used her own home, with very little pocket money or changes to the home, to start what is now a very lucrative business. She has recently opened a second location where she will also be able to provide a state-regulated kindergarten program alongside her preschool. All this from a woman who found herself single with three kids to support. Kudos and blessings to Joy! Her training covers so many things I would have never thought of. Don't try to start a home preschool without Joy's training to help you. She covers it all from set-up to working with parents to advertising to legalities.

Maybe you are looking for work you can do from home...or currently work in a daycare or run your own and need a break from the long hours...or maybe you teach in a school system and are ready for a change...Joy's training could open your eyes the way it did mine.

So if you haven't started your daycare yet because the whole process seems overwhelming,
or...
if you've started your daycare and you feel overwhelmed with the long hours you're working every day, I highly recommend you go check our her story here (copy and paste the link please):

http://www.1shoppingcart.com/app/?Clk=4567148

I wouldn't promote Joy's products if I didn't whole-heartedly stand behind her. So give it a try. You have nothing to lose.

Our visitor, "Crush"

A few evenings ago,  my husband looked out our kitchen window and said, "What is Callie (our black lab) eating?" The kids and I took off to see, hoping it wasn't a baby bunny from the field next door. Instead we found her attempting to make a meal out of a box turtle. After rescuing it, we decided to keep is for a few days as a classroom pet/science center project. Of course, "Crush" will be safely released back into the wild this week as I am not a huge fan of wild animals being caged. For now however, the children are greatly enjoying him being with us.

The legalities

Just for the record, each parent in my class signed a waiver allowing me to photograph his or her child to use in this blog and for other purposes, such as a graduation slide-slow and a class rules book (if I ever get around to making it). Some daycares may not allow posting of photos online and parents should always be asked to sign a  release slip. I have one copy in my files and my director has the other. Again, just in case you are reading and wondering if you can post your sweet kiddo's faces', better to be safe and find out first. :)

My take on Appelbaum

I had a wonderful time this past Saturday riding with my director and fellow co-workers to one of the Appelbaum Training Institute seminars held in Nashville. It was a packed house, and filled with a bunch of lively  early childhood educators.

It was my first time to attend one of these seminars, which were started by Maryln Appelbaum along with her son, Marty. I learned a lot, and came home with a packet of papers with short tips and tricks we never had time to fully cover. The presenter, Ryan, was professional and funny rolled into one. My only fear with attending one of these events in the future is now I know you may be picked from the crowd for impromptu dancing and singing. Now although I laughed so hard I cried watching the "only male staff in the room" dance-off, I had no desire to be on center stage myself. That's just not my thing; reminds me of being stuck on an Algebra problem at the board, in front of the whole class. So I'll go back of course, if given the chance, but I won't raise my hand if the presenter asks if we know the Chicken Dance. :)

Our group's own Ms. Judith, was brave enough to go on stage to strut her stuff. Go Judith, go Judith.

One really cool thing about Appelbaum Training Institute is that they offer online classes for clock hours. I have worked in daycare but it was years ago. So as a newbie, I have to have 18 training hours in before August. We have local functions I can count, but generally they only net us a few hours a month. The seminar itself gave me six more. But I have the option of going to the ATI website at http://www.atiseminars.org/ and reading books and testing over those books online. Different books earn you various clock hours, and the state of TN accepts these. Many other states do as well, so check it out.

An organized room makes a happy teacher

I have been reading lots of good books on classroom management and organization. Also I have found so many wonderful ideas on www.Pinterest.com, I don't think I'll ever be able to use them all.

Aside from my collection of Mailbox Magazine's Yearbooks (which I buy used very cheaply off Amazon as a self-splurge), I recently had the pleasure of reading Kindergarten in Photographs by Jasmine Greene. I attacked this highly-visual, full-color delight and copied idea after idea into my "teacher notebook".

The only thing I noticed in her photos is that, like many of us, Ms. Greene's room has a lot of stuff. There really is no way to not have stuff as a teacher, but she does show ways to manage the stuff, which makes me feel less claustrophobic as I read. :)  One thing that I don't do well with is clutter. It seems to distract me, even makes me feel suffocated. It's rather weird and hard to explain. So I try very hard to keep my classroom clutter to a minimum. But how can this be done when you have charts, and posters, and books, and files, and manipulatives oozing out of every nook and cranny. I'd love to see your comments on this one.

Anyway, lots and lots of great ideas (many of which were easily adapted for pre-k) in Ms. Greene's book. So check it out. I got mine at www.amazon.com, again used, because I am on a budget and hey, it's re-using instead of wasting.

This is our name tag bucket, a recycled Easter bucket from the local Goodwill. We used to have a name tag board, but I decided I'd rather not have anything else on the wall.

These are our new name tags for center time. The kids are mass destruction on name tags so I laminated these using my own personal laminator and did not cut around them. I'm hoping they are stronger this way. They have velcro on the back to attach them to center signs.

I use this kitchen timer for so many things. The kiddos are beginning to understand how long fifteen minutes is, and they are learning to recognize the numbers we use most, such as 10, 15, or 30 minutes. They like to argue over who gets to set the timer.

My parent sign-out area had to go on top of an art shelf for now as there is no other spot for it. It's kind of dark in the room at nap so I added a lamp for parents who arrive before nap time ends.

I got this idea from Ms. Greene's book. I wish I had used some light-colored girly scrapbook paper instead, and I may change it soon. Why have an ugly, boring dry-erase memo board? Use a pretty or recycled picture frame instead. Put a to-do list under the glass and use with regular wipe-off markers. :)

Our birthday board helps me remember those special days.

Random things....

March came in like a lion here in the mid-south! So we made some paper plate lions. I think they are adorable.

We like to paint with shaving cream "puffy" paint. Just pour Elmer's glue into shaving cream and mix well (I don't know exact amounts....I just put a generous amount of glue) and add paint if you wish. Mix well and paint away! The texture of the dried puff paint is so neat, kind of like styrofoam. We painted the shamrock's last week in this way.

Until next time,

Conference, Here I come!

I am very excited to be heading to Nashville this month to a conference with my fellow co-workers at the daycare. It will make for a long but hopefully, interesting and educational day for us as we take courses to help us in our childcare setting.

We had a fun week leading up to St. Patrick's Day. We read books on leprechauns, located Ireland on our globe, made an Irish flag, sorted Lucky Charms cereal (and ate it of course), and dressed as leprechauns for a photo session. I can't wait to add these photos to our graduation slide show, and hope to get them posted on here soon.

Here are some random shots of my kiddos working with Playdough on free art day. They love it. I like to get in there with them and create. Not to mention I love the smell of the stuff. It's also great for working our stress and anxiety. Playdough is very therapeutic.

I never got to post this photo of our class making Bear Snacks. We had studied bears for a week and used peanut butter mixed with honey for the faces, bananas for the ears, and raisins for a smile and eyes. We had no children with food allergies then.

I apologize for this horrid photo. The room was dark as it was nap time and the chart is so long I had to back way up to capture it. The chart you see is called the Clip Chart method of behavior management. I found it online and will have to credit the author later as I cannot think of his name name. Everyone gets a clothespin "clip" and starts the day on green which is "ready to learn". Students can move, via behaviors, all the way up to "outstanding" or down to "parent contact". I like this system as it focuses on positive behaviors instead of only focusing on the negatives. But keeping up with moving sixteen clips all day long is going to wear me out fast! And I admit, it's harder to catch positive behavior than negative. :(  But I hope this will help the class learn to gauge their actions. And I get to treat those with outstanding behaviors with extra praise and maybe even some notes home. :)

Until next time,

Lynn

Randomness

 I keep losing the photos I transfer to my laptop. And I had some cute ones today. We'll see what I can pull up here. Can't recall posting these yet; if I already have, ignore me.

When I came to work at Smarty Pants, these were right-side up on the wall of my future classroom. My director took them down and removed the backpack hooks as most of our kiddos do not carry backpacks. She sat them on the floor upside-down and now we store our nap mats where the backpack hooks used to be. The children's mats go above their personal cubbies. I took this photo during nap so the mats were being used but usually we stack the mats three high. Great idea Leeann!

Ok, so lining up neatly can be hard for preschoolers to master. They like to touch, poke, push, shove, and jump line. We use colorful duct tape squares to make spots for standing. Everyone picks a spot and then follows the path as it moves along. We do this in front of the sink and at the playground door. We also try to stand with "duck tails" (I'll try to add a photo of that one day soon). The squares don't leave much residue and easily remove when they get dirty so you can add new ones. And duct tape comes in some amazing colors and patterns now.

 

This is our marble jar. When we nap or have extra good-behavior, we add some marbles to our jar. When the marbles reach the middle line, we are getting an ice cream sundae party! When they reach the top line we'll choose a bigger event as a reward, like maybe a water day outside, a special guest speaker, a pj and popcorn day, or whatever else the kids come up with.

This is the way we brush our teeth, brush our teeth, brush our teeth...

In February we had a week-long unit on dental hygiene. My students learned how to care for their teeth. They got to brush soda-bottle bottom "molars" and we did two experiments for science.

We soaked a raw egg in Coke for the week and a second raw egg in vinegar. The raw egg in Coke became heavily stained and the entire shell melted off the second egg, which simulates the wearing away of our tooth enamel due to acids and bacteria on our teeth. Thank you, Pinterest, for all my latest ideas!

Ok, while this has nothing to do with work, I just had to sneak my own baby girl Ash in here. This is her cooking a big old pot of ham and bean soup. We like it with cornbread made in my cast iron skillet on a cold night. And just like her mom, Ash likes a country bedtime snack of corn bread in milk. Just like our late Grandpa Lonnie, too! He loved his milk and cornbread. Yum.

Now back to our show. We had a lot of bad storms here in the south and mid-south to ring March in. March brought with it massive tornado devastation and sadly, a large loss of life. Our class had been on tornado-drill lockdown in the hall and were a bit scared of the storms. So we talked a little about the old saying that if March comes in like a lion, it will go out (we hope!) like a gentle lamb. This turned into a full week of lessons on "lions and lambs". Today we had our finale and we ended it with a lion salad snack that they kids made themselves. They love to "cook". 

To make a lion, you just need one pineapple ring, a maraschino cherry, three raisins, and a handful of shredded cheddar cheese. Ta-da! It really was fun despite the looks on the kiddos' faces. :)

Next week we'll be learning about St. Patrick's Day. Following that our next two unit's will be "Spring Has Sprung!" and "What's with the Weather?". I'm sure to have lots more pictures of our adventures then so keep in touch.

-Lynn

Room Re-do and misc.

 I feel like my room has a weekly re-do button on it lately. :) But it's all good. My director is moving out some of our very large furniture to free up space in our rooms (Yay! I like the big furniture but not feeling claustrophobic). So we removed my huge three-person art table and put in a smaller table. The smaller art table fit right next to the sink, which will be perfect come assessment time.

 

Moving the art table to it's new location meant a change in the science center as well since we ousted it from it's previous home during the shuffle. The science shelf had previously been up against a wall in my room; because of the change I was able to leave it out away from the wall, and lo and behold if there wasn't a nice bookshelf behind it! Now I have been wanting this type of bookshelf for my room since day one and it was there all along. So now I have a new art center and a new book center.

Reading Center

Science Center's new home by the sunny window

                                      

I also changed my poster rack a bit (wish I had hung my posters this way first rather than punching holes in them all and putting rings through them. There were so many I couldn't flip them over the bar without one of the holes tearing. :(   ). If I had it to do over again, this is how I'd do all my posters: just clip them onto old-fashioned clip clothes hangers. And a bonus, you can also hang your classroom Big Books this way. My chart rack has almost evolved into its own center as the kiddos like to stand and look at the charts or take down a book to read. :)

I have bought a new light to add to my loft as it stays so dark (as evidenced by the right side of this classroom photo). I wanted clear Christmas lights to twine around its bars but hey, it's not Christmas anymore. And apparently Wal-mart doesn't sell Christmas lights right now because it's MARCH *smacking forehead*. So I had to settle for an under-cabinet light which I hope to install over the weekend. 

I plan to add glow-in-the-dark stars to the loft's ceiling. I also picked up some 4-foot and 6-foot vines from our Dollar Tree (love that place) and I will wrap these around our brown loft. I am hoping it will end up resulting in a sparkling, well-lit, magical treehouse effect, as our class decided to vote and call it---wait for it--- The Treehouse. From now on it will be a rotating, changing center. It has been a bear cave, a lion cage, and now it's a beauty shop. What it will be next week depends on what we have stashed in our organized and now super-clean (thanks to our director and her sister) daycare storage closet. 

I suppose that's enough rambling for now. All this coming from yet another post on changes to my room decor. Whew! My carpal tunnel is kicking in. For what it's worth, you shouldn't see any more redecorating posts on here. I think I am finally, totally settled into my room. I probably will not change it again. At least for another month. ;)

-Lynn

Waste not, want not!

 U.G.H.  As in ugh. Why must we be so wasteful? We are such a wasteful society. We waste so much and always want more.

  I don't know a lot of teachers who get paid what they're worth. Teaching is HARD! See my last post if you don't believe me. Anyhoo, I know personally that teachers, like most of society at present, are on a tight budget. We need and want the best items for our classrooms and there never seems to be enough paycheck to stretch to buy all the good stuff we see in the Really Good Stuff catalog. Yet, every year, teachers toss brand new and still useful items out the door to be sent to the trash can. Why? I saw this happen in the local school system when I worked for the summer daycare program and it appalled me. Whole sets of new phonics readers, still wrapped in plastic....magnetic letters, never torn apart...big books.....packs of crayons, never even opened....and I hear this happens at many other schools in our county (thankfully we had a pretty good relationship with the janitorial staff and asked permission to pilfer through the discards for our budget-lean daycare program). Is this really how I want my tax-payer dollars used? To buy items that are then trashed? I think not! It makes me feel very unappreciated. It makes me not want to pick up every new item on that yearly back-to-school list but instead, send gently-used items from my home that work just as well, even if they're not brand-spanking new. I don't mind helping my kids or their schools, but I sure hope the items I send are not tossed in the trash until it's their time to go.

 I know as teachers we are given items, buy items, and generally cannot use all the wonderful classroom supplies we have and must make room for newer and better stuff each year. But PLEASE pass it on! Sheesh people...we have a Goodwill store in our town with not one, but TWO drop-off points. What about that new teacher who might like your cast-offs for his or her classroom? Or perhaps send the "useless" items to a church or daycare or homeschooling family. Our rescue squad relies on gently used toys to give to low-income families at Christmas who might not otherwise have toys for their children. Recycle the items if possible. But please, please, don't toss worthwhile goods into the trash can.

 I know at the daycare I work in, we accept used toys. Old Happy Meal toys become treats in the treat bucket. Your cast-offs are like new playground or classroom treasures to a child who has never laid eyes on them before.

 It scares me and perplexes me and worries me, and yes, ticks me off to see good items being wasted. It is a big pet peeve of mine. I believe we are given blessings from above and we are to use these blessings wisely, sharing them with others if we no longer need them. And this wastefulness is certainly not limited to school supplies or educators.

 I had a relative, very dear to my heart, who is deceased now. A wonderful lady and excellent cook, but she did not believe in keeping leftovers. She'd bake a cake for dessert, and lo and behold, if it all wasn't eaten by the end of the day or maybe the next day---which was stretching it-- it'd go out the back door. Many times I watched a delicious, perfectly-fine cake being eaten by the birds and thought, in my seven year-old brain, "Well, at least the birds are getting to eat that." I never understood her reasoning for it. And she had been raised in a poor rural family, so it really never clicked with me how she could do that.

 You may not think it's a big deal to toss stuff out but think of how many people you could help. Your neighbor might be struggling to put food on the table and your excess dinner could be shared with her hungry brood. Or an elderly shut-in. Or that tired, busy parent who doesn't have much time to cook. Or just freeze it for later. My family has a leftover night every so often. Nothing goes with anything else and it's kind of a hodge-podge of foods, but I liken it to the buffet at Ryan's. And usually everyone finds something they like and gets full. All on Foster Potluck. Nothing wrong with a little potluck now and then.

 Not enough to share or make a leftover night or pot of soup with? Then at least chuck it out back and let the animals and insects feed off it.

 Never think our kids don't pick up on our attitudes. They certainly do! I am always amazed (and more than a bit disheartened) when I see a book or toy I've bought for my classroom (or an item someone has thoughtfully donated) being treated roughly, misused, and eventually, broken. I go over how to use items appropriately, but kids being kids, seem to bring about an early death to most of the items I bring in. About once a week I have to go into the same lecture about playing roughly and breaking our toys. To which I always have at least one student reply, with big eyes, "You can just get a new one."

  I'm not advocating keeping piles of useless junk that has met its end. Or hoarding. Or housing items you know you'll never use. But simply use what you can, trash only what needs to be trashed, and try to re-use, re-purpose, recycle, or re-gift the rest. It makes us good stewards of what God has given. And then we all win. :)

-Lynn