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