Handwriting Without Tears

Unit: Handwriting Without Tears

Main Focus:  fine motor skills, basic understanding of fundamentals of handwriting

Have you heard of HWWT?  (Learn more about it here:  www.hwtears.com)  I love it and we use it at our center.  It really takes off in my classroom, as preschoolers begin "real writing" around that age.  I've done this unit a few times and now that we've had so many recent transitions in and out of the Tank, it's time to start from square one again.

I often wonder how my teachers taught handwriting when I was in preschool (20+ years ago).  I only went for a year and I know my teachers believed in play based learning, but I have no memories of learning to write.  My first writing memory is in kindergarten we had to write and memorize our phone numbers and I wrote the 4 backwards.  I remember writing 4's and R's backwards.

I don't get the opportunity to teach writing numbers, and I'm alright with that.  Teaching uppercase can be challenging enough.  Once the art order comes in, fingers crossed it's sometime this week as we finish up our fire safety unit, I'll feel more prepared.  We already have most of the HWWT materials like the wood pieces, Mat Man, and most of the Roll-A-Dough flash cards.  We usually don't get to the chalk board stuff.  I managed to order some play dough since the play dough we make in class is non-bake and usually ends up too dry or too oily and has to be thrown away by the end of the week.  I also ordered some plastic capital letters that I'm planning on throwing in a sensory table with various sized pieces of pipe cleaners so they can bend them into letters.  The plastic letters will also be used in a water table letter-fishing game.

More fine motor/alphabet activities:

Math:

• alphabet matching game
• letter pattern boards
• small groups to evaluate individual skills
• tweezer games

Dramatic play:

• label materials and where things go: STOVE, REFRIGERATOR, TABLE, CHAIR...

Science:

• make alphabet cookies (practice making either letters or curves and lines with dough)
• puzzles (including one of an alphabet train!)
• magnets

Questions:  Do you implement HWWT practices in your class?  What do you think of it?  If not, how do you teach handwriting?  Please share thoughts, ideas, additional activities/variations.  

Learning is the beginning of wealth.  Learning is the beginning of health.  Learning is the beginning of spirituality.  Searching and learning is where the miracle process all begins. -Jim Roth

Fire Fighters to the Rescue

What a week!  The kids LOVED this unit so much that Ms. H and I decided to continue with it through next week as well.  There's so much to talk about and explore.

Good feeling:  Several parents have come up to me and told me how excited their preschooler has been with the unit.  One parent even said her son spent their entire drive home telling her all about what we did in school, told his older brother when they got home, and then told his dad during dinner.  How awesome is that?  Hearing that solidifies that I'm doing my job well.

Who doesn't want their kids to be so engrossed with what's going on at school that they have to tell everyone!  I hope to keep that up with future curriculum.  I'm not sure what Ms. H has planned for next week, but I have a few ideas, if needed, to pull out of my hat.

The BEST day EVER:  I think the highlight of everyone's week was our after circle activity on Thursday.  I wrote in the daily note on Tuesday that we'd have a special Fire Fighter Day on Thursday, which meant that everyone was encouraged to come in wearing fire fighter gear (raincoats, boots, and a hat).  The majority of the class participated and it was fun.  Lucky for us we had enough materials to share for those who forgot/didn't have costumes.  At the start of circle we explained the activity and expectations.

Activity: The circle time rug turned into the fire station.  I drew a quick fire station building on our giant white board.  The Sharks were fire fighters sleeping in the station.  The bell (a maraca) went off to let them know there was a fire we needed to put out.  The fire fighter gear (jackets and hats because they went to sleep in our boots.  Helping put on 15 pairs of boots is very time consuming.) was on chairs with circle time name tags so they could identity their belongings.  The fire truck was made of chairs lined up in a few rows of four and a row of two.  There was one chair in the front for the "fire chief" (a teacher).  I ended up being the fire chief and Ms. H helped take pictures for documentation.  Once everyone was dressed and seated we started up the engine and sang the first stanza of Hurry! Hurry! Drive the Fire Truck! (Lyrics at the end of the post)  Once we arrived at the fire, everyone got out to find and extinguish the fires.  During our camping unit the Sharks painted toilet paper rolls for a camp fire, so Ms. H set up little campfires all around the room.  Each Shark was giving a rhythm stick to use as a hose.  After they sprayed the fire down, they were asked to pick up the fire log and put it back in our giant container.  Once all the fire was cleaned up, they returned to the fire engine and we drove back to the station to undress and retire for the day... and for us it was time to put on sun screen and head outside.  

It was SO much fun.  Everyone took this so seriously and had a ball with it!  I'm trying to think of what I would do differently next time or how I could top it.  I can't really think of anything.  I had so much fun with it as well.  The only thing I can think of would be to have it video taped for parents.  If we had invited parents it would have probably been a huge mess knowing these particular kids and recently have had put on a play where parents were invited.  Don't even get me started on the play... Maybe I'll post about that another time.

Questions for readers:  Have you ever been a part of an activity that you might have enjoyed slightly more than your children?  Any other fun fire safety related activities that are a big hit in preschool you'd like to share?

Today was good.  Today was fun.  Tomorrow is another one.  -Dr. Seuss

Flash! It's Over

Photography came and went with the rest of our summer program.  If it were up to me, I would love a do-over week.  If I had been better prepared and was able to plan successfully, I think the unit would have been amazing.  Unfortunately aspects of the job that are out of my control took force and battles were lost.

What I wish had happened:  I wanted to make a lot of activities for the Sharks to use in various centers. Such as:

• Photograph memory game
• Puppet show pieces (photographs of either animals or community helpers) using popsicle sticks and laminated pictures
• Cardboard cameras made by the kids (tracing a circle, cutting it out, gluing it on as the lens and the same thing but a rectangle for the flash and viewfinder)
• Tissue box cameras (I think I described these in a previous post)
• Holding an art show showcasing the pictures they took with disposable cameras and inviting parents to come (like an art gallery opening)

What really happened:  We were given four disposable cameras on Monday, but that was Ms. H's day off and then I got sick and wasn't able to make it in.  I had no official plans written up for the day and I have no idea what the sub ended up doing.  (I did, however, ask her to continue last week's unit on forest creatures.)  Tuesday we were supposed to go on a picnic field trip, but due to weather conditions that was cancelled.  We did get to finally introduce the photography unit and I switched out the library shelf to contain books about art and books with photograph pictures.  During circle they learned the new vocabulary (flash, lens, viewfinder, clicker) and seemed to really enjoy it.  I showed them the cameras and set ground rules.  Because there were only four cameras, but lots of friends, we wrote down names in groups on each camera so three to four friends could use each camera.  I specifically did that so for the art show we could display the photos with the groups of children to make it a little more special.  For instance:  Child A, B, and C were on Camera 1.  At the show we'd have pictures of Child A, B, and C below a showcase of photos from Camera 1 to show ownership of the photos.  The rest of the week's curriculum went down the drain after that.  I was asked to be out of the classroom because of numbers and staffing conflicts and my little Sharks ate way too many Crazy Flakes for breakfast... Every.  Single.  Day.  By Thursday all the cameras had been used up.  My day off is Friday, so I wrote up a plan for Ms. H to follow for curriculum for then.  I was hoping for the Sharks to use the cameras as toys in dramatic play or at the science center and for Ms. H to take pictures of them for documentation purposes because we hadn't gotten around to it previously.  I also asked on Thursday to get the pictures developed for the art show, but was told it wasn't happening.  Today I got a text from Ms. H around noon saying she was sent home early because of numbers.  So I'm not sure yet what got accomplished.  I'm hoping at the very least preschool had fun and the pictures get developed.

We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope. -Martin Luther King Jr.

Toilet Learning

We have just under 20 Sharks swimming in the tank.  About half of them are in diapers/pull ups during the day (either full time or just for nap).  I can't stand it!  This is my personal least favorite part of the job.  Don't get me wrong, I understand the significance and importance of toilet learning, but as a preschool teacher I have fun elsewhere in the class.  One of my friends is 3.3 (years.months) and is a twin.  She went through diapers/pull ups/underwear and was trained several times.  Over the past few weeks, for the safety of the rest of the class, she's back in pull ups full time.  Now we can barely get her to even pee on the toilet.  She is very bright and knows what she's doing.  She started out just pooping in her pants and saying, "It was an accident.  Accidents happen," and then smiling really big... Now she won't tell us that she's done anything, doesn't let anyone know she needs to go, and we've been having to put creme on her since she's getting red now.  As a teacher, and I know her parents feel the same way, it's very VERY frustrating to have a child regress in toilet learning.  They've talked to their pediatrician and I've been working closely with the office to figure out different strategies and techniques to try, but we've exhausted them.  We were given the green light to start from scratch.  Back to square one.  Starting line.  Seed in the dirt... 

I'm not a toddler teacher.  It is the last place before school aged kids that you would find me working.  With all these preschoolers in diapers it's beginning to feel like I'm leading a toddler class.  I give major props to those hard working, dedicated educators that can handle the needs of tots.  You are amazing!  

Here's what I've been doing with my back-to-basics friend: 

• Put in pull up right at drop off (She wants to wear underwear to school.)
• Once to twice an hour send her to the bathroom
• If she pees/poops in her pull up, she gets undressed and wipes herself before getting wiped by a teacher, then redresses herself
• Given lots of praise when she does anything in the toilet, tells a teacher she needs or has already gone to the bathroom
• Lots of talking about why we should be going potty on the toilet and not in the pull up

Any more/different ideas, suggestions, tricks of the toilet learning trade to share?  Anything and everything is much appreciated!

Wave for Change

Quick note:  I came across this on youtube.  It's from Neutrogena.  With each view of the following clip, Neutrogena will donate a dollar to education charities in the US.  How awesome is that?  You can either click the following youtube link or head over to Neutrogena on Facbeook and find it there.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HgyTxL7Ca7A

Every every view can help make a difference!  Watch it, send it to friends, put it on your Facebook and help!

Say Cheese!

Unit:  Photography

Ideas:  We're getting a few disposable cameras for the kids to use throughout the week.  I'm super excited about the finished product, but the only tricky thing is to keep track of each child's photos.  I'm still working on an efficient way to do this.  Tomorrow's we'll spend circle time talking about the parts of a camera.  I wonder if any of them know anything about it since most parents use their cell phones... That should be interesting.  They'll be learning the basics because we've had so many transitions lately (another one starting tomorrow) and now our class often feels like an older toddler class.  Hopefully everyone will be able to take away something valuable by the end of the week.  We'll only be focusing on a few terms:  lens, flash, viewfinder, and clicker.  What's a clicker?  Clicker is what we'll be calling the shutter release.  We'll mention that term, but four new words is as much as most of these kids will be able to handle at this point.  We'll also be making our own cameras out of tissue boxes and toilet paper rolls, but that involves A LOT of prep work.  I was going to cut a toilet paper roll in half, stick it in the tissue box and somehow secure it, then cover the box in butcher paper so it's a completely blank canvas for my Sharks.  I need to check my supplies to find something fun for the clicker.  

Field trip:  I'm hoping Tuesday goes well.  Field trips can be stressful.  (We can only go if one more parent signs up to chaperone.)  Luckily we have a 1:2 parent:child ratio and Ms. H and I aren't considered chaperones.  We're just in charge of leading and supervising.  This is the first brown bag picnic I've ever been a part of as a teacher.  I'm a bit on the paranoid side because a child with severe allergies recently transitioned into my class.  I've worked with several children with severe allergies before, but I never had to leave a center for a meal where parents are likely to pack foods a child is allergic to.  The office has sent e-mails regarding this issue to all parents so I'd be nice if everyone will be respectful of allergies, but I know there will be at least one person to pack something on the allergy list.

Allergies:  Speaking of my new friend with severe allergies.... I've completely lost my mind of this!  I've always been cautious of checking labels of my foods before brining it in for my lunch, but now I'm asking Ms. H if she's read her labels and making sure we both wash our hands ALL THE TIME.  We already wash hands frequently thanks to preschoolers being preschoolers and putting hands/toys in their mouths, hands going down the pants and/or in their nose...  It makes you think if you were that germy as a three year old, right?  I still like to think I never went treasure hunting in my nose and I only put food and drink in my mouth.  Parents have been slacking about washing hands first thing in the morning and so have teachers about reminding them to do so.  Now with our new friend we are cracking down on it.  I write it on our white board (located right outside the classroom by our entrance), we write it in our daily notes everyday, and we verbally invite them to the sink after a few seconds of being in the classroom.  I did have a parent come up to me and ask me if her child could eat a cereal bar quickly.  The ingredients weren't listed on the package so I suggested she have her son eat it outside of the classroom and then wash his hands again.  She agreed and understood where I was coming from and followed through.  I love when parents do that!  Our number one priority is the safety of the children.  I think sometimes parents either forget or don't realize all the things a teacher does during the day.

End of summer:  This is the last week of the summer program and I don't think I'm going to miss it too much.  I'll miss summer, don't get me wrong about that, but not the summer program.  There's a control factor we have to give up during summer because things are planned that teachers aren't involved in, like general unit ideas that last two weeks, field trips, special days, water play... That's something that I personally have to figure out how to handle and deal with because I find comfort in the freedom of doing what I want when it comes to activities, special days, and themes (while working with my co, of course.)  Lucky for me I have an awesome co in Ms. H.  She's so green to this that she's comfortable with following.  I still have to push her quite a bit because I want her to feel like my equal and not my side-kick.  I'm hoping that with the start of the school year I'll learn to give up some control and Ms. H will learn to take more of it.  As much as I love being looked to as a lead teacher, that's not what I am.  It's exhausting doing the work.  I don't know if it's pride, copious amounts of stubbornness, or what, but it's challenging to give up the slightest amount of control to anyone else, but I need to do it.  And the start of a new school year is more than the perfect time to do it!

Upcoming themes:  For the past couple of weeks the Sharks have been talking non-stop about fire drills, fire fighters, and fire trucks.  So we've decided to do a unit on it!  I told the office about it and asked if they could try to get a real fire fighter to come in and talk to us.  We tried this last year, but never heard back from them.  I'm hoping it'll work out this year.  How cool would that be?  I've been pressing Ms. H for ideas and she suggested Italy.  She'll be working on that unit.  

If you don't like something, change it.  If you can't change it, change your attitude.  -Maya Angelou

Just Wingin' It

I went into work today with my head still foggy from a four day weekend.  Today was Ms. H's day off and she only briefly filled me in on today's plan which I read via online message at the crack of dawn this morning.  Due to staffing complications (a now daily occurrence) the day started out a bit scrambled for everyone.  My memory is terrible and our internet is the same, I decided to pull rabbits out of my hat.  Since we've kept the same books in our library from our camping unit (books about camping and forest animals) I decided to pick out a book we haven't read at circle time to create some kind of theme for the rest of the day.

Book:  The Kissing Hand.  I read that book and after two or three pages I would stop and we'd copy the page or talk about the animals we saw in the pictures.  At the end of the book we practiced making kissing hands for ourselves.  I was fairly surprised at how well my Sharks were sitting, listening, and actively participating in circle.  We really only had one friend who couldn't quiet follow along and it was his second day of transition into preschool!  Glad they brought their listening ears to school...even if it only lasted for circle time.

I LOVE CLAY:  I couldn't for the life of me think of a related after circle activity, but I want to see how my non-verbal/extra physical Shark would experiment with clay.  So I had that on the art table and other centers open.  I had taken classes about art for young children and a training or two related to SPED techniques and never doubted when I was told natural clay can do wonders for non verbal children.  I was so happy to be able to watch this Shark quietly tear apart small pieces of clay, poke it with forks and knives, push his hands into it.  He sat and sat and sat!  This particular Shark is ALWAYS on the go, ALWAYS touching his friends, ALWAYS busy.  Today he said the entire time centers were open after circle until clean up time at the art table.  Now I know what to try when he gets handsy during the day.  Hopefully tomorrow I can remember to set aside a small amount of clay just for him.

Next week:  Our unit for next week is photography.  I was able to get a little bit of planning in today for it, but it's never enough!  I was thinking of asking to get a disposable camera for each child in my class, but at $5 a pop, that's never going to happen.  Maybe I can ask to get 5 and share them.  I did try on my thinking cap and thought that maybe we could create our own pretend cameras with tissue boxes and toilet paper rolls... still working that one out though.  I do have a few other ideas for activities, but not nearly enough to fill up a curriculum sheet.

Positive:  Good thing about this next unit is that it's the last unit of our summer program which in turn means teachers finally get to have 100% control over themes/units!

A dream you dream alone is only a dream.  A dream you dream together is reality. -John Lennon

Vacation All I Ever Wanted

I've spent my entire mini vacation trying to get myself NOT to think about work.  When I left work on Thursday night the next curriculum was finished, journals waiting for parents in their mailboxes, and my paycheck tucked safely in my purse.  All I had to do was mentally clock out of preschool and clock into four days away from my center.  Day one was spent on packing, traveling, and taking a deep breath that it was finally Friday and I was where I meant to be.  Saturday was a whirlwind of mini adventures.  By Saturday evening I was forgetting what day it was and starting to get anxious about work.  My typical day off is Fridays, but switched my day off the following week to get Monday off instead.  What if something happened on Monday and I was needed?  What if I forgot to relay a super important message from a parent to Ms. H or vice versa?  What if I was supposed to do something and I wasn't there to get it done?  So many what ifs.  I did not successfully check out of preschool mode.  Sunday I start contemplating planning for next week.  By Sunday night I'm receiving news of changes in staffing that has an impact on my classroom and go into panic mode.  What teacher doesn't want to be worrying about work while on what's supposed to be a relaxed, no stress, work free long weekend?

Yet, here I am on my way back home hopping on my work e-mail and responding to e-mails.  What is wrong with this picture?  I'm a young woman with enough experience to have many references and able to find work, but am I already at the point where all I think about are lesson plans, looking for toilet learning resources for parents, or tomorrow's joke or quote or one liner to put in the daily note?  Don't get me wrong, I absolutely am confident that I'm in the right field of work for me, but should I have not gone into head first, full force, and blindfolded?  Is it all catching up to me?

Do all young professionals feel this way?  I didn't grow up thinking I'd go into early childhood.  I wanted to be an Olympic gymnast, world renowned chef, professional napper, and high school art teacher at a private arts school.  Now I'm in this field and have never been more confident in my abilities.  Thing is, is it taking over the rest of my life?  Can I see myself as a woman who works as a teacher?  Am I more than a teacher? (Even though teacher in this case includes: care taker, nurse, chef, therapist, cleaner, singer, artist, photographer, writer, specialist, athlete, security...)

Wait a minute.  I know I'm more than a teacher, but how do I turn it off when I want to be something else?  What do I do when I'm trying to have a fun night out and all I end up thinking about is what would be a fun art project for a unit about next week's unit?

Back to teacher work:  Next week's unit is actually about photography.  Any ideas as to how to do that with a very young preschool class?  Most of our kids are in the process of turning three within the next month or two.

And Then There Was One

Who was it who thought of childcare ratios?  Have they ever been in a class of ten young preschoolers by him/herself before?  Talk about chaotic.  Is it possible to be in the bathroom changing dirty diapers, put nap cots away, and keep the rest of the kids engaged and safe at the same time?  Well we made it through snack until someone finally came in to help me out for a few minutes, mostly because I was told to send out a daily update to parents, but relief is relief and I gladly accepted it.

Proud moment:  We are in a building with the play yard on a roof, so walking through hallways and taking elevators by myself with ten young children can be a bit nerve-racking when it comes to safety concerns.  It can also be a big challenge to get ten kids to line up to leave the play yard at the end of the day.  Today we managed to walk all the way to the play yard quietly and together, have so much fun on the play yard, line up when called, and make it all the way back down to the classroom quietly and together again!  It was AWESOME!  ...Until I was in the bathroom changing someone when I came out to find some Sharks pouring cups of water on each other's heads... Good thing I diffused that before parents started coming in to pick up!

Drama!  It's confidential, but major stress all around the center and lots of gossip flying every which way.  The joys of estrogen fueled work environments...

Finally:  We cut out windows for our camper and put that in dramatic play today.  The kids went nuts over it.  To save tears and practice turn taking we set our five minute sand timer before each turn.  Since I was by myself it was a bit tricky to keep track of who was resetting the timer, but it went pretty well.  I think tomorrow we'll make toilet paper campfires and tell stories around it.

Optimistic:  Fingers crossed I can finish up the last of my journals before sending them home since I'm off on Friday.  I hate journals.  I understand their purpose, BUT we have very chatty parents and we are in constant contact with them throughout the day.  Most of them chat us up at drop off, sometimes via e-mail or phone call during the day, and again at the end of the day.  Many of them want to hear every detail of their preschooler's day and we fill them in as best we can.  Thing is that a lot of our parents come right at closing and Ms. H and I just want to go home, so we try to be as polite and brief as possible, but parents don't always take the hint that we're ready to leave because we need to get out of there.  We spend 10+ hours working and at closing time we are ready to be off the clock.

Given that I work 10+ hours a day and that I've been doing it for three straight days this week, I'm in need of more than 4 hours of sleep a night.  Just one more day and then I can relax for a long weekend and hope that Ms. H has a great start to the week on Monday.  (We'll be continuing our camping theme with learning more specifically about forest animals.)

Peace cannot be kept by force; it can only be achieved by understanding. -Albert Einstein.

Just another Manic Monday...minus the manic

My center is made up of five classes (infants, two toddlers, my preschool, and pre-K).  We have 13 teaching staff (three of which are floaters), one break person, one sub, and three in the office.  Each day we have 10 teachers, 2 office, and a break person scheduled.  Today we had three people on vacation, our break person called out so we had to call someone in from her day off, one person filling in from the office, one person in the office for only a few hours, one lead teacher came in late and left early, and subs in two other classes.  Thank goodness my classroom wasn't effected with staff.

Major frustration of the day: On Monday mornings Ms. H and I spend a good deal of time setting up the classroom for a new unit.  Today we were constantly being bothered by pre-K to either let her (office person filling in for lead teacher) use our computer because she decided not to use the one in the staff room since the pre-K one was slow, she wanted some supplies she couldn't find in the room she was in, she wanted us to print something for her... I could go on.  Why is that frustrating?  We were kind and did what was asked, but the thing was it took away from our work, classroom, and children that were in the room.  Staff changes happen, understandable.  For our center we can pretty much expect someone to call out on a daily basis.  When that happens, everyone has to be flexible and go with the flow.  It's not necessary to interrupt other classes when they aren't affected by the changes.  That co-worker could have easily come up with other activities that didn't rely on my computer or anything involving my class, co-teacher, or materials.  If you've been in a center/school for any amount of time you can understand that materials are sacred and sharing, even though it's at the top of our list of what we teach and preach, is SO HARD!  There's not a lot of funding and it's easy to become stingy and borderline hoarder as a teacher (guilty).  What's EVEN MORE frustrating?  She used to be my co-teacher.  We were good friends before she got the office promotion.  There's a lot of lines in education, especially in small quarters and even more so when you start as friends before becoming co-workers.  We still haven't quite found our new comfort zones around one another.

High point:  It's Monday.  We had a new friend start full time with next to no tears!  We started a new unit that I can't say I'm very interested in and the kids had a lot to share about it at opening circle.  We've had a lot of parents bringing in supplies (toilet paper rolls, paper towel rolls, flashlights...).  Best thing of the day?  I never once felt like things were out of control.  Yes I was super peeved with the staffing changes and the above frustrations, but my kids had a good day.  AND we had 14 in today (last week we usually had around 9 because of all the vacations).  Ms. H and I were dreading how the vacation kids would do, but it worked out.

We had a park ranger come in and do a demonstration/discussion for what we thought was only going to be a half an hour, but it ended up being almost an hour long.... My kids were over it after the first 30 minutes.  Oh well.  Luckily we applied our sunscreen before she came so we lines up along the rope and went for a walk outside right away.

Fingers crossed:  Tomorrow goes as smoothly, if not more!  We'll have a couple different kids in and out of the mix tomorrow.  Too tired to count up how many we'll have, but I'm ready to get more into the theme.  We weren't able to transform dramatic play yet, but hopefully I'll get to that tomorrow.  I'm not going to get my hopes up, but I'm crossing my fingers that no one calls out tomorrow.

Personal goal:  I'd like to work on being more open to change in the work place.  I don't know why, but I find myself getting very worked up when there's the slightest change in schedule/staffing.  Maybe I should start practicing yoga.  (I was going to say taking yoga, but I know I'm not the kind of person to sign up for a class at the gym unless I go with someone.)  Maybe I can try to do that once or twice a week at home.  I saw they have it on the Watch Instantly section of Netflix.  I need to mellow out sometimes!  Being in an active, loud, and often times overwhelming environment needs to be balanced out somehow!

"For every minute you remain angry, you give up sixty seconds of peace of mind." -Ralph Waldo Emerson

A camping we will go...

New unit starting tomorrow: CAMPING!  Our units in the summer last two weeks.  I'm not sure how I feel about this unit.  I think if given planning time and resources, camping could be a lot of fun...for one week.  We won't have planning for the next three weeks and I'm not sure if I can prep enough beforehand each day to really make this a worthwhile unit for my preschoolers.  Ms. H and I had a mini brainstorming session during nap time on Thursday for camping, but now it's crunch time to put it into curriculum and then tomorrow morning we'll have a short amount of time to set up and get ready for the day.  I'm pretty sure everyone will be back from vacation tomorrow.  Friday was great in that I only had seven kids plus a transition, but I didn't enjoy having to be by myself when there are so many kids still in diapers.  Potty learning is at the very bottom of my list of Things I Love About Preschool.

Back to the camping unit:  There's a lot of activities that rely on good weather and family involvement.  Hopefully both will be great!  We want to do lots of outside walks and nature walks.  If we have materials, I'd like to transform dramatic play into a camp site.  LIGHT BULB!  Last week the Sharks colored a giant box on my day off (not sure why because it wasn't in the daily plans I wrote up), but maybe I could cut out some windows and we could pretend it's an RV!  That'd be fun!  I'm still a bit worried that the children will get bored during the second week.  ::Shakes head::  I need to get through one week at a time.  I'll make this week amazing and then I can figure out how to make next week just as exciting.

Worries:  I just remembered that we have a new friend starting tomorrow.  He visited on Friday and I think he'll be a great addition to the class, but transitions always bring along an added stress for me.  There's so much that teachers have going on at every given second as it is, add a new child with new parents, needs, wants, likes, dislikes, germs, strengths, weaknesses... Add that into a class of 18 very unique individuals PLUS all the work outside of the daily ins and outs (planning, staff relations, documentation, classroom upkeep...)  SO much goes into teaching!

Hopes:  Fingers crossed Ms. H and I don't get sick!  We had two kids get sick twice this past week.  I'm optimistic that our new Shark will have a decent transition into the Tank.  I was really proud of myself on Friday.  We were all at the lunch table, right before Mr. J came in to give me my lunch break.  The transition was still a bit upset that his dad wasn't in the classroom.  So I was crouched beside him and I made myself loud enough so everyone at the table could hear me.  I said to him, "What are some shows you like to watch at home?"  (A few other friends were talking about television.)  He replied with  Thomas the Train and a few other shows I didn't know, but knew my kids did.  Then I spoke loudly again and said to the class, "Oh!  Sharks!  A likes Thomas the Train just like you!"  That got them all talking about Thomas the train and A calmed down for a few minutes to interact with his new friends.  It was really nice.

Time to start on curriculum!  Feel free to comment!  Have you done a camping unit?  Any ideas/suggestions would be greatly appreciated!  *My kids are 2.9-4.  We are in the middle of lots of transitions so lots my Sharks are on the younger side of the spectrum.

"Don't handicap your children by making their lives easy."  -Robert A. Heinlein