Lots of Ideas! TRY ONE!!

Each week when I visit the schools, there are just SO MANY cool things that inspire me!  We can learn so much from one another, so I invite you to please dedicate yourself to try at least ONE NEW THING this upcoming week in your classroom based on something that inspired you from the blog ideas!  It can be from this week, or any of the weeks prior!!  HAVE FUN and please email me or send me pictures of what you or your colleagues try!!  

MORE SENSORY IDEAS:

You can give the children sensory experiences not only in the sensory table, but also many other places!  Check it out!

Pasta, beans and cooking materials in Isabel and Britti's toddler class in Newton.

Foot Paint with Shannon in Newton.

Exploring Jello in the sensory table with Shannon in Preschool 4.

Dumping and sorting with the toddlers with Maria in the South End.

Colored Sand play in the South End

The teachers put out this fun material for the kids to explore in Porter Square!!

MATH IDEAS:

Math is EVERYWHERE!  Sorting, and counting are lots of activities that I see, but don't forget about shape recognition, seriation, counting, positional language, ordinal numbers, solving simple addition and subtraction problems, classifying by a variety of attibutes, patterning, comparing the size of things, measuring, using nonstandard units to measure familiar objects, estimating and collecting data!

Claudia in Needham did this shape activity with her Pre-K class where they had to count and write how many fruit loops they put on each shape!

This was a great estimation activity that Pamela did in Porter Square to have the children estimate how any objects were in each container and write their guesses on sticky notes!!

 Denise and Alejandra in the Pre-K in Kendall Square had the kids collect ants and graph how many they collected using paper squares!!

LITERACY IDEAS: 
There are so many ways to introduce literacy in the classroom from the toddler group all the way up to Pre-K!  Here are a few examples!!

Claudia and Katie in the Pre-K in Newton had the kids learn about ALLITERATION in Spanish after reading Dr. Seuss' Wacky Wednesday.  They wrote out words using upper case and lower case letters that started with the same letter in Spanish and drew pictures to go along with it.  

Cynthia in Kendall Square has her Preschoolers eat their friendship fruit on plates with their first initial on it.  One of the classroom "jobs" is to have a child hand out the plates by reading the letter and giving it to the child whose name starts with that letter!  

The use of BIG BOOKS is an excellent way to give the children a chance to listen to stories.  Eliana in Porter Square translated this BIG BOOK to Spanish as the children learned all about "la primavera!"

SOCIAL STUDIES:

The Pre-K kids in Newton learned about where all of the artists and authors came from in the world by placing the names of the famous artists on this map!!

They were able to compare it to where they live in Boston and add some social studies to this art heavy unit!  Loved it!!

SCIENCE:

Science is everywhere too!!  It's broken down into Inquiry Skills, Earth & Space Sciences, Life Sciences, Living Things & Their Environment, The Physical Sciences and Technology & Engineering!!  The ideas are ENDLESS!!  

Here's a great example of a teacher getting inspired by the "Ideas de Inspiracion" BLOG!!

Ariana, a preschool teacher in Porter Square did this AWESOME Science activity with her class during the Art Appreciation Unit last month!  Melting the crayons on the canvas!!!  

GETTING ORGANIZED!!

 We are constantly organizing and re-organizing our classrooms in an effort to keep things new and fresh for the kids, the parents and for OURSELVES TOO!!

 Each month, change out the tags on your mailboxes like the teachers in Brighton do!  It's the first thing that the kids and parents see with the start of the new month, and it sets the stage for all things thematic!!

Check out these nametags that Marlene in Newton did for her Preschool class during the Authors and Artists unit.  For them it's the first thing they see when coming to school and it sets the stage for the theme.  Marlene creatively used Photoshop to add the pictures of the kids into famous paintings!  Adoable!

The Pre-K teachers in Newton just changed out their nametags by adding famous paintings!  If you are worried about messing up the walls of your school, try the old teaching standby of VELCRO to change out the images each month!!!  

Check it out Directors!!!  Parent Communication Calendar - 

Kelly in Newton has this board in the hallway and is updated monthly for the parents to have a visual cue of what fun and exciting things are happening in the school!!