A peek at the before picturesThe design process
Changes that needed to be done.Color The colors in the home living space where to visually stimulating. It had to many bright primary colors which made the space chaotic in more ways then one. Arrangement The space was to tight with furniture. The children could not move freely with in the space. Which caused conflict. Solution * Find smaller table for space. Divide area into to different living areas. (more like a great room would be) Kitchen with family area. * I have missed match furniture throughout my classroom. Find another teacher that would be willing to trade so that we could both have matching furniture. Good thing is that most of the teachers I work with like the colored furniture and I like the wood. * Find dishes in a softer color. I was able to find furniture some from another teacher by trading and I found some wonderful finds at the school warehouse surplus. After setting it up we took a step back and all in all we liked the overall fill of it. However we were still not happy with the blue and yellow cabinets behind the chairs and the blue chairs stood out as well. So... Have your ever dreamed about something that you are working on and woke up in the morning and knew exactly what you needed to do. That is what happened, so on my way to work I took a detour to Wal-Mart and found contact paper and some brown fabric. Now that is more like it! On to my next classroom re-design project.
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This is the year that clutter gets kicked to the curb. That everything will have its rightful place and I will never have to look for anything again. Does clutter or mess stress you out?Just looking at these pictures stresses me out all over again. Over the summer months the organization process started in the storage room. I have tried to kick clutter to the curb in the past, but I started the processes in the classroom first and never made it to the storage room and clutter always oozed its way back in. It was like the storage room had a life of its own. So this year I took a different approach and started where the mess begins in the storage room. By starting in the storage room we would be able to put things away in there rightful place instead of making stacks in the classroom of items that we used frequently. Organization 101I needed to go back to school and take the beginners course on organization and this is what I learned. * Being clutter free means having a strong why statement or statements. * De-clutter before you start to organize * Make different piles Trash, Donations, Recycle and Keep. * If you have not used it in two years or more then it is time to get rid of it. * If it is broken get rid of it. * Create zones * Everything needs its place. It feels so good to be able to walk into the storage room and find what we need. Still would like to get storage containers to match throughout, but all in good time. To help motivate you to kick clutter to the curb
Grab your free set of signs and get going on kicking clutter to the curb once and for all.
Groovy Cat goes back to school and this year he is adding excitement to my hands on math center. In the process of moving and redesigning my classroom this year the math center was in need of a face lift and Groovy Cat was just what it needed. BeforeAfterWhat do we have on the shelves To start off with we have a tub filled with targets dollar section metal pails. Each pail has different items that can be used with the different activities on the shelf. We have a basket of the number matching cards and we have laminated the how many buttons sheets so that the children can write and wipe as they count. This is a fun way to get your little ones counting and matching numbers. Clipping rings so children will be able to count and identify the amounts by using cloths pins. Oh and those little fingers will be working on those fine motor skills all at the same time. Win! Win! I laminated the counting mats so that we could count and write, wipe and rewrite as many times as we wanted. One to one correspondence with 10 frame counting mats. I laminated the groovy button graphing mat. So that children could graph and re-graph as many times as they wanted to. A class must have my Roll It, Count It and Write It mats. Also included in the center is the Adding and Subtracting mats. This is always a class favorite. Making patterns with Groovy Cat Since our little ones are still learning about color we made some groovy color jars to sort all of those groovy colors with. If you are looking for a way to spice up that math center for the new year look no further. This packet has everything you will need to get that center up and running in no time for the new year. You won't even need to make the labels we have those all ready for you too. Just download and print.
Groovy Cat Loving Math Hands on activities to build children’s math skills. Each center activity can be used as a small group lesson or as workstation activity during free choice time. Get it now for $7.75 |
Welcome!I'm Tami Sanders creator of Learning and Teaching with Preschoolers, a blog to help teachers create magical moments for the young. Follow MeArchives
May 2024
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