Preschool

I don't blog about preschool much.  I am not sure why.  I have a few theories.  One of which - this is not a private blog and I don't want to post about other peoples kids who are not my own.  Two - I compartmentalize it pretty well.  When people ask me if I work I say no, or I tell people I just stay home.  Eventually in the conversation it comes out that I teach preschool and they say, "I thought you don't work" - "oh, well... yea.. but its not really work." I say back.  The truth is, I hate the thought of working, I love staying home and being a stay at home mom, or a house wife, or what ever you want to call it.  And teaching preschool for me is just a hobby, something for fun.  The fact that they pay me actually makes me a little uncomfortable.  

This is my 4th year teaching.  It gets easier and easier every year, I know (almost) never have to do anything the day (or night) before.  I can take down the previous day and set up the new day all the morning of, after my kids go to school and before the preschoolers get there.  I have everything down to a science.  Honestly, though, this is the first year I have done it having all my kids in school all day, and it has changed it a little bit.  I don't know exactly how yet.  I think I need to start looking at it like a job if I am really going to be doing this for the next 10 years or so.   But I wanted to put a few pictures up of my centers and the different things we do.  I didn't include any of kids - just my centers before the kids come.  I change them either every day or every week - depending on what we are doing.  

Dramatic play: restaurant 

Math table

Challenge table:

Sensory table: wet, colored spaghetti

Draamatic play: Apple market

Math table: Apple patterns

Science shelf

Large group activity: apple math

Another large group activity: apple poll and graphing

Apple books

Dramatic play: Doctor's office

rainbow/color books 

Large group - making a 3D rainbow

Math table: playdough tree

apple/tree books

halloween books

Writing center: Halloween

dramatic play: grocery store

sensory table: marbles game and water beads in water

Large group: candy cane science

Dramatic play: wrapping "presents" (blocks)

Dramatic play: Christmas scene (and making ornaments)

Writing center: Christmas

Match table: make a forest

Art table: playdough on pumpkin

pounding pumpkins

dramatic play: toy store (for Christmas)

Block center: Christmas train village

Large group: Making wreaths

Sensory table: Cutting

Art table: Glue designs

Art center: easel starter

Sensory table: water play

Large group: painting names (this is our first day of preschool activity)

Math table: tin can robots

Science center

school books

Block center

writing center

morning time center

Challenge table

art table: painting with cans

One  day in the summer I was setting up my supplies room (it is actually my favorite part of the preschool - it makes me so happy to see all my supplies), one of the bench marks for kindergarten is "uses a variety of writing tools", so obviously I need a variety of writing tools for the kids to experiment with.  After I was done organizing I thought, I think I may have gone a little over board.  I need to take some pictures of my supply room and post them.  It is fantastic.

Around the house

Madison is just so cute.  I love watching what she comes up with.  She is so creative.  She often sets up her toys all around the house.  I find her absolutely adorable. 

Millie and Leslie come to visit!

My aunt Leslie and cousin Millie came to visit.  Millie's best friend moved to Colorado and was having a birthday party and getting baptized so they decided to come out and surprise her.  They stayed with us for 3 days and it was so fun.  Millie also brought clothes she has out grown and the girls have loved their new clothes (some of them they are wearing in the picture).  Millie slept in the girls' room and Leslie took me out to dinner one night.  It was great - we love visitors!

Halloween

The day of Halloween was pretty busy.  First off I had preschool.  The kids wore their costumes and then we had a parade at pick up.  I just love my preschoolers!

Then I went to the school for my kid's parties.  Since I have 4 in elementary school I didn't commit to help at any party.  I just spent about 15 minutes in each classroom.  It worked out great becasue I just got to hang with my kids AND got 4 different cupcakes!

Then they had their Halloween parade.

For trick or treating we went down to Jen's house and took a neighborhood group photo.   All these kids live with on our street with-in about a 6 house radius - our neighborhood ROCKS!!

My cute kids. 

The Harry Potter clan.  Can you even stand Megan's pose!?  She did that ALL on her own.

Noah and his best friend, David.

Noah was Harry Potter.  He loved reading the books and watching the movies.  Like I mentioned earlier, we read the first 3 as a family and then after that they have to be in 4th grade and read it on their own.  Noah has now read the 4th book and is on the 5th.

Once Noah said he wanted to be Harry, Megan quickly decided she wanted to be Hermione.  This ws really sweet to watch.  Megan and Noah don't typically get along - but they were really sweet with each other this Halloween since they were in matching costumes - I think it was great for their friendship - AND SHE IS KILLING ME WITH HER POSES!

As mentioned before, we still didn't have a job around Halloween and the thought of the cost of costumes was giving me some anxiety.  I hate Halloween to begin with (I am NOT crafty to make costumes) and the added stress of trying to do it cheaply was really getting to me.  I had a chat with the kids about it and I tried to convince them to pick something out of what we had from previous years (or in dress ups).  Madison decided she wanted to be the same thing as last year.  I, of course, didn't want them to feel "slided" or sad about it - so I double (and triple) checked and she was really happy to be a witch again.  Last year we borrowed a purple wig from our friend, the birch's, but they had given it away, so this year we borrowed a green wig from the Marriott's.  She also wanted to carry around a wand, a book of magic spells, and a broom.  She wanted to carry all of those things while trick or treating, along with her pillow case.  It lasted about 5 houses (more than I thought) - before she reluctantly gave me all of her accessories.

Brock went back and forth about what he wanted to be (like most years)  In the end he wanted to be a detective.  This costume gave me the most trouble.  It took me hours and hours of looking for that dang trench coat - but in the end (in the final hours) I found it at the 4th Good Will I sent to.  He was happy - Woo Hoo!

The Harry Potter costumes were borrowed from my friend, Heather.  I put a request out on our Ward Facebook page for some help with Halloween costumes and EVERYONE offered up what they had to help dress my kids.  I am so grateful with all of the help we have gotten over these past few months.

We all started out as a big group trick or treating, but that is not sustainable.  In the end Brock went off with a group of boys.  Noah went with David and his dad. And me the girls went (but just right behind Noah).  Megan and Noah gave up after about an hour and a half, then I took Brock, Lincoln, and Madison to another neighborhood where they went another hour.  Then Madison kept going for another half hour!  She was our winner and was done trick or treating about 8:30.  Now we have more candy than you can even imagine.  What we have decided to do is let them pick 20 pieces of candy every Sunday and they can eat them when ever and how ever they want.  With a few rules though: 1 - you can't steel other peoples candy once you eat all of  yours.  2 - you MUST throw away your wrappers (found wrappers will result in one lost piece of candy).  3 - you have to eat breakfast before you eat candy.  And 4 - no candy after brushing teeth at night.