Entomologist Laboratory

Okay so I said I was going to use this blog to show off the materials that I have made for my classroom, so it's time to show some off! One of our many study units at work is Insects. My preschoolers LOVED the insect study. Unfortunately the weather here in Connecticut did not cooperate and when it should have been spring it was still winter so we didn't get to get out and see too many insects during our study, but my kids are still searching for them on the playground and studying them and talking about them!

I love changing my dramatic play center. I do it constantly. Maybe even more than normal teachers do. But I like including as many centers as possible into our studies so that the kids can get more out of it. The first dramatic play pack that I have made and offer for sale on Teachers Pay Teachers was for an entomologist laboratory. I searched FOREVER on the internet when I was setting up this study and could barely find anything to support an insect study in the dramatic play center. And on went the lightbulb, time to make what I need!

You can check out my Entomologist Lab Pack here on TpT.

I tried to make this pack as inclusive as possible. I have center labels, a word wall, observation sheets, and information pages. We were lucky enough to have a large collection of plastic insects for the children to study and play with. If you don't have any, insect pictures from google would work just as well!

Here is my dramatic play center. There is a table for studying at, a cute banner, lab coats, and so much more!

The kids loved having the lab coats to dress up in. I bought 4 large white button up shirts from Goodwill, cut them down a little bit, hemmed them, and viola! 

 

Here are pictures of how everything else was set up. Our furniture in our dramatic play center has felt on the back, so I used velcro to hold everything on. The kids had a blast in this center!

This center was in high demand through the whole study. Some days we even had to set a timer and make a wait list. The kids loved using magnifying glasses to get a closer look at the insects. It was so rewarding to see how much the kids enjoyed using something that I had made for them. 

So if you like what you see, please head over to my Teachers Pay Teachers store! I am so excited to be able to share these different classroom materials with all of you!

Check out my TpT store!

HAPPY FRIDAY!

I don't know about anyone else, but this week was exhausting!! Okay so it might just be me. Today we took our class to a farm on a field trip. (If you are ever in Simsbury, CT, check out Flamig Farm with your little ones!!) We were able to go on a hayride, feed some animals and pet some, too. I am an animal lover, so I think I had about as much fun as they did. It was a good, but very long, day. OH! I even got to hold an adorable baby chick. I won't lie, it made me want some chicks of my own.

The school year is coming to an end, so we have been trying to get everything together for our end of the year celebration. I always tell myself that I am not going to go overboard, but then I go overboard! Sometimes I can't help myself. I always say that I am going to let it go and just keep it simple, but I get these ideas in my head that I just can't let go of and I sort of obsess over them until I get them finished. This year, on top of our normal celebration activities, I decided that I want to make the kids memory books. Those are mostly done, I just have to add in a few more pictures, laminate and bind them. On Thursday, we took our "graduation" photos and I made a really cute background. I don't want to toot my own horn, but look at this! Add in a 4 year old in a white cap and gown and your ovaries might explode. To make it even better, this whole thing cost about $5. The black and red pieces are dollar store table cloths, and the stars and 2018 are made from "fancy" paper from Joann's Fabric Store. (One of my favorite craft stores, and there is one WAY too close to work!)

As far as I know, we are the only classroom in my building who does something like this. We started it last year and I just love it.

I love my co-teacher. We have worked together for 4 years now and we have such a good thing going. She tends to reel me in a little bit when I start to go too overboard with what I am trying to do. We spend a lot of the day laughing, but we definitely know how to hunker down and get work done. We do everything that we are asked to do (usually in a pretty timely manner), and we are still able to have fun. The program received an email yesterday saying that there would be "many new assignments next year," meaning that a lot of us are getting moved around, classroom wise. I won't lie, I'm a little worried. I can truthfully say that I do not hate or even dislike any of the girls that I work with, but there are some who I don't feel that I would be able to work well with in a classroom. Certain personalities do not mix! I am trying not to worry about it too much, so instead I am just keeping myself busy and trying to focus on the positive and finishing out the year on a good note!

I'm about spent today. It was a long week, a busy day at work, and then I came home and decided to do yard work that I was definitely not supposed to do. I have a bad shoulder that is getting operated on in a few weeks and yard work is definitely not on the list of things that I should be doing. But once again, I had an idea in my head and I couldn't let it go. So I need to go try to fix my shoulder and ease this pain for a little while.

Thanks for stopping by! Happy Friday ;)

Welcome to my blog!

Hi and welcome to my new blog! I've been a little nervous about starting this, but here goes nothing!

 First let me tell you a little bit about myself. My name is Chrissy, I am 28 years old, a mother of one rambunctious 18 month old boy, and I am a preschool teacher. I am mostly going to use this blog to promote my Teachers Pay Teachers site and my products, and to share what goes on in my classroom. I work for a Head Start preschool program in Connecticut. For those of you who don't know about Head Start, we are a federally funded program that caters to low-income families. We teach children the basics, such as letters and numbers, but we also teach social skills, we promote healthy lifestyles, and we are very involved in our students lives. We go on home visits at the beginning of each year to get to know the families and to tell them about our classroom, we have parent-teacher conferences twice a year to update parents on where their children are developmentally, and we are there with resources for anything that our children and families may need help with. It's a wonderful program that is truly looking to make each child the best that they can be before we send them off to kindergarten. I love what I do and have currently kicked it up a notch by making custom activities for the studies that we are doing in my classroom. At Head Start, we use a system called Teaching Strategies. It is a creative curriculum and it is loaded with all sorts of great information and teaching skills. We have a variety of studies to choose from each year and the studies come with some excellent books. It took me a while to really get into the curriculum, because it means I am no longer making things up on my own, but I am working from a set curriculum in a book. But, we have been using it for 2ish years now, and now that I am getting the hang of doing what the book tells me to do, I am ready to start adding in my own extra things.

That's where Teachers Pay Teachers and this blog come into play. I am always searching Pinterest and Teachers Pay Teachers for fun stuff to add to my classroom. I always have this vision in my mind of what I want, but can never seem to find exactly what I'm looking for. Then the idea hit me one day, just start making stuff! I was at the end of our Insects study when I started messing around with making products, so that's why most of what I have is bug related. I am very new to this and learning as I go, so bare with me!

In the past few years, I have really gotten into crafting. I spent one summer building furniture out of pallets in my garage. The next summer I bought a Cricut machine and went scrapbook crazy. And now that I have a toddler to keep me busy when I'm not at work, I thought I would try creating on my computer, since it is much easier to have him in a room with me and my computer than with me and some power tools! 😉

I am really hoping that this blog and my Teachers Pay Teachers store help other teachers find some new ideas and activities for their classrooms! The school year is almost over, so I am going to try to spend the summer working on some new material (in between vacations and making up for lost time with my baby!). I am also hoping that when the new school year nears, my TpT store will pick up a little more. I am a little nervous about all of this, so please feel free to give me some feedback!

Here is a link to my store so that you can go and take a look around. As for me, it is way passed my bedtime and I need to wrap this up! Thanks for stopping by and listening to all of my rambling!

www.teacherspayteachers.com/store/preschool-productions