it seems that our pictures (of painting and cutting and gluing and taping and making a big dinosaur and making baby dinosaurs to meet big mama “daisy dinosaur” and adding her clothespin spikes on the marker dots and telling you that we loved this book) will speak for themselves.

it was a dino-tastic time!

we made another movie.

the way we make most of our movies is by having the photo booth’s video camera running and then later splitting it into smaller clips. with the movies being many minutes long, i think we all forget that we’re being recorded. that’s what i want.

what you’ll see in this movie:

a new friend at preschool…already a special friend of mine…this was so sweet.
a new seating plan…there are little self photos on the back of their chairs. it’s interesting to see how children look to find themselves, if they move their chair, if they don’t.
a new circle time plan…we’ve never sat in chairs before at circle time. the next phase is that anyone who prefers a chair can get their chair. then there is the need for a whole bunch of “situational awareness” when preschoolers are hauling chairs around. i’ll make a movie of that.

and for me: a new perspective of how i teach. i am comfortable with and confident in my intentions and my passion to be a kind and effective teacher. but i am amazed at how many things i see that i wish were different. i don’t wait as long as i thought i did. i ask questions that seem silly. i don’t answer kids as quickly as i thought i did. i fill in the blanks too often in conversations with kids.

in general, i seem to have an impatience that is rooted in nothing but enthusiasm. since i’m not cranky, maybe i’m just eager. i guess. i want to work on that. some teacher friends of mine suggested that video taping oneself for this exact purpose is a common practice. it was sure effective for me.

so, enjoy the newness and the humility of seeing me do many things i wish i hadn’t done:

we used a wonderful little coin drop slot spinner thing taped onto an empty oatmeal container with real coins!

it was a busy, busy spot.

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we did coin rubbings for our journals.  i hot glued coins on a bit of cardboard so they were easier to keep track of.

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cutting on lines = good kindergarten practice.

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and this little robot cat came to visit (thank you, naomi!).

with very real movements and meow sounds, robot cat seems like a real friend.

you can hear her live on one of our videos (click here).

i have several kids who LOVE worksheets.  i think i would have been one of those kids too.  kind of like how i like to fill out forms…the order, the finality of it…i love it.  so, those kids loved our journal cookie worksheet offered this week.  there is a list of the letters at the bottom for children to find and circle the letter of the week.

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meanwhile there were cookies being made, sold and “eaten” from cinnamon spice play-dough (regular play-dough recipe with a bit of  cinnamon vanilla added).

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there was also some cookie sprinkle cutting going on.  this was fantastic scissor practice!

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then to frost our paper cookies, we didn’t use paintbrushes, we didn’t use our hands, we didn’t use toothbrushes (all guesses from the children)…we used knives!  just like we were really spreading frosting!

then a trip across the room to “mr. sprinkle” who added the previously snipped sprinkles to our wet paint.

good cookie times!