Welcome to Career Week

This week we are learning about "Careers" and possible things we could "be" when we grow up. I love having the parents come in and share with us what they do. Not to mention the kids are SO EXCITED that their very own mom or dad is coming to preschool to tell us ALL about their job. It's a very exciting time.

I also like to have a Police Officer as a guest speaker and we'll be taking a field trip to the Fire Station on Friday. Lots of things going on.

For our Dramatic Play and Messy Table area (I combined them today) we turned the room into a Career center where the kids could dress up and act out in various job role plays. From being a Doctor, nurse, or veterinarian, to construction workers, computer engineers, secretaries - we had an array of jobs to fulfill.

The doctor was the most popular today, but kids always love working on and checking others as they have been checked at a doctors office.....it's something they can relate to and they know what to do with it.

Today we had a Highschool teacher as our parent visitor, and we'll have lots more stuff to share throughout the week. Stay tuned!

We are also working on a class book of "What I want to Be When I Grow Up".....kids minds change so often, this might be a pretty thick book. But I like to make copies for the kids and let them keep it so they can look back at it and see the things they were once interested in and their classmates also.

Bobsledding - Olympic Style

We have been learning about the Olympics this week and boy have we been having fun. In this picture you can see The Preschool Bobsled Team.....pushing off! We transformed our dramatic play area into an Olympic Bobsled Run.

We have talked about all of the different Olympic Events in the winter - Skiing, Snowboarding, Ice skating, Speed Skating, Bobsled, Luge, and the skeleton were the main one we discussed. I had the class act out each event to see maybe a little how it might feel and if we might like it.

Olympics are great!!

Eye Doctor

What would be more appropriate in the dramatic play area in our sense of sight day than.........an Eye Doctor!! The children enjoyed not only checking each others eyes, but also doctoring each other up. I had to set out a few doctor tools along with the eye tools so we could explore a little outside of the box! The kids were bandaged, knee tapped, and shotted up by the end of the day (what kind of preschool do you have your child in again?? :) Some cute things said today...... "What letter am I pointing to?" "M." "No, it's a 'K', I guess you need glasses after all!" (I am still cracking up about this, knowing the child who was the patient is still working on letter recognition! It's so dang cute) "Where do you hurt miss?" "All over." "Miss Chelsea, I think we need lots more bandages!" Happy playing!!

Clean Babies

To go along with our smelling sense.......what better to do then make babies smell good!! This is always a preschool favorite - washing and dressing babies!

I don't think the couple of baby dolls we had out were put down the entire time of choice time today!!

Happy cleaning!!

Puppet Theatre Time

We had the puppet theatre set up today that my older sister sent to me as a gift one year. I love this puppet theatre because it stores easily by being rolled up.

The kids are always HOOT to watch at this area. I always introduce it to them by making up a story of my own (using beginning, middle, and end sequence). Even just demonstrating how a story sets up, begins to give them basic storytelling AND story writing understanding.

While the kids are at choice time, I am always there to assist in a story or be the audience. When we get more familiar with the puppet theatre, I will set it up with some chairs as the audience and popcorn bags. It's always fun to mix things up and give them a different setting!

Many times, for a child to be comfortable at an area, they need teacher guidance. I will not exactly show them how to do something, but I will assist in imagination, or creativity. You will see this a lot in the dramatic play area, or places like the puppet theatre, where they aren't quite sure where to go with the idea. I always have a ball playing and interacting with the kids, watching their imaginations bloom. As soon as they get the hang of it, I step back and let them take it from there.

happy storytelling!!

It's Kitchen Time

The Dramatic Play area, is always a favorite. Last year, my little dining table broke we used in the kitchen area, and I am still in the process of getting one. Right now I'm currently using a folding picnic table which proves to be too big for the classroom, this problem will be fixed this weekend - for sure. I don't think I can live with it much longer. The dramatic play area has always been one of my favorite places to play with the children and also watch them. It's serioulsy so funny to listen to the things they come up with when role playing with one another. Some orignal ones today......... "Miss, I'm sorry, but these eggs are rotten, I'll go make you some new ones." (while talking on the phone) "Hi mommy! Yes, I'm being VERY good at preschool" (this one I hear often - so cute) "You be the mommy, I'll be the daddy, you can be the baby, and you be the dog" (they're so good at making sure there's a place for EVERYONE!!)

Grocery lists

We were talking about Grocery Workers and I the kids write their own grocery lists. It was fun to watch them think about what they might find at the grocery store. I would either tell them how to spell the word as they wanted or I would write it down for them to copy. A few students aren't quite ready for that step so they would draw the pictures and I wrote down what they needed.

The kids would write their grocery lists and then bring their list to the "grocery store" I had set up in the dramatic play area to go shopping.

Shopping fun!!

Construction Worker Dramatic Play

I put set up a work bench for the children to work with at the dramatic play area for our Careers and Construction Worker day. They really seemed to enjoy this. I heard a lot of construction worker discussion and socializing going on.

"Hey, I'm building you a kitchen Miss Chelsea!"

"What does this measuring tape say? Is it going to be long enough to make my project?"

What great thought processing going on!!

In the past I've also set up large blue print papers for the children to draw, measure and figure out their projects on. My classroom is a little smaller this year.......maybe next year I could shrink the blue print book. The large one is just so fun and exciting for them to work in.

Dramatic Play

Since we have been talking about ALL sorts of food, the children have really enjoyed the Dramatic Play area! I put out a few extra BAKING items, etc. They have been the greatest cooks and servers and I've seen a lot of discussion between the kids about the different foods they are eating or making.

One child was serving another child ice cream. Right before he gave it to him he said, "Now remember, this is only a SOMETIMES food!!

I love these little kids!!