Lakes and Ponds Unit

Here in beautiful Western Washington, we are surrounded by a lot of wetlands and the wildlife that resides there. This is why we (myself and the other teacher, AKA my partner in crime) decided to teach a unit that focuses specifically on ponds and lakes. 

Each of the four weeks of the unit was dedicated to a different animal. These included frog, duck, turtle and beaver. We read different books about these animals and ponds, created crafts which represent them, and sang songs about ponds. Plants like lily pads and cattails were also discussed.  As part of the unit, we visited a local lake park where students participated in a scavenger hunt. We had some real life cattail plants and lily pads for students to look at and feel. 

Literacy for the Unit

Writing Center: pond word tracing,
frog to lily pad tracing and cutting, frog and turtle coloring. 

Circle: Word Wall

Play Area: Students have the opportunity
to practice sight words during free play .

1-to-1 word correspondence: Students learn that
each spoken words corresponds to a written word.
Kids also practiced listening for beginning
sounds in order to figure out which sentence
 each animal went with.

Gingerbread Man Unit

The Gingerbread Man unit was one of the my favorite ones to teach! There are so many ideas and materials which can be printed or used as inspiration. First, I wanted to create the Gingerbread Man atmosphere in the classroom, so I made the bulletin board for the play area:

You can see the Gingerbread Man doll I sewed for the kids to play pretend with. On the left side of the bulletin board are recipe cards for making gingerbread cookies. My students really enjoyed baking them pretend in the play kitchen. 

Story sequencing skills were a major focus of this unit. We practiced retelling the Gingerbread story at circle time using visuals and puppets, in small groups using the WH-question flip book, and during unstructured play time using puppets and pretend play.  At the end of the unit, students completed a sequencing project which required them to cut out sequencing cards, glue them in order of occurrence and color them.

Another activity which students enjoyed tremendously was the Where is Gingerbread Man? Power Point. I put this together by taking photos of my classroom and pasting a clip-art image of the Gingerbread Man in different locations throughout the classroom. This served as an opportunity to practice prepositions! Everyone's favorite slide was the silliest one of the Gingerbread Man on the potty  :-)

Whole Body Listening stategies

Last year my district sent me and other Early Childhood Education teachers to the Social Thinking Conference. It was a great experience, I learned a lot and acquired some goodies! One of them was this Whole Body Listening poster. It is posted in my classroom and I often refer to it in order to remind students of behavior expectation at circle.
We go over all of the "body parts" during the first weeks of school and talk about what it looks like to have "looking eyes" or "thinking brain". Since many of my students struggle with receptive communication skills, I try to use as many visuals as possible. We look at photos of people and talk about their body position, their gaze, etc. We also play a game where I look at something or someone and ask the kids to tell me who or what I am "thinking" about.

At the end of circle time, I ask one of my Educational Assistants to tell me who they think demonstrated best whole body listening skills. As a reward the child gets to pick out a song, or depending on the month, yoga poses, or animal moves which we do as a group.I got this idea from one of the Tasks Galore books.

Song menu

My new blog

Hello everyone,

I am an Early Childhood Special Education teacher at a preschool in Issaquah, Washington. I have been teaching for two years now and I love my job! My mentor recently suggested that I start blogging in order to share and exchange ideas about teaching young children with special needs. I am looking forward to connecting with other professionals in my field! :-)