Today on the way to work in my classroom I got an idea.
I don't know if it will work this year yet, or not, because I have not started the year, nor met the children that will be in my transitional kindergarten. Transitional K is a program for children that start K at 4 years of age, in CA this becomes a two year K program for our younger children. Last year I transferred to this program for the opportunity to work with children that were like my own three kids who are now grown.
My three children all had late in the year birthdays and started school at 4. They were bright kids-reading kids-with lots of experiences, but they were tiny and young. Actually they were brilliant but I never say it. Something about that tiny-ness made me feel school started too early for them. So I am happy to be working in a program I "believe" in. I felt there should be no hurry to grow them up. But they grew up.
Anyway back to today, I invented something. It may already be invented but I thought of it in the Dollar Tree so I am claiming credit.
I was there looking for wooden spoons to make into puppets. That I did NOT invent. I saw it on my Facebook and it seemed so smart-they'd painted them into puppets. This is a way I could have puppets for a fraction of the cost. But, alas, no wooden spoons in Dollar Tree. What they DO have is a lot of metal and plastic pancake spatulas.
So I started thinking maybe chalk would work on their surface.
Yes it did.
I invented Spatula Puppets, I'm calling them Spuppets for my puppet theater to be.
And that made me think of a center where they make puppets, or faces on the spatulas, or a lot of ideas, as well as my making them act out stories we learn each month. Our first is Goldie Locks.
I tried them out, easy to hold, a perfect fit for my puppet stage.
So that invention was fun.
So onto other things I did today. Hoping this works this year too.
JOURNALS.
I'm doing a couple different kinds. Here's one kind:
I got a little bit of inspiration from everything out there on pre-school and K journals. But I like to make and invent. Plus this year I decided to use the 25 cent notebooks I got at Walmart over the expensive three dollar or more ones at Lakeshore. So I made a sample for September. I'm working on a letter a week-in order.
Here I put on puffy paint covers I have no idea why, except I had puffy paint.
And here is my ABC wall that I'm starting to show the first September letters we are learning. I found worksheets did not do much for this learning ABC's last year. So I'm doing things a different way, a home-made way, to see what comes of this.
So basically I put the letters in their book in highlighter so they can trace it with crayon. I'll be demonstrating that, putting a cute green sticker on where to start the letter.
Then I made these little kis, I call them puzzle kits, they glue together to make an animal that starts with that letter. I'm teaching gluing with glue sticks. Following directions, assembly. Alligator has a rectangle, tail, triangle, eye. It is made of two colors. So in doing the page we hit a lot of things. I did not use a pre-made pattern. I just make them-or my family thinks of them, my daughter made "dog."
At the end of the year it's for the children to take home. I think it's cute. I have other journal ideas. This is one we do once a week.

So that's not a "worksheet" and I think it'll be fun.
Chow.
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