Transportation...continued

We wrapped the unit on transportation last week. We did a class graph on means of transportation.

We read a lot of books by Donald crews. Harbor, School Bus, Sail Away and Freight train were all great books but the book that i would like to mention is "Let's Go" by Anthara Mohan.

 It is very suitable for Indian context and the book has great illustrations. It can also be used as a book for counting. It is unfortunate that in India,we don't have too many child friendly books of good quality but Tulika Publishing is doing a great job on that front. I highly recommend their books to all those who deal with young children. You can visit their blog below:

Tulika Publishers

I had to take an idea from Deanna Jump and we sang the wheels of the bus song with a fun twist to it.

You can find the wordings for this song by clicking on the link below:

mrsjumpsclass.blogspot.

We wrapped up the unit by doing a Show and Tell. Children used waste material and made vehicles. These are some of the vehicles they made.

The bus was made with a cardboard box and bottle lids.

The air plane was made with a plastic bottle.

The train was made with cardboard boxes and medicine bottle lids.

This cycle was made using bangles.

I hope these activities give you ideas for the transportation unit. If you need more ideas, you can download my unit on transportation from TPT or follow the other post which i did for this unit.

Gratitude part 2

Just a week of school was enough to pull me back to reality. I was still somewhere on cloud 9, savoring the peace and bliss acquired from the holiday . But i say this with no regrets since this new year i have promised to be more grateful about the things in my life. Instead of feeling miserable about things that cause stress in my life , i  have vowed to find ways to come out of difficult situations positively. I was introduced to Deepak Chopra's soul healing meditations by a dear friend. The CD has 8 guided meditations with soothing instrumental music. My favorite is the heart meditation and it relaxes me immediately when i am stressed about something. Someone was kind enough to put it on you tube. You can listen to it by clicking on the video.

And since i want to sound efficacious about my brand new attitude, i would like to talk about the book" I am Thankful Each Day" by P.K. Hallinan.

I have been intending to read this book for some time now and was ecstatic when i received it during the first week of January. I had ordered it on Amazon and though they did take time to deliver it, i think it came to me at the right time.

The book has simple language and fantastic illustrations and children immediately related to it. We brainstormed various things we were thankful for and made a class book. These are few of the things they came up with.

If you would like to download the cover of the book, please click on the image below:

Also since this was the first time i made a new year resolution, i was pretty excited to hear from my kiddos, what would they like to do in 2014. The idea for the craft came from Pinterest.

 Children first did a countdown from 10-0 and shouted happy new year and made noise with the party blow- outs. Since they got an opportunity to make noise they were easily able to part with the blow-outs and use it in the craft. :)

This is what some of them said

We also continued with the transportation unit and i would be sharing the pictures very soon. So have a great day and be grateful !

Transportation Pack

Happy New Year to all the fantastic people out there.I had a great start to the year as i rang in the new year at the White Beach in Boracay, Philippines. It is an amazing place with fantastic beaches, great food and spas!

 I also went back to Singapore to relive the best years of my life so far ..... even though it was only for a few days :(  i felt rejuvenated, happy, calm, ecstatic and on top of the world. Though i was feeling bad about coming back to the chaos and craziness that defines my life at the moment, i  decided to stick by the lines of Dr Seuss to help my self feel a little better and it did help :)

"Don't be sad that its over, be happy that it happened"

And sure enough the muddle and laziness of the vacation did evaporate in thin air after going back to school.But i will start enjoying school once the kids come back... yup they get extended holidays!!

I was doing the unit on transportation in my class before the holidays and thought of creating some activities for independent and group work for my kiddos. I have completed it and  posted the unit on TPT . You can click on the link to download it

Transportation Pack

                                                         

 I am also sharing few pictures of the things i did in my class. This is a center area with toy cars and road signs.

I made cutouts of different vehicles and wrote facts on each and used it for interactive reading.

Children learnt a poem about traffic light and made their own craft. They tried spelling the colors of the traffic light.

 This is a bulletin board which displays children's craft work.

While learning about water transport, we did an experiment on floating and sinking. Children first predicted and then made recordings of what will float and what will sink.

This is a display of all the craft activities they did related to the topic.

Since the topic will be continued this month , i will come back to post more pictures and ideas.

Christmas

Christmas is one festival which is celebrated with  much gusto in India just like the festival of lights- Diwali. It brings with it cheer , joy and Holidays! :) Our school celebrates Christmas with a lot of enthusiasm. Each teacher in school has become a Secret Santa for another teacher. Everybody receives a message/gift/ basically something to uplift the persons spirit. I think it is a wonderful way to appreciate each other and make somebody's day. I have been relying heavily on Pinterest to find some creative gift ideas. These are a few that i sent across:

This was a pack of popcorn with a tag that said "For a very popular teacher". I downloaded the template from Domesticatedlady.com

 I also sent a pair of scissors with a note that said "You are a cut above the rest"

This was a chocolate which i wrapped in white paper and made a snowman on it to give a festive feel.

Classroom decorations were in full swing and my door idea came from pinterest.

Rudolph is my favorite reindeer. He had to show up in my class!

Children made snowmen and gingerbread men.

We even did a countdown for Christmas by adding a puff of white on Santa's beard. The template is from invitingprintables.blogspot.in

Since , children always talk about what all they would like to get from Santa during Christmas, i thought it would be an appropriate time to introduce the concept of giving and why its important. I used the book, "The giving Tree" by Shel Silverstein.

Children made illustrations on what all they would like to give to others.

While most talked about giving materialistic things, some sweeties really got thinking and came up with  wonderful responses 

It touched my heart to see how fantastically children responded to the idea of giving to others.

And since we are talking about giving, I made few printable's of Christmas songs. You can download them for free by clicking on the images below.

Hope you all have a wonderful Christmas! 

Integral Education

Last week, i got an opportunity to visit a fabulous school in my city. The school follows an integral approach to education and for me, it was a riveting and an enriching experience as i was oblivious to this kind of approach to education.
The school primarily believes in developing expression, observation, imagination, concentration, exploration, discovery and listening skills in children. The interactions i had with people in the school were captivating and thought provoking. I am no expert in Integral education but i would like to share my understanding of it through this post. Integral education looks at the totality of a person. The practitioners of this system believe that no part of being is superfluous and hence every part needs to be educated. There are 5 important aspects to education: physical, vital, mental, spiritual and psychic. 
Recognizing the voice of our physic being is important. It is a tool which is within all of us and listening to it is what will make us better human beings. To read more about the 5 aspects of education, you can follow the 
link:  Integral education

Many a times as an educator i feel that the burden of following a curriculum and expecting all children to perform at the same level does prove to be stressful and the love for learning that we want to inculcate in our children somehow gets lost. But integral education makes learning a life long process. It teaches us to connect and listen to our inner voice and not let it become submissive. 

I intend on reading the book: Igniting Brilliance: Integral education for the 21st Century by Willow Dea to get a better perspective on Integral Education. I will share my thoughts on it soon.

Appreciation

Appreciation of any kind is imperative for an individual's growth. But i feel that in the field of Teaching, it is even more vital as there is no monetary motivation for teachers. So what encourages teachers? Is it their students success, self motivation, peer appreciation, inspiring mentors or simply a desire to better oneself and make a bigger difference in the lives that one touches? For me, motivation is a cocktail of all the above things. When my students respond positively to my lessons, i feel motivated. When they shower me with their love by giving me a hug early in the morning or making a card, i feel ecstatic. When parents tell me how much their kids missed me in the summer break and wanted to come back to school, i feel appreciated. And i think it is these little things in life which makes a teachers world go round.

Just today a little girl in my class made a drawing for me. She said i was a beautiful princess with a jeweled crown and a diamond necklace (WOW!)I loved the diamond necklace part...jokes apart, her sweet gesture made my day.

I am on a motivation high these days. My school organizes an annual appreciation event, where employees(teachers, administrators, support staff) get recognized and praised for their efforts. I was chosen by my peers for inspiring them the most. 

It made me feel great that my work inspires others. I owe my learning to a lot of people in this field. I have already mentioned Deanna Jump in one of my previous posts.She inspires me in my day to day teaching. My first mentor - Mrs Bagnato at The American Embassy School blew me off with her innovative ideas and introduced me to a whole lot of concepts that i still do in my class. Dr Bindu, Dean of NPSI School is a dynamic leader whose passion for teaching influenced me a great deal. Expressing gratitude and appreciation positively impacts individuals. Sometimes in the hustle and bustle of life we forget how much we have and concentrate only on what we don't have. We don't appreciate others and forget to thank god for the things he has given us.

In class, I encourage my little sweeties to appreciate their friends on a regular basis. During circle time, they say one nice thing about a friend. We also catch each other doing the right things and praising that effort. Thank-you's are also a big thing in my class. I am intending to do a a mini lesson on appreciating what we have and the importance of being thankful by using the book "I am thankful each day" by P K Hallinan. I will do a post soon on it.

Till then, think of  somebody/something you are thankful for and appreciate it.  :)  

Alphabet Worksheets....Continued

Continuing from yesterday...I have uploaded all the letter worksheets on my Teachers Pay Teachers store. You can go directly  to My TPT Store or click on links below to access respective worksheets

Alphabet Worksheets( F- J)
Alphabet Worksheets (K-Z)

Hope these sheets prove beneficial.