Summer vacation

Forced relaxation.

It’s summer vacation! Summer is a time to rest, relax and rejuvenate. For me summertime means spending time at home with my daughter and husband. I love reading books, swimming in the pool and crafting. This summer is a little different. I’m recovering from foot surgery so I’m experiencing what I call “forced relaxation.” I’m in a cast and have to keep my foot up so my normal summer activities are limited. I’m not complaining but you can only sit around for so long before you are tired of sitting. In a week and a half, I’ve read four books, watched two full seasons of shows and even crafted a bit but I finally needed a break from relaxing. Typically, I wait till the end of July or the beginning of August before I start getting organized for school, but this year I started before the end of June. My brain just needed to work. I’ve been creating materials, re-vamping forms, planning new lessons and creating lists of more things I can do for school.

Anchor chart for how to read a book.

Every year I struggle with book time. We have a story time so my students can listen to a story read by an adult but when it comes to looking at books by themselves they’re lost. Many of my students come to preschool with little book experience. They don’t know how to handle books or look at books without an adult reading or directing the activity. I know this isn’t a skill they should necessarily come to school with, but it’s a skill I can teach. This year I have a plan for teaching what to do at book time. I was reading a post on Love Those Kinders about the five R’s of summer. She featured a picture of her book area and the light bulb went on for me. I need an anchor chart and some mini lessons to present around how to read a book. I can cover these lessons over the first two weeks of school so the children can quickly learn what’s expected at book time. I searched trying to find the chart in the picture with no luck, so I made my own. I also expanded upon each of the steps to include more details in a mini poster. I plan to pair the chart, the mini posters and the book How to Read a Story by Kate Messner to create my lessons on how to read and handle books. I’m hoping it improves book time in my classroom this fall. 

Mini posters for how to read a book.

Eight Great Reasons to Teach Preschool

Preschool teachers may never be rich and famous but they sure do have a lot of reasons to love what they do. Here are a few:

1. Preschoolers say the funniest things and can make you laugh to the point of crying.

2. The hugs are in abundance. A heartfelt hug can brighten your day, even when it’s accompanied by a particularly wet and sticky nose wipe on your shirt.  :)

3. A preschooler's job is to learn through play. Being a preschool teacher allows you to sing, dance, play and act goofy all day. Best of all you get paid to do it!

4. Preschool teachers get to be creative and share their creativity and talents with their students.

5. Watching a child learn and grow before your eyes is amazing. Preschool children change so much over the course of a year. Preschoolers also teach the adults in their lives new things all of the time.

6. Preschool children have a natural curiosity and love of learning.  Every experience allows them to learn something new.

7. As a preschool teacher you get to work with some amazing adults. The therapists, paraprofessionals and school staff are incredibly talented. They are masters at working with young children. They teach the children and us as teachers a lot. 

8. Preschool art projects and preschool drawings just make you happy. I dare you to look at a brightly colored piece of art created by a preschooler without smiling. When children bring me their artwork as a gift, it melts my heart.

With the changes in education, preschool feels like it could be the last frontier of fun in school. So take every opportunity to laugh, sing, create and play with the preschoolers in your life! Make learning fun again.

Play - Changing It Up

My dramatic play area has seen lots of change this year. It's been in one area, but it's had 6 different play opportunities.  I like changing up the play opportunities because each new play center has brought new materials and new play opportunities for my students.  Creating my own visuals has allowed me to customize each of my dramatic play centers to meet my student's interests. I have a dramatic play bundle with 7 different dramatic play centers in my TPT store.

You might be asking yourself, where do the props come from? I've collected most of the props from my house, family members, co-workers and friends. I've also purchased some props and containers. The Dollar Tree is one of my favorite places to find props and materials for school. They have a great selection of different colored containers and baskets that can be reused to create your different dramatic play areas. Several of my co-workers are always surprised at the stuff I find and can't understand why I love The Dollar Tree. I love it because it's cheap and the possibilities are endless! You just have to go in with an open mind and an eye for creativity. Amazon is another place I've found props from. If you can't find it at home and The Dollar Tree doesn't have it, try Amazon, they have everything!  Yes, it's more expensive but if I need something to finish out an area, Amazon is sure to have it and they deliver it directly to my house.  :)  Another option is to ask parents to lend or donate items for your dramatic play area.

Play is the main goal in my dramatic play center but that doesn't mean I can't add in some literacy, math or science. Using props and visuals creates an opportunity to expose the children to print, writing and math/science concepts. They are having so much fun, it's still just play to them and that is alright with me. You might notice the photos are just of the dramatic play area and don't show the students playing. I'm a special education teacher who works in an integrated classroom. Confidentiality and protecting privacy are important. I don't share pictures of my students using materials or the dramatic play sets because I wouldn't want someone sharing pictures of my child, even with the faces blurred or obstructed. Besides pictures with blurred faces are a little creepy. 

-Oh Miss Jill

Dramatic Play Area

Most preschoolers like the dramatic play area. I typically I've had my dramatic play area set up as a kitchen or a dress up area. It was BORING! The kids mostly dumped out the food and it felt like there was very little productive play. It was also a big mess to clean up at the end of play time.

As a preschool teacher I know play is important. Last summer I read a book about the importance of play in early childhood and decided I wanted to change up my dramatic play area. I brainstormed and planned out a few dramatic play centers. I love to craft and create so I gathered props and materials and made visuals. My first dramatic play center was a Farmer's Market. It was a huge hit! I loved it and better yet the kids loved it. I started seeing more productive play and the labels helped make clean up easier.


I decided to create some more dramatic play centers for my classroom. I have used the same area and furniture to create several different dramatic play opportunities this year.

This was our baby center which was set up to teach and encourage doll play.

We set up a science lab in our dramatic play area.

 Our science lab allowed us to explore science materials and try experiments.

 We set up a vet center this year too.

We even created these crates for our animals.

Our construction zone was a lot of fun. We stocked it with different building materials and props.

During our fairytale unit we set up a fairytale land, complete with a pop up castle tent and lots of fairytale dress up props. This was so much fun and encouraged tons of fabulous pretend play. There were dragons, knights and witches casting magic spells on the land.

 Right now my classroom is set up as a restaurant. That means food. The good news is the play has more productive, meaning there is less food dumping then when I just had a kitchen area.

We've even talked about the jobs people have in a restaurant. Chef, waiter/waitress, cashier, dishwasher, customer, etc. This week we're going to try doing a mock restaurant experience with real food where the children get to try all five of these jobs out first hand. Wish us luck!

This year I've been building up my dramatic play area. I've collected some great props and have lots of visuals to use. The visuals can be found in my TPT store. Of course there are lots of dramatic play sets available for purchase or you can always make your own. Just have fun with it and create centers your children are interested in. You'll be glad you did.

Birthday Display Giveaway

This is the birthday bulletin board in my classroom. I originally created a set of pink cupcakes for my birthday display then realized they didn't match the red and black color scheme I had in my room. I went back to the drawing board and made these black and white cupcakes for my classroom instead. Of course I had already printed, laminated and cut out the whole pink set. To celebrate the start of my new teaching blog I'm giving away a hard copy set of pink birthday display cupcakes. The cupcakes and candles are already laminated and cut out so there is very little prep required.

Leave a comment if you're interested in winning this set of pink cupcakes to use as a birthday display for your classroom. I'll randomly choose a winner on November 16th. Thanks for visiting my blog!

- Oh Miss Jill

Weekly To Do List

A free copy of my weekly to do list can be found here in my TPT shop. 

Getting organized then staying organized throughout the school year can be a challenge. Working as a special educator there are plans to be made, evaluations and assessments to give, materials to gather and then lots of paperwork to complete and file. To keep myself organized I created a template for my weekly to do list. Each week I fill out a new sheet with the tasks I need to complete for the week. I love checking off items I’ve completed. If there is an item I didn’t complete I just move it to the next week’s list. In preschool I’m always dragging materials in from home so I have a section for things to bring in or buy for school.

I recently saw the quote “Teaching is the only profession where you steal things from home and bring them to work.”  This makes me laugh because I’m always stealing things from home. Over the years I’ve actually purchased doubles of several items so I have one for home and one for school. No joke I have two irons, two mini laminators, two label makers and two heavy duty three whole punches just to name a few items. Do you steal items from home to bring to your classroom? What do you do to stay organized throughout the school year?

The Farm Stand is Open

We've been exploring fall topics such as leaves, apples and pumpkins in my classroom this month. Today we transformed our kitchen area into a farm stand. The students will have the opportunity to play with and shop for fruits & vegetables at our farm stand. I used a variety of tutorials to create the felt fruit and vegetables, then paired them up with my farm stand visuals. I'm so happy with how it turned out. I can't wait to see the kids using this center. The farm stand visuals can be found here in my TPT shop.