Happenings With Hemme - Blog

Happenings With Hemme

My Summer Away From School

8/6/2018

My summer was full of family!! My 2 oldest got to visit the beach for the 1st time. Destin, Florida is a BEAUTIFUL beach. I highly recommend it.

While we were in Florida we went to Orlando and of course, Disney World. I remember Disney World as a kid and loved it then, but as a parent of two Disney loving kids, this trip was much more than I could dream of. Dreams do come true.

LOTS of family time.

The 4th of July is one of my favorite holidays. (Here's a picture of my youngest) You will notice I am "one of those moms" who dresses her kids matchy matchy. They might hate me when they get older, but for now it's just adorable.

My husband and I were able to get away and go to Pittsburgh. WOW, it sure is the city of bridges. Just breathtaking.

Lastly, Mrs. McMellen, Ms. Kris, and I followed up with our tradition of wrestling/dressing a HOG. Mrs. Vaught convinced us to do it 3 years ago. Now it's a tradition.

You're looking at the
3rd Place team!!

Who says Preschool teachers
aren't fierce? ha ha

As much as I loved my summer with family, I am SO ready to see my other kiddos and get another year started.

2018 Preschool Graduation

5/15/2018

CONGRATS preschool graduates!!

Here is the link to the Graduation Slideshow!!!

www.wevideo.com/view/1140702799

Last Week of School

5/15/2018

We started implementing STEM tubs this year. STEM stands for Science, technology, engineering, and math. The purpose of the STEM tubs is for the students to completely learn on their own. It builds problem-solving skills and students have to collaborate with other students. I love to sit back and watch them create, play, converse, and learn.

We busted out the trikes and bikes this last week of school.

*Did you know that peddling a bicycle and potty training go hand-in-hand. If a child cannot peddle a bike, they most likely aren't ready to be potty trained.

Our 3/4 year old class is ready for their 2nd year.
Most of them can recognize their own name!! The next step is writing it!!

A BIG Thank You to our guest reader, Mrs. Kleinschmidt!
You brought so much JOY to our classroom!!

From Egg to Chick

4/20/2018

The Saline County University Extension Office was kind enough to supply us with incubators and eggs. The kids could not wait for the chicks to hatch.
They loved seeing them peck their way through the eggs.

The chicks FINALLY hatched and all the kids wanted to do was hold the chicks. Can you blame them?

"So fluffy" -Karla, 5 year old

"Mrs. Hemme can I take the chick to my casa?" -Javier, 5 year old

Some of the chicks were very loud.

We practiced sharing and taking turns.

Bugs & Insects

4/18/2018

We charted, Are You Scared of Bugs? Then we talked about why or why not.
I heard MANY bug stories.

The morning class charted the same thing only using the SMART Board.

Another one of Eric Carle's GREAT books, "The Very Quiet Cricket."

Even our center time revolved around bugs and insects. This involved sorting and fine motor skills. Using tweezers requires lots of finger muscles. These girls did great!

I love this version of "The Very Hungry Caterpillar." It's very animated with music. The kids stayed engaged the whole time.

"In The Tall Tall Grass," is a very easy read. This story goes great with the next activity.

The kids got to make a bug habitat. Fork painting looks just like grass. Then they use their fingerprints to put bugs in the grass.

The 4 year olds counted as high as they could, then made fingerprint bugs.
I love how these turned out.

We sorted bugs on the Smart Board. We had a great class discussion.

Look at the afternoon class' cute little shape bumble bees. This took a lot of listening and following directions.

The 3 year old class charted their favorite bug. This is a new chart style. The students had to first tell the class their favorite bug and then find a "matching bug". Notice none of them are the same. It required several skills. We have been working extra hard on answering questions in the sentence form, "My favorite bug is _______."

The 4 year old class charted their favorite bug on the Smart Board!

We finished the week with a BUG HUNT!! The kiddos had SO much fun!
We explored, dug holes, and got a little dirty.

Farm Week

4/13/2018

MY FAVORITE WEEK is here...FARM week!!! I just had to post a few pictures of the farm and our family on the farm. There's nothing better than raising kids on the farm.

Enough about me...we started our week brainstorming what we already knew about the farm. I love finding "real" pictures and showing them on the Smart Board.

3 Year Olds graphing their favorite farm animal.

4 year olds graphing their favorite farm animal on the Smart Board!

Our blocks are way more fun with farm animals.
You could hear the animal noises all the way down the hallway.

We got our eggs on Thursday. They should hatch this coming Tuesday! We introduced our eggs and incubators with charting.

We practiced color identification with the chick. I think we said the word yellow 50 times today. Then we cut our chicks out. Lots of fine motor practice!

Am I A Farm Animal sorting activity. We did this as a class and talked about why or why not the animal would be on a farm.

Do I Belong on a Farm Smart Board Activity!!

The afternoon class sang, "Old MacDonald" then chose their favorite farm animal to put on their very own farm.

These farm stories were completely student done. They were able to arrange their farm with whatever they wanted. Then they even wrote their own stories.
Very creative.

Sing-A-Long

4/13/2018

Our Spring Sing-A-Long was so much fun. The kiddos loved having their families watch them perform. Check out our video at the bottom.

www.wevideo.com/view/11135709100

Springtime

4/5/2018

I love Eric Carle books.
"The Tiny Seed" is a wonderful introduction to this week.

We made flowers for our family dinner.
The 3 year old class made shape flowers. Completely student made.
The 4 year old class made fine motor flowers and even wrote their name.

We had to make these cute butterflies.
How to Make:
*Color coffee filters with markers
*Spray with a water bottle (the colors will bleed)
*Let dry
*Create your butterfly by tying a pipe cleaner around center

education.com is a great partner with Early Childhood education. This next activity the students LOVED. I think their flowers had too many petals, if that's possible.

We made our own "Name Flowers" next.
The almost Kindergartners are getting really good at their names.

"When Spring Comes," is another cute read aloud to put up on the Smart Board.

We colored, cute, glued, and ordered flowers by size.
These skills have come a long way!

Springwater Field Trip

3/26/2018

Our Field Trip to Springwater was one of our favorites! The students were able to tour all the greenhouses, learn all about flowers, and they even got a little dirty planting flowers.

Rainbows

3/14/2018

We busted out the chains this week. The 3 year old class really enjoyed them!

"A Rainbow of My Own," is a cute book. It's short and sweet and kept the kids interested the whole time.

Both classes charted their favorite color of the rainbow.

We did LOTS of fine motor practice this week. Then we asked lots of WH questions.

The 3 year olds got to do a little finger painting.
Each child counted out gold coins and glued them on their paper.

We went on a name hunt in the morning class. Every student had their name written on each color of paper. This was a fun listening and following direction game.
Most of the students can recognize their name by now.
For those that couldn't, this was great practice.

Rainbow write with our names was fun. I did this during small group/center time. As the student colored the letter, I was questioning them. "What letter is that?" "What sound does that letter make?" "Who else's name starts with a ___?" (These WH questions are important especially when they go to Kindergarten.

Our science experiment that was a bit of a fail...

What you need:
5 clear cups
1 bag of Skittles
warm water
Dropper
Tablespoon

Steps:
1. put a few Tablespoons of warm water in each cup.
2. place __ Skittles in each cup (in order of the rainbow)
2 red, 4, orange, 6 yellow, 8 green, 10 purple
3. let them dissolve
4. with an eye dropper transfer the colors to another clear cup, starting with purple.

***If this works correctly all the colors will stay separate and look like a rainbow. The reason why this happens is because the more dense liquid goes to the bottom. The liquid with more sugar=more dense. ***

The students helped count out the Skittles. We used words like more, less, most, few.

This is what the experiment should have looked like. Oh well, all scientists fail at some point...right?!?

The kids were very encouraging.
"It's okay Mrs. Hemme. We can try again tomorrow." -Cory, 4 year old

RAINBOW HUNT time. This was a scavenger hunt that the students LOVED.
There were 9 clues to find the rainbow with treasure.

St. Patrick's Day

This book brought up so many ideas and imaginations started flowing. I loved the conversations that came after reading this book!

We did a little bit of St. Patrick's Day learning. These are 2 Smart Board learning activities. As always, anytime I use the Smart Board the students LOVE it!!

Both of these activities were number practice. Above-they were dragging and dropping the correct number of coins in the pot of gold.
Below-they were matching the number to the correct quantity.