Advent Adventure: Day 1

It's here! December first is tomorrow! I know many of you are feeling the stress of the holidays because the to do lists seem to grow no matter how much you accomplish and there seems to be a never ending collection of events to attend during this month. Sometimes we let ourselves get to the point of being so overwhelmed that we heave a sigh of relief when the holidays have come to an end.

I am somewhere in the middle. I absolutely love this time of year, but I feel the stress that this month can bring. That is why I am making a point this year to take a little time each day to do a few small activities with my daughter to center our hearts and mind on the reason for the season. The activities come a from a packet that I created which can be found here. I will be walking through several days as a time here on the blog starting tomorrow so you can see what it consists of. With that being said, here is day 1 on our Advent Adventure.

Our focus verse for tomorrow is Isaiah 9:6 and the focus or theme is everlasting. We will use the verse card to read the verse, but since I have a preschooler I will have her color the alphabet letters we are working on to get her to focus on it as we talk about it.

Once we have finished our verse, we will move on to the activity for the day which is making an Advent paper chain. Each link of the chain has the day and a verse for the Christmas story that we will read each time we remove a link. I printed our pages off in red and green to make it a festive decoration for our daughter's room.

After we are finished with our paper chain we will move on to the story and the song. Surprisingly, What is Christmas? is not one of the many Christmas stories that we own, so we had to look on Amazon to find a copy. If you click on the book title, it will take you to the book on Amazon to purchase it. If you are not able to order the book, there is also a YouTube link in the packet to a read aloud of the story.

To finish up our study, we will listen to the wonderful Christmas song, God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen.

This is how we will begin our study of Advent. Tomorrow I will post the information for days 2-6.

Ashley

Embracing Advent

I love all things Christmas! It is my favorite time of year. The books, songs, decor, coffee flavors, and so much more are just so magical. One of those magical parts for me as a Christian is Advent. I have always enjoyed Advent with my students and family, but this year I decided I wanted to make it a more prominent part of our home life. I want to make sure that my daughter focuses on the real meaning for this beautiful season each day, even while being bombarded by everything else. I looked around for awhile to see if I could find something that would work for our family and be engaging to our little one, but all I could find that I liked were in pieces. I don't know about you, but for me, having things in pieces is not a good idea. I lose track of things. This is where my brain took off.

I decided that I would create my own Advent Adventure. I knew what I wanted and I worked to create all the components needed to make it meaningful, engaging, and have as much in one place as possible. I created a day by day packet so that we can focus on Advent daily. Each day has a theme, a scripture passage card, an activity, a story, and a song. I will be including links to song videos and story read alouds on you tube for as many books as I can. This will hopefully help you on those days when you may not have the story in your collection. This is something that can be done at home as a family or in the classroom with your students. Below you will see an image with a few of the things that you can find in this packet.

If you would like more information about this packet you can check out my stories on instagram or the video on my Facebook page.

Instagram: 1st_grade_jungle

Facebook: First Grade Jungle

I am so very excited to start this journey through Advent with my little one. It keep our hearts and our minds focused on the real meaning of the season and it gives us something special to do together each day. 

An Advent Adventure

Ashley

Princess Themed Preschool Activities

Hi Everyone,

Ok over the last couple of months I have found myself looking at my sweet girl through the eyes of a mom but also through the eyes of a teacher. The mom in me says she is perfect in every way and a beautiful blessing. The teacher in me sees all the other things and this is where my two worlds are colliding. I want to help her with the things she is struggling with, but I know that I she won't work with me unless I make it a little fun for her. So that brings me to what I wanted to share with you: princess themed preschool activities.

The last few months I have slowly been putting together little puzzles and activity pages with a princess theme to help my sweet girl practice those skills that she needs to have before she heads into kindergarten next August. She loves that everything has a princess, characters from a princess movie, or items from princess movies. It is making working with her fun for both of us. The first packet I put together has alphabet puzzles with upper and lower case letters, number puzzles with several different ways of showing the number, color puzzles, a fine motor practice sheet, and color coloring books. I also included the princess bingo game I made for her to play at home just because it is fun. Below you can see pictures of each of these items.

The second file I just created recently. This file has princess themed alphabet and number posters. The alphabet posters show the upper and lower case letters on the lines to show placement. They also have an image that has the sound that each letter makes. The number posters and 1-30 and show the number in a variety of ways. Below you can see a sample of what these look like.

With the alphabet posters, I printed them two ways. I printed them two to a page so that I can hang them on her bedroom door. We will point to letters and say what they are any time we enter or leave her room. The second way was six to a page. I did it this way so that I could hole punch them and put them on a ring. With them on a ring they can travel with me, which is perfect since we travel a lot over the next two months. The number posters are currently only printed six to a sheet so that they can be on a ring. I am not as focused on number recognition at the moment as I am letter recognition. Eventually I may print those larger so that they can be hung up somewhere in our house too.

These are just a few simple things that I have decided to use as a mom to help my daughter be ready for kindergarten. Links to both of the products can be found below if you would like to try them out. I am also working on a super hero themed set for little ones as well but that may not be available until after Christmas. We will see how the next few weeks go.

Princess Preschool Activities

Alphabet and Number Posters (Princess Themed)

Have a great day!

Ashley

Teaching the Creation Story - Preschool Style

I love teaching all things primary, but my favorite things to teach are Bible stories. There are so many amazing stories in the Bible and there are so many ways to teach them and integrate them into other subject areas.

This year I will be teaching Bible stories and their activities to my preschool age daughter. This is a first for me. We read Bible stories together but I have never put a focus on teaching it with fun activities and such before. I am excited to share these stories in a new way with her though.

The first story we focused on was the story of creation. I love this story, and there are so many activities that can be done along with this story. We chose to do two activities with this story. One worked on comprehension and some fine motor skills. The other worked on comprehension.

We began by reading the story from The Beginner's Bible. We read through it and talked about each day. I had her think of things that she notices for each day of creation to make it more personal to her. Then we began making our creation book.

The creation book had to be cut out and then we glued the pages onto colored construction paper. I then stapled the pages together to make it into a book. Once everything was cut, glued, and stapled we worked our way through the book coloring each page and reading the rhyme that went with it. Below you will see pictures of the process and some of the final pages.

The next time we talked about the creation story we read from The Beginner's Bible again and then we worked on mini days of creation puzzles. My daughter loves puzzles so this activity was a lot of fun for us to work on together and it was a fun way to review the story. Below you will see what some of these mini puzzles looked like.

Both of these activities came from a packet I created for my first graders several years ago. I just updated the file to include the preschooler friendly activities I used with my daughter. You can find these activities in my Days of Creation packet.

Ashley

Back to School

It's that time of year again. The back to school madness has commenced. The never ending to do lists have been growing at a steady rate and people are clogging the aisles of local stores trying to fulfill the school supply lists for all of their little ones.


Normally I am right in the middle of this madness but this year is a little different for me. I am not teaching this year. I will be an aid in a kindergarten classroom part time. Its different but exciting. I will get to spend a lot more time with my little one before she heads off to kindergarten in a year which I am very excited about.

One of the things that my little one and I love to do together is create things. We also love to show her teachers as well as those I work with that we are thinking of them and are thankful for all they do. I want my daughter to grow up understanding how hard her teachers work to give her all she needs to be successful in her academics. So for her Meet the Teacher event we decided to create a little survival kit for all her preschool teachers. It was a lot of fun to make and perfect for small budgets. We were able to get all our supplies at Target and Dollar Tree. You can see how they turned out in the picture below.

My little one also helped me put together a cute little gift for my new kindergarten team that I am helping out this year. Those items we found at Target.

The tags for both of these back to school gifts can be found in my Teacher Gift Tags Through the Year packet.

It was so much fun putting these together and it showed those teachers in our lives that we are thinking about them and thankful for all they do!!

Ashley

Monday Made It: Classroom Materials

Good Morning!

This morning I am linking up with Fourth Grade Frolics for her amazing Monday Made It linky. I have come across so many fun ideas through this linky.

I am truly blessed to work at a Christian school. I get to teach bible lessons each day and share my faith with my students daily. Along with their Bible lessons students are required to memorize a verse each week. I went through our Bible curriculum and pulled verses to go along with what we are learning each week or to go along with a special activity that is happening this week. I mapped it all out for the year and then made posters and score sheets to go along with it. I also updated the first grade verses for my teaching partner so we are both ready for the new school year.

I love working with vocabulary words and I really try to make sure that my kids know what words mean no matter what subject we are in. To go along with our new math curriculum I gave my math vocabulary packet a complete update so I can better utilize it and the math vocabulary with my kids. 

My last item for today is not a classroom item or product. Our home "office" has become the room where everything we don't want out goes to hide which made it super messy and cluttered. This meant that I would work on the floor in our bedroom, my daughter's playroom or the kitchen counter. Not ideal spaces but it worked. My hubby surprised me this weekend though by starting to set up the office as a real workspace for me. I have a new printer and when its completely set up I will have all my teacher tools out in the open with easy access and a comfy chair to work in. Its a little cluttered at the moment but its a start : ). So excited for everything to be set up now that its cleaned out again!!

Have a happy Monday!

Ashley

Move Your Bus: Ways to Keep the Bus Moving

Good Morning!

On this beautiful Sunday morning Cassandra and I are talking more about Move Your Bus by Ron Clark. This Sunday's topic is ways to keep the bus moving. 

As you read through this book Ron Clark lists so many ways to keep the bus moving but there are a few that really stand out to me. The first is to be positive and not spread the negative. Every organization is going to have its problems but continually gossiping about those problems doesn't make them go away it just spreads a negative vibe and slows the bus down. Instead focus on all the positive things that are happening and all the blessings that your organization has. This will help you to keep moving through any moments of struggle. Positive vibes keep you going!

The second is to work hard. Every job requires you to work hard and continually put in effort to keep the organization successful. When you have a feeling of entitlement you put in less effort and stop striving for greatness. This slows the bus down greatly. You need to always keep working and striving for greatness. Everyone on the bus should be putting in the time and effort to keep the bus moving and keep the organization successful. You are not entitled to your position.

The last one that stands out to me is being efficient. Make sure you are staying focused and doing your best to check things of your less. Staying focused and being efficient with your time and energy is important for you and for those around you. Your efficiency contributes to the team and keeps the bus moving. Letting things go slows everyone down. Always strive to complete things in a timely manner to keep the bus moving.

Thanks for reading my thoughts. Have a happy Sunday!

Ashley