Sunday, October 27, 2013

Suesses oder Saures! Trick or Treat!

Suesses oder Saures!
This is the German version of Trick or Treat! When we first started teaching in Germany, Halloween was a holiday celebrated by only the Americans. Now our German friends decorate their homes with jack-o-lanterns, witches and ghosts. They even join us on base, dressing up in costumes and trick-or-treating and visiting the haunted house sponsored by military members! 

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Had to share this picture of scarecrows that my German friend made me for my classroom!

 

 This is a picture of my front porch bench. Our American Culture goes wherever we live!

This is a “Before and After” picture of last year’s Halloween Candy basket.  It’s slowly catching on but hopefully this wonderful part of our culture will become more widespread!
 
Tt is nice to be able to share this holiday with our German friends, but not all Americans celebrate Halloween and as fun as this special day can be, you may not be able to celebrate it in the classroom. Most young children are very aware of Halloween and the excitement of dressing up in a costume and going door-to-door collecting lots of Halloween treats.
So how do you handle this in the classroom? As classroom teachers we respect the different cultures and beliefs of our students and parents and try to find a happy medium. So instead of celebrating Halloween, we celebrate the story Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak. Children love hearing and talking about Max and the Wild Things! We spend the week talking about the book, the characters, real and pretend, vocabulary and acting like wild things during our Wild Thing Parade around the school wearing masks made by the children and wearing Bugles as our claws. The children love it!


Here are more pictures of Fall activities from this past week. 
Also started a Veterans Day project to share with the post office and grocery store.  It comes from a sell product.
 
 
If you would like to own this sentence activity, follow thebeezyteacher on bloglovin’  OR if you already follow then follow us on TpT! 
 
Have a fun and safe Halloween - I'm off to the states again so have a great week!

 



Thursday, October 24, 2013

Educents in Europe!

     Hey, Guess what?  Educents is rapidly growing and has crossed the pond over to Europe!   If you’ve never heard of them let me share a bit of info about them.  They are a new company that organizes incredible discounts on educational materials.  They offer a number of teacher made products for teachers, and parents who homeschool.   I have teamed up with Educents to offer you this Early Math Skills Bundle at a huge discount for a limited time!
 

 
Lay a strong mathematical groundwork with this Early Math Skills Bundle! Includes “Rounding up Numbers,” “Linking Language to Math,” “Number Art” and two seasonal Math Journals. They’re great for morning warm ups, seat work, or end of the day activities. They are teacher designed to be used with struggling kindergarten and first grade students, or to support math readiness in pre-K or younger students who need to be challenged!
 


 
 
 
So head on over to Educents when you are ready and stock up on this amazing bargain!
 
 

Sunday, October 20, 2013

Colors of Fall!

Yay! Fall is here! Being from Texas, we thought there were only two seasons, but now that we live in a place that has all four seasons, we have come to love the season of fall. What a wonderful time to use all of our senses to enjoy the season. From seeing the leaves turn to beautiful reds, oranges, and yellows, to tasting fresh picked apples or homemade pumpkin soup. And what an exciting time for children to explore and learn using their senses! There are so many great activities to do inside and outside the classroom during this time of year.
 

Here are some of the Fall activities we did over the last few weeks:

 
 We also did some of the activities from this freebie!  Follow us on bloglovin and I'll email you the freebie (13 pages)!

 
As we near the end of October, it’s also time to put away the collection of Oktoberfest mugs (won’t tell you how many in the collection – but I do have one for each year! You do the math).
 

 Have a great Fall week! 

Sunday, October 6, 2013

Parents - Can't Live With Them? or Can't Live Without Them?

Parents of our students, can’t live with them, can’t live without them! Most of the parents of our students are wonderful and are great partners in helping their child grow socially, cognitively and physically with us during the school year. But there are always a couple that want to push you over the edge of sanity.

The pre-school classes in our school district require parental involvement through volunteering in the classroom. It is a great program that gives parents the opportunity to observe and interact with their child and other children in a school setting. The premise being that the educational setting and the teacher as a model will help parents with educational and discipline techniques at home. And it works! It is wonderful to hear stories from the parents about how they used something they observed in the pre-school classroom to help their child/children at home. And the children in the classroom benefit most of all! It is thoroughly heartwarming to see the joy on a child’s face when their mom or dad comes in to help.

Although guidelines are clearly stated before parents begin volunteering, there are some parents whose actions tend to weaken the goals of the program and criticize about having to volunteer in the classroom. There are others who express adverse opinions. And then, there are those parents who question EVERYTHING you do. We have no problem explaining what and why we do what we do in the classroom, but it is disheartening at times when it feels like you are continually having to defend the career choice that you love to a parent whose child is benefitting the most in your classroom!
 
BUT we do know that a parent is a child’s first teacher and we are very thankful that most parents are more than happy to share their child with us for a school year. J
 
That being said, please take the time to watch the video clip that shows how important a parent is in a child’s life and let us know what you think.




Should teachers have an open door policy for parents to come in to volunteer in the classroom or not?




Have a great week! Off for a week and switching hats to assume a parent role to attend my son’s wedding! (I promise to be a positive parent and behave!) LOL!