it's all in the details...

our fine motor shelf ready to motor!

We're spending a few weeks reading books on trains and trucks. The library corner is stocked with books, we have an awesome thrifted wooden train and car set on our building table, and the shelves around the room are filled with activities centered around shapes and things that go. Here's a peek!

This is our Math Shelf.  It consists of two Ikea cabinets with the doors and extra shelves removed. We aim to keep it simple by placing one basket or tray of manipulatives for exploration on each shelf. We have been exploring shapes and colors in the room so our Math Shelf is full of happy shapes and colors. On the top shelf we have a basket of pattern blocks along with a book on shapes, and our cylinder stackers from Guidecraft* (via Zulily). On the bottom shelves we have a basket of Magformers*, and a basket of rainbow cubes.  During the week, the children bring the baskets to different areas to the classroom to explore. When they are finished and it is time to clean up, the fill the baskets and return them to the shelves (or any surface they think will suffice).

The felt train was made to go along with the book Freight Train* by Donald Crews. I did a big ol' eye batting at the mister to get him to draw me the template for these pieces. I have them somewhere in a file and when I find them I will scan them in so you can use them as well if you are interested. I introduce the pieces as I read the story. We then work on sorting our vehicle counters* as a group on our circle time rug. Later in the week, these felt pieces are moved all over the classroom and used in various ways. The counters too are used all over the room. While I set up the investigation on our Math table, I do not fret when the children decide to use them elsewhere. The table is a bit tall for them and they prefer to use the floor for the most part. 

On the art table I have set out tickets, hole punches, and crayons in a truck shaped container. The children spent the week making ticket collages and creating their own train tickets. We have an art shelf as well full of paper, glue, crayons, and markers. Next to the art shelf and table is our easel for painting. 

We have two waterfall style bookcases in our reading area. I hit up the public library every two weeks for books that fit various themes. here we have all things transportation. I want to write more about the books but am not sure if anyone is interested enough. 

Finally we have our fine motor shelf, which is a Kallax shelf from Ikea (the entire shelf can be seen in the top photo of this post). Here we have shape connectors, transportation lacing beads* (I picked these up from Target), a thrifted peg board, and gears from Plan Toys*. In front of our shelf is a coffee table that the kiddos bring the baskets down to for exploring. 

So there ya go! More details on what I use in my classroom and how we set it up. The baskets are all thrifted and we have a cabinet in the classroom where we stack up the unused baskets. I'm a basket hoarder and my teaching partner is not so we agreed that if it doesn't fit in the cabinet it goes! Thank goodness they stack so nicely! 

*all Amazon links are affiliated with my school, just so ya know. Thank you!

circle time shelf part 2

The top of our shelf. The boombox bit the dust a month or so ago but we keep it there as a space saver for the new soon-to-be box. Crossing fingers we get one before the year ends.  We feature the book of the week on the book-stand at the right.  The children know that whichever book is there we will most definitely be reading that week.

We use Mary Engelbreit's Mother Goose book in the classroom but I brought this one in as well as it is the one I grew up with (alongside this one). This little succulent garden is a smidge tired. I blame Home Depot and their wee collections that are GLUED in place. There are small rocks on top of the soil and the rocks are glued together making it ridiculously hard to separate and re-pot.

I'm working on teaching the kiddos about feelings and empathy. These wee kimochis are popular with the kiddos though they see every face as being either happy, sad, or angry. Even so they love them and we use them a lot.

My impromptu texture basket using what we had on hand. I want to make little texture pillows for next year. We'll see. Inside you will find things that are bumpy, coarse, fuzzy, smooth, soft and ridged. I also have a mystery bag that I use. The children pull out an object and we decide as a group who has a soft object, hard object, etc. We talk about using descriptive words and the children gain new vocabulary. It's pretty cool.

The whole pretty shelf. Next year we will be scootching it a bit to the left or maybe a lot and using some other shelf that is a little lower so as not to block our circle-time board.

Here's the view of our circle-time area from where the kiddos sit. You can see the mystery bag on top of the sharing chair which was intended to be the teacher's chair but we tend to plop ourselves down on the floor with the kiddos. The children place their sharing items on top and they know that anything on the chair is for eyes only until after sharing. Inside the ottoman you will find our bean bags which I had to hide because the kiddos like to throw them everywhere. When they get crazy with throwing I ask if they need to play the bean bag game then the top comes off, the bean bags are parceled out and they try throwing the bags into the chair. Sometimes they tell me they want to play it and we set it all up with tape on the floor and everything. I need to make new rainbow bean bags for next year as the bags we have are not able to be equally divided and the threes are very particular about that.

Group art created by both classes is put on this board along with our Nursery Rhyme of the week. The shelf to the right there is a puzzle shelf (I found this at the Goodwill outlet for $2!) On top of the shelf is this sweet little game that the children love. Leaning against the shelf is our song notebook, a cookie sheet for magnet play and drawing on, and a felt board for felt stories.

The children memorize a Nursery Rhyme each week and take turns reciting it in front of their friends. We learned this rhyme in sign language thanks to a lovely parent. I put the paint chips there to review our colors in rainbow order and sign language. We also practice putting them into a color wheel shape, and separating them into warm and cool colors (though the children really love making train tracks with them). Behind the purple you will see a few Spot It! cards. I gave my game away but had a sample pack that we use during math and/or discovery time.

That's it for our circle time area, I hope you had fun touring it with me!