It's Monday...err...Tuesday and time for a Tiny Tech Tip!

It's Monday and my kiddos are home because there's like a millimeter of ice on the road.  Now for all you northerner's, it's hard to believe, but in Texas a tiny bit of snow shuts down the city.  Seems strange, but it's true.  I guess when you don't have salt trucks and rely on sand it really changes the ballgame.

Anyway, I have been making a strong effort to post once or twice a week.  Why have a blog if you're not going to share right?!  The truth is I have all these ideas and cool activities that I do in class but, I am TERRIBLE about remembering to take pictures BEFORE I send them home!  So, yet another thing I am working to get better at!  I have finally found a picture editing program that I like (mainly because I've figured out how to use it and it requires very little effort).  It's called pizap so if you're like me and have struggled to find an editing app that you like, give it a try.  It's quick and easy, lemon squeezy!  Plus, you can use it on your phone for all those who are always on the go!  Pizap has a bunch of easy to use frames, stickers, and my FAVORITES are the funny faces and glasses which are featured in my pics below.  These are a MUST for disguising your kiddos in the pics you want to post AND much more appealing than just blocking or blurring out the face.

fun with borders, cut out tools and more!!

My days at school for the past few weeks has been filled with evaluating skills as we ready ourselves for spring parent conferences in preschool.  This is my first year with this school and it has been a LONG time since I have been in the preschool setting, so I have just tried to go along with the flow.  As we evaluate I am reminded of a training I attended long ago that stressed the old saying "begin with the end in mind".  In retrospect, how I wish I would have had this assessment at the beginning of the year.  Sure my team has been great with team planning and lesson sharing, but there are little things like teaching opposites(!) that may have been left unsaid.  My poor kiddos!  At least I have something to focus on besides letters and sounds for the next couple months. Here's a little peek at what my room has been looking like during all this evaluation.  We've been serious about evaluation (not!).

Fun with one to one correspondence. He looks pretty excited about this job!!

Show and Tell is a great way to evaluate oral language skills! Great Questioning strategies, listening skills and super for the self esteem!

Manipulatives and Number Cards to show Number Identification.  You can use anything you like for this.  I like to vary according to the kiddo.  This guy loves things with wheels, but dinosaures, gems, or even polly pockets would work.  Use your kiddos to drive your instruction.

Self correcting puzzles to practice sequencing; First, Next, Last!  They don't even realize they are learning!!!

Evaluation and Assessment is so much more fun at the Preschool Level!!  Below is the template I made for our spring conferences that are this week. 

spring conference template  or spring template as a google doc

Let me know if I did this right and you are able to download and edit.  If not, sorry I am still learning as I mentioned earlier.  Sharing docs is a lot easier on a website than a blog.  Please share if you know a better way...like I said, I LOVE to learn and am always open to help from my bloggy buddies!!  Well, that's all I've got for now!