We are expanding!! YAY!!!  We have outgrown our small little preschool trailer and now have too many school aged staff kids and DTS kids.  This is very exciting but also means that we have to find more teachers & more space.  YIKES!! 

No worries, our campus is expanding as well! We are almost completely finished with our newest building & have in fact already started moving some of our offices & classrooms over there.  This new building looks just like the onion/meringue-looking building to the right of our preschool trailer in the picture above but is now directly behind the preschool.  Now these classrooms aren't for our students, no, these classrooms are for our DTS, Bible School, Community Transformations and Development School, and the others we hope to start soon.  These classrooms are for the adults.  

With the added classrooms behind us, this frees up a classroom in front of us.  Last year we reconfigured the original meeting place on our campus into 2 separate classrooms with a game room and hangout space in between. We took this extra large tent and built walls and a ceiling creating a very nice place for our adult students to study in.  Well, now that they are moving, we get to take one of those classrooms as our new K-12 school! (well, the beginnings of our new K-12 school anyways.  

I am so very excited about the possibilities that this will give us.  Now, my mind is looking for creative ways to create an inviting space for kids ages 6-16 and grades Kindergarten to High School all in the same room! Not as easy as it sounds!!  

Below are a few BEFORE pictures.  Hopefully by the end of next week, I'll have some pretty awesome AFTER pics to show you! 

I have been crazy busy creating and formatting more worksheets for our preschool students to use to expand their knowledge.  This week I have been working on sight words.  

In 1948 a list of the most frequently used words in the English language was compiled by Edward William Dolch, PhD. He compiled the list based on words used in children's reading books in the 1930s and 40s. The list contains 220 words that must be quickly recognized in order to achieve reading fluency. 

The Dolch Word List, also called Sight Words or The Dolch 220, includes pronouns, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, and verbs. Sight words make up 50 to 70 percent of any general text and many can't be sounded out but must be learned by "sight" (aka memorized). Therefore, teaching The Dolch Word List is a crucial goal of education in grades kindergarten through 3. The list is divided into grade levels.

I am very proud to say that our little 3 and 4 year olds know 16 sight words in English and 6 in Spanish!! I am so very proud of them!! Pretty soon they will be reading!! YAY!!  

Today's FREE Printable is an example of the Hidden Sight Word sheets that I have been working on.  Head on over to my new Teachers Pay Teacher Store to grab this printable for FREE.  I hope you enjoy!

For today's upload, I'm sharing with you this introduction to making AB patterns. This AB pattern is very simple and very basic which is great for those just starting out learning about patterns.  An AB pattern is simply alternating colors or shapes or really anything.  Every other object is the same.  

Recognizing and repeating patterns are an important part of a child's development. Patterns are all around, and when you encourage your child to recognize patterns, you are strengthening their math skills. Students who can identify patterns have an easier time solving problems and making mathematical connections. There are patterns all around them in everyday life.  A brick wall, the sidewalk, the beats in music, grandma's quilt, a soccer ball, a ballet dance, weather, the street; all contain patterns! 

In fact, here is an example of a pattern from an old school Sesame Street Clip:

Now that you see how important patterns are, here is today's FREE Preschool Printable. Simply click on the image to download the PDF version.  

I had so much fun making these preschool printables and practice pages that I couldn't stop! I was sick and resting with not a ton of energy to do anything but was quite bored of being stuck at home for the last week so I kinda went a bit worksheet crazy!! Like seriously, I may need an intervention soon, haha!! I made like 50 sheets already & still working on more. Don't worry, they will be uploaded bit by bit over the coming weeks. 

Since I made so many I decided to go ahead and upload one more today.  This time it is a Pre-Writing Worksheet for preschoolers or even toddlers. This is not for the advanced preschoolers who are already working on writing their letters although they can certainly use them as well. This is all about shape identification and tracing. Ok, students, use those fine motor skills well! 

For the first one, we are going to go simple and start with a Square. These straight lines are a perfect place to begin.  Click on the image below to get your FREE Trace a Shape: Square preschool printable and pre-writing practice page.  This is part of the Trace a Shape Basics Pre-K X-Large Pack over on our TpT site. The pack includes 1 image per page for 9 different basic shapes. All for only $3. This is one of our best sellers and most wish-listed item in the store. 

Today, we have another freebie in our Preschool Printables Handwriting series!! I know you are as excited as I am. I worked on these last night and am so thrilled to be able to share them with you. 

As I posted yesterday, I am really trying to make it a point to work on handwriting in our class. Now, I was sick this past week so I missed being in our class & definitely missed seeing our precious little ones. But, I had tons of time to work on our lesson planning & these worksheets.  I thought about all the kids in our class and how they are all different ages and at different stages in their writing skills. I also realized that because we operate in a one-room classroom we need to make it a point to continue teaching all of the basics like letters, shapes, colors, and numbers.  So with that in mind, I came up with several practice sheets to help us focus on those basics.  

Part of our normal schedule is Table Top Time. This is where we do worksheets like these handwriting practice pages.  Some of our kiddos love it and others get frustrated because they aren't quite there yet. I'm trying to make this fun & not difficult because I want all of our students to know that writing is fun. I'll be working one-on-one with those that feel frustration. If you have any ideas, I'd love to hear all about it. Leave me a comment below!! 

In the mean time, here is today's free Handwriting Preschool Printable!!  Today's worksheet is another capital/uppercase letter practice page.  This may be for some a bit more advanced than yesterday's as we don't have the starting dots.  This is a great practice page as this is a more realistic view of what the letters look like.  As usual, simple click the image below for your free pdf version of this A-Z printable.

This freebie contains letters A-Z just like the picture below. This is part of my larger Uppercase Dashed Alphabet Handwriting Practice Pages which also includes 65 pages of various sizes and activities to promote good handwriting skills. You can find this full pack on my Teachers Pay Teachers store. 

One thing I have been really horrible about in our class recently is handwriting. There is never enough hours in our day to fit everything in and unfortunately handwriting/writing practice just seems to fall by the wayside.  I am determined to fix this soon and in honor of that, I have created these awesome handwriting practice printables to share with all of you.  I figure that many of you are parents of preschoolers or maybe you are teachers looking for new worksheets.  Who knows, perhaps these will help your little ones get ready for kindergarten or just learn how to write their own name.    

First up is this super cute bubble writing with starting dots so your child knows exactly where to put their pencil or crayon to make that perfect Capital or Uppercase letter.  These will help with fine motor skills, gripping their writing utensils, hand-eye coordination and making sure that students form those letters correctly. 

Today's download includes A-Z Uppercase.  I will be uploading a new handwriting printable every few days for the coming weeks in hopes that it will remind me daily that my preschool students need to practice their writing as well. 

Who doesn't love a good apple? An apples is such a versatile fruit! You can turn it into apple pie, apple juice, apple fritters or just eat it plain.  My favorite way to eat an apple is with a bit of cheese, doesn't really matter what kind but if the apple is a tart one like Granny Smith, I put a bit of salt on the apple slices. YUMO!!! 

Since we are coming up to the fall already, (where did this year go?) I'm starting to look at my fall planning and of course, like all other preschool teachers, apples are on the list!! Today, I'm offering you this preschool printable of fun facts about apples.  This printable, like most of my unit ones, has fun facts at the top & a coloring part at the bottom.  Unlike my Solar System Printables, this one is completely FREE (no need to donate even $0.01 to receive it). Simply click on the image below and download the PDF version right away!! I will hopefully be adding this to a pack later with parts of an apple, Johnny Appleseed and different varieties. Make sure you check back in the next few weeks for those as well. 

Earlier this week I shared about our preschool summer unit, the Solar System. This is always a HUGE favorite with our students. They love learning fun facts about each planet as well as other space objects. We have a new favorite video this year as well which you can see on the earlier post.  As I was working on this year's unit and trying to provide new content since many of the kids are the same from last year I decided to create these awesome printables to share with you guys. These are some fun facts that we have been learning and I know many of you guys homeschool your kids or supplement their learning with stuff at home. These printables are currently for PreK and the first one I'm rolling out is just the Inner Planets with the Sun.  I am hoping to create the Outer Planets soon and then offering a pack for the entire Solar System as well as older age options and even in Spanish. I really hope you enjoy using these. Each has fun facts about that planet on top and then a coloring sheet on the bottom. 

I'm sure you've noticed some changes around my website recently. Things like a few new landing pages (YWAM Ministry Stories, All Things Preschool, Easy Recipes, etc) where you can quickly find related stories. I have also been adding some "you might like these also" links at the bottom of my posts as well to help you navigate through the site a bit easier.  

Something else you may have noticed, I am writing more and more about my preschoolers.  As my jobs, ministries and responsibilities have changed I have noticed that it is reflected in my blog. And why wouldn't it be; these are stories of my life and the things that I'm thinking and doing so of course the blog would be a reflection of what is going on currently in my life.  

As you can see below, this quarter in preschool is all about the Solar System!! YAY!! This unit is by far our class's favoritest (yes, I'm aware this isn't an actual word) thing to study!! They are so very attentive in class and love to learn about each planet, our star the Sun, and how astronauts eat in space. Last year, I found a toddlerish song all about the planets called The Solar System Song, what else. This was a very calming video for our class and began their love of all things solar system! It taught us so much about each planet as well as their order from closest to farthest from the Sun. 

Well, this year we have found a NEW favorite song! It's NASA Johnson Style. Below, you can see the video but be forewarned: it is VERY addicting!! 

Like this? Check out these awesome Solar System Printables for PreK all about the Inner Planets.  I really enjoyed creating these using some fun facts of the things we've been learning! I'm hoping to make some for the rest of the planets & space objects soon! Then my next project is to translate them all & then create some for older kids as well.  

In the mean time, check out some other stories about our preschool!