Rainbow Rice!

Today, I decided to make Rainbow Rice for my sensory bin at school! I biked to the grocery store, picked up the supplies & got started.  

I had never colored rice before, so my good friend Google helped me out! It was SO simple! 

All you need is white vinegar, baggies, food coloring, & rice or pasta. Some people use rubbing alcohol or hand sanitizer, but I thought that vinegar would be safest. 

I scooped the rice into baggies. For each cup of rice, you use one tablespoon of vinegar. 

And then I mixed in drops of food coloring, experimenting to get different colors. 

I made sure that the baggies were closed tightly and then shook the rice all around until they were covered in color. 

And I put the rice on paper towels in the windowsill to let it air dry. I kept the colors separate still for this part because I didn't want the colors to accidentally bleed into one another, but I will mix them all together when they're completely dry. 

 I'm so excited to show my kids tomorrow! Yay for Rainbow Rice. 

We're Batty about Bats!

This week we learned all about bats! 

We learned that they are the only flying mammals & we made adorable crafty bats. 

We made AB patterns with tissue paper on our flying bats. 

The boys begged to watch Magic School Bus Goes Batty during Rainy Day Recess. Aren't they adorable? 

We also watched a few precious youtube videos about baby orphan bats. 

This one was our favorite.

We're Batty about bats!

There is a BIRD in our classroom!

We studied farm animals and I really wanted to let my kids experience an animal of some sort. And since we're short on farms in the city of Shenyang, I asked my co-workers about what pets they had. One friend had a bird! So we brought him in and let my kinders observe him. They were SO excited!

They were so good, so curious, and so careful around the bird. It was sweet to get to see them interact with him. 

Snack Time!

Since we're an international class, my kids like to eat seaweed for snack!

Apples Galore!

This past week, we studied apples! We did apple tasting, apple graphs, apple crafts, apple puzzles, & we drank apple juice!

Kindergarten Teacher Problems

There is always something to print, cut, laminate, & cut again!

First Week!

I was so excited to get to start school this year. I spent all summer trying to prepare my heart and mind for this! I have 13 kinders that represent 12 different countries: Korea, China, Japan, England, Canada, Romania, Taiwan, South Africa, America, Hong Kong, Germany, & Colombia. It is definitely an interesting mix & I love them all!


These are the activities we did to get started!

We made tissue paper Rainbow Fish, & added jewels for some blinging scales. 

We read & watched Chicka Chicka Boom Boom!

And then completed this FREEBIE! from TPT!

I let my littles use alphabet stickers on their Chicka Chicka trees. 

And we made these super sweet School is Cool pictures of ourselves. These were free too! I love free :) 

The link is here!

We survived the first week! Only 3 that don't understand English, 1 crier, & 1 bloody nose. I'd say that was quite successful :) 

Ni Hao!

Ni Hao is Chinese for Hello! And when I was younger, I never could have imagined that I would actually know that... much less live in China. But that is where I am! :) I have lived in China for about a year now, and I just started teaching Kindergarten at an International School. What's special about an International School? It's a place for expat children from all over the world to grow & be with other TCKs (Third Culture Kids) while learning a North American curriculum.

My adventure teaching international kinders just started this week, and it has been so wonderful! I have 13 kids that represent 12 different nations: Korea, America, Romania, China, England, Canada, Taiwan, Japan, Hong Kong, Colombia, Germany, & South Africa!

Basically, I'm a regular American teacher without all of the cute teacher stores, Barnes & Noble, & Michael's down the street. If I want something to decorate, I have to improvise, go to a market (along with my 8 million neighbors), bargain for it, & find some creative way to carry it home!

Here are my classroom pictures:

I got those pink, green, & blue bins at the crazy 5 story market for about 2.5 USD each. :)

Welcome to our Nest :) That tree too entirely too long to draw, cut out, & staple up there. But I think it's cute!

I made these little notes on individual packs of M&Ms & gave them out at Open House! Here are the labels that I made if you want them:  

Here!

Cute chairs & tables- Thank you IKEA!

I loooove my new blue carpet. All it took was a trip to the furniture market, ten minutes to choose one, ten minutes to bargain for it (I paid around 80 USD), and two hours for them to find it in the storage shed across the street, roll it out on the ground, cut it with scissors, and have a man carry it two blocks on his shoulder so that they could put edging around it. :) 

 My Teacher Intern, Gao Wei & I!

That's all for this post. Zai Jian! (Goodbye!)