Our PreSchool Blog

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  • Prewriting, Counting, Letters and More!

    What a busy week for the Preschool Prep class! One of the many lessons they were able to do this week was called “Mitten Math”. By engaging in this activity, the students were able to work on their counting skills as well as their one to one correspondence.

    In another activity, students were able to work on their prewriting skills.  They did this by drawing letters and shapes into salt trays. They all had fun being creative and practicing what they have learned through this sensory experience!

    Another activity that everyone really enjoyed was the winter letter hunt! The kids had to dig through white winter sensory materials to find a letter.  They had to then identify the name and sound of that letter.

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  • 100th Day

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    100

    The students made 10 groups of 10 straws and cups to make 100.  We have been working on counting to 100 by one’s and by 10’s.  Through our exploration of our 100, the students decided today that counting a large number, like 100, is easier when they group the items they are counting, and skip count!

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  • K Prep author study

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  • The Emperor Penguin

    While studying our Antarctic habitat, we got to learn about the penguin, specifically the emperor penguin!

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    We watched a short video where we got to see the penguins in their natural habitat and read The Emperor’s Egg and learned all about the life cycle of the penguin.   We learned that Emperor penguins are about 3-4 feet tall and are the biggest penguin in the world.  So we decided to see how we measured up to the Emperor penguin!  It turns out that most of us were taller than him but some of us were right about the same or a little shorter.  We couldn’t believe how tall he really was!

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    Then each student drew themselves next to their penguin to show if they were taller or shorter!

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  • Matching and Sorting

    Math is a part of your toddler’s schooling, even at their young age! Matching and sorting are two foundational math skills that your toddlers are learning to utilize just by observing the world around them. We have been practicing these math skills in school all year, and we wanted to show you different ways that we teach these skills in our classroom.

    One tool we use with our toddlers is a color mat! We use different colored objects for them to sort onto the corresponding color on the mat. Recently, we used colored letters to sort onto the color mat–sneaking in letter sounds whenever we could 🙂

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    Going along with our January theme of “winter”, for matching skills practice, we took turns matching patterns on mittens in one of our small groups!

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    Now, maybe they’ll be able to help you find the match to your mismatched gloves/mittens at home! 😉

  • NEW 2016 Summer Playdate Series Registration NOW OPEN

    We are excited to announce our Summer Playdate Series!  Everyone loves a playdate, but the kids want to have them more than parents like to host them. Let us play host this summer . . . that means no mess, no noise, no cleanup and no negotiations about who gets to come over. We have decided that summertime at Creative Tots should be more about what the kids want. The kids want to play.  The kids want to see their friends. The kids have spoken and we have listened. They think that anything to do with “camp” might just be a little too much like school. Let your kids explore they way they are built to explore . . . through playing in the summertime with their friends. So, grab a friend and join us!

    Click Here for 2016 Registration 

  • Lots of Learning and Fun in Preschool Prep!

    The Preschool Prep class has been learning a lot and having a blast while doing so! The students were able to make alphabet soup and fish out one letter at a time with a ladle.  They were asked to identify the letter and the sound it makes!

    For some fine motor and hand strength practice, they were able to use tongs to transfer white marshmallows into muffin tins! We were able to eat a few fresh ones afterwards 🙂

    We also were able to explore our sense of sound! The children took turns shaking the mystery eggs and “predicting” what might be inside. Some of them came as a surprise to us!

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  • K Prep Math Study: How Tall am I? Measuring with Marshmallows

    Throughout the early years of life, children notice and explore mathematical dimensions of their world. They compare quantities, find patterns, navigate in space, and grapple with real problems such as balancing a tall block building or sharing a bowl of crackers fairly with a playmate. Mathematics helps children make sense of their world outside of school and helps them construct a solid foundation for success in school.  We used the fun of our season to explore how tall each character was, recorded the data we collected and compared our findings with each other!  Learning through exploration allows for meaningful experiences to build future learning on.  Learning together is fun!

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  • Building Phonemic Awareness through Word Family Studies

    Phonemic awareness is the ability to notice, think about, and work with the individual sounds in words. We know that a student’s skill in phonemic awareness is a good predictor of later reading success or difficulty.  We have continued our study of phonemic awareness through the exploration of word families.  Our first word family of focus was the -at family.  After becoming familiar with our at family reader, the students enjoyed buddy reading throughout the classroom.  Reading and rereading text allows students to become more proficient in fluency and and have more practice with the reading strategies they have learned so far!

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  • Letter M Sorting

    Last week we learned all about the letter M.  We practiced writing it, finding it, and sorting them by upper and lowercase.    It was good practice for cutting, gluing, and sorting as well.  They worked so hard on this activity and there were lots of proud moments!!  Their little serious and proud faces say it all!

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