We are working on name recognition in our Early 3’s class. We used our fine motor skills and creative energy together in this activity where our names “appeared.” By writing every child’s name in white crayon, and having them paint in water colors over it, they can see their name show up against the colorful background!
Click on the picture to watch The Alphabet Song. This is great practice and lots of fun. It is important to expose children to letters and letter sounds every day in as many ways possible. Sing and dance along with your preschooler!
While helping some sea creatures find their home in the ocean the preschoolers strengthened their fine motor muscles. Fine motor development is imperative to build a foundation for handwriting skills.
There are many benefits to writing on a vertical surface. Vertical surfaces can make an average writing activity into a great activity for developing fine and gross motor skills. Using vertical surfaces strengthens shoulder and arm muscles, as your child’s arm must move against the pull of gravity in this position as she/he lifts their arms to reach. Vertical surfaces also places your child’s hand in the best position to develop wrist strength and stability. You can buy window markers in any craft store and they wash off easily with a little windex….get writing and have fun!
Toddlers need lots of opportunities for physical activity, for both good health and skill building. Gross motor skills are very important for major body movements such as walking, running, coordination, and maintaining balance. Today the boys and girls were rocking on the teeter totter, climbing up the ladder, and pushing cars in the mulch. Check out how much fun we had outside on the playground!
Today during small groups we practiced and reviewed our letters of the month F, E, and D. We played Alphabet Cover- Up, watched and sang along to videos on the Smartboard, and built our letters with blocks on our magnet boards. Practicing skills in multiple ways helps to reach all types of learning styles.
Click on the picture to watch The Letter F Song with your preschooler!
Click on the picture to watch The Letter D Song with your preschooler!
We learned today that letters build words. When we change the letters we change the whole word! Word building activities are an important part of learning to read and are easily modified for any reader. We built the sight word and searched for the word in a grouping of familiar words. We also took a word from this week’s reading group book, I JUMP, and used our knowledge of letter sounds to build it phonetically.
So what’s the deal with using your fingers to read with? Because our eyes naturally follow movement, placing a finger, on a page and strategically moving it down the text, a reader will naturally keep their place and be more focused. This helps readers concentrate and understand what they read making reading a more satisfying experience.
Creative Tots has specialized in the private education of both toddlers and preschool age children for over 15 years. We began in the heart of Madeira and now also have a new Mason location. We are specifically designed to focus on early childhood development for children ages 18 months to 5 years.
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