Our class has been reviewing number formation this month! We have been tracing, writing, and building the numbers 1 – 9. We did a fun activity of counting ladybug spots and writing the number! We are becoming quite the number writing experts!
We are continuing our work with building and writing our names! We are building our hand strength, learning to form our letters, and spelling our names all on our own! This was a fun activity we did making caterpillars to celebrate spring and warmer weather!
This activity is all about exploring their names to help the boys and girls begin to recognize them. Recognizing their names is the first step to early literacy. Their names have meaning and value to them…it’s personal. One of the best places to start early letter recognition is through name activities. Be sure to make it fun…write it with chalk when you’re playing outside…write it in the sandbox or even in the steam on the bathroom mirror after bath time. If you’re feeling adventurous use play dough to spell it! The great thing about play-based, name recognition activities is they won’t even know their learning…they’ll just know their spending time with you!
We have been working on developing our fine motor skills. These skills are very important for young children as they begin their journey in writing. We have been putting an emphasis on fine motor lately to ensure that each child is able to hold a pencil correctly, write their letters, cut, before they enter their preschool and k prep year.
We are working on the number ten this month, so we practiced hole punching ten holes on a card.
We practiced forming the first letter in our names with paint and Q-tips.
Growing our own bean seeds for our garden unit this month!
We used tongs to pick up seeds and buttons and place them in the separate compartments of an ice tray.
For Easter we worked on color sorting jelly beans into the correct colored easter egg.
We worked on our fine motor skills and used tongs to move pom poms into each egg in the carton.
Young children have the desire to create. We see it in our own children every day! What we may not know is that art is a way for children to express their feelings and emotions. Open-ended art allows them to make independent choices on what materials to use, the outcome of the work, and individual expression rather than on the final product. Exploration and creative thinking are linked to meeting challenges throughout our life! So log off pinterest, grab the plain white paper, tubes of paint, brushes and let them lead the way.
“It’s a treasure map and X marks the spot for the treasure!”
“See it in the middle? X marks the spot!”
In this strategy, students read aloud to each other, pairing more fluent readers with less fluent readers. Children who read at the same level may be paired to reread a text that they have already read, for continued understanding and fluency work. In order to increase student fluency, readers need experience reading to and listening to other readers of all kinds. Specifically, lower-level readers benefit from strategies such as Paired Reading by listening to the reading of a higher-level reader. Reading with someone else encourages students to try reading material that may be above their usual reading level, while also building oral skills so that students are more comfortable with their reading.
We began our Mo Willems Study for the month of April. We started with The Pigeon Finds a Hot Dog. Mo Willems uses interesting techniques in his illustrations that many artists don’t use. We focused on his use of speech bubbles and the text size. Tiny words for a small whisper voice and HUGE words for a character that is YELLING! The students drew their own Mo Willems Pigeon and added a speech bubble with their own text. We can’t wait for our next Mo Willems book!
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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