Our PreSchool Blog

It is important to strengthen all of the muscles in the hand and wrist while working on the handwriting process. Forcing little fingers, hands, and wrists to move in new ways is great for developing stronger muscles. Writing on a vertical surface challenges the wrist to use different muscles than writing on a flat surface usually does. The preschoolers worked on recognizing their names. A fun way to work on these muscles at home is writing with window markers or using foam letters/numbers on the walls in the bath tub. Have fun working those muscles!

 Van.

Vacuum.

Vase.

Volcano.

The preschoolers strengthened their fine motor muscles today while practicing letter recognition and letter sounds. With warm weather finally upon us this is a great way to practice letters, numbers, shapes or names in the driveway at home! Painbrush + bowl of water and you have some entertained and engaged preschoolers. Have fun exploring while working on important skills!

This week we introduced our theme: bugs! We are also beginning to work on lowercase letters. Check out our small groups from Wednesday:

{group #1}

We discussed uppercase and lowercase letters. I showed them what an uppercase “E” looks like then showed them what a lowercase “e” looks like. We talked about how some uppercase and lowercase letters are the same –the lowercase letter is just a smaller version. In our activity, the children spun the spinner, and whatever letter the spinner landed on they had to find the corresponding lowercase letter cookie. We would discuss which letter it was and whether or not it was the same/different than the uppercase letter.

{group #2}

This group was focused on our theme: bugs! Ms. Diana talked to children about different bugs  ~how they look and what each bug is named. The children had to match their bug to the bug on the board.

{group #3}

This small group was our art small group! The children painted VERY colorful butterflies with their hands to go along with our book of the week: “The Very Hungry Caterpillar”. At the end he turns into a beautiful butterfly, so we made our own version of the butterfly!

Ordering objects, cards, pictures in order from smallest to biggest and biggest to smallest is a foundational math skill. Seriation is an important building block for other math concepts. This can be a very easy skill to practice at home. Let your little one put silverware, pots/pans, books, cups, boxes in order from smallest to biggest. Use questions to help guide them through the process. Which one looks a little bigger? What object do you think is next? Have fun with it! They did GREAT with this skill today!

This month, our theme is BUGS! Throughout the week we have been doing different bug or mud related activities.

At morning tables this week the children had fun painting bugs with fly swatters! This activity not only gives them an art experience, it also develops their gross motor skills as they swat the bugs on the table.

In our sensory tub, we have a colorful bug themed sensory experience. –Definitely a popular place to learn and play this week.

We also painted with mud and brown paint. This was a very messy sensory experience…but the children had a great time squishing the cold paint in with the dirt to make mud.

Lastly, during our group time we have been reading “The Very Hungry Caterpillar.” After we read the story, each of the children get to “feed” the caterpillar (which is taped to a brown paper bag). After each child feeds the caterpillar by placing the picture of food from the story in the bag, I flip the bag on its side where I have a picture of a cocoon taped. After we talk about the cocoon and what happens to the caterpillar, the children guess what the caterpillar has turned into. Then I flip the bag to the back where I have a picture of the butterfly!

We have introduced smaller writing utensils to continue to strengthen different fine motor muscles. Developmentally our preschoolers are ready to try controlling those muscles while tracing smaller letters as well. We are also working on writing our names without lines to trace.