Creative Tots Preschool

Our small groups on Monday:

{group #1}

We started our “Handwriting Without Tears” curriculum this week! Our first activity was introduced in whole group time and practiced in small groups. The children had to practice forming the letters “A” and “B” with magnetic wood pieces. We talked about “big lines” “curved lines” “small lines” etc. This helps the children break down writing out a letter into simple steps. For an “A” we say: “Big Line, Big Line, Little Line!”

{group #2}

This group was centered around our shape of the month: RECTANGLE! Check out the various ways we made rectangles!

{group #3}

This group focused on our numbers for this month {1 and 2} as well as one-to-one correspondence and fine motor development. The children had to roll the die {which only had one or two dots on each side}, count the dots, and put the corresponding amount of beads into their bowl.

Motor skills are movements and actions of the muscles. They are categorized in two groups: gross motor skills and fine motor skills. Gross motor skills generally refer to movements involving larger muscles, like those in the arms, legs, feet or the entire body (used for walking, jumping and so on). Fine motor skills generally refer to movements involving smaller muscles, like those in hands, wrists and fingers (such as those used for holding a crayon or toy). *

Play dough Improves Fine Motor Skills

Squishing, squeezing, stretching and molding play dough helps to build muscle strength in the fingers and hands. This in turn makes it easier to complete fine motor activities like holding a pencil and cutting with scissors later on.

Dancing improves Gross Motor Skills

Jumping, stretching, dancing and ribbon twirling helps build muscle strength throughout the entire body. We also tapped wooden sticks to the tempo of Miss Joanie’s guitar, working on rhythm as we danced to “We are the Dinosaurs,” a classroom favorite!