Our PreSchool Blog

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.

We have been studying the unique animals of the African Savannah this month and we created our very own African Elephants.

The Museum Center came to teach us all about Africa, Australia, and Antarctica! We learned about the different continents, their habitats and animals. There were lots of fun interactive learning activities, ask your pre-Ker what was their favorite part!

The preschoolers have been practicing one-to-one correspondence. It is important to always start at the top and count left to right. When we reach the end of a row we need to start back at the beginning of the next row. Teaching children a method for counting can help with accuracy. It is easy to forget which objects we have counted when we are just pointing in any order we want! We rolled the dice, counted how many we got, then counted using our magic finger to discover which animal we needed to color. This is a really important foundational skill for math in general. Games such as Candyland, Monopoly, and Chutes & Ladders are great ways to practice one-to-one correspondence. Any time a child has to count objects individually is a GREAT way to practice at home!

We found a pot that our leprechaun left behind in one of our St Patrick’s Day Small Groups!  Check out what we found inside!

Sorting and Counting Lucky Charms Marshmallows

Eating the Colors of the Rainbow!  We ate every color of the rainbow during snack time…even if we thought we “didn’t like it,” everyone tried one bite of each color.  Many of us learned that we like some new fruits today…AND never to be afraid of trying something new!  You may love it and be missing out!