This week in small groups we read the book Making Bubbles by Bruce Larkin! We focused on the sight words make and a and we reviewed our sights from last week, the and I. During Reading groups we are focusing on learning the difference between letters and words and that letter build words and words build sentences! Give you child the opportunity to point out any sight words they may recognize as you read together.
Today in our discovery center, we played with winter/Arctic animals in trays of ice! The children had fun playing in the melting ice!
This week in the Early 3’s class we have been learning the letter “K” and the shape “Star.” The children worked on their “K” is for “Keys” page to go in their alphabet book. We are also learning about cutting with/holding scissors, while talking about scissor safety. The children have enjoyed our whole group activity of “Find the Shape!” I would call a child up and ask them to identify a shape (“Find the green star.” “Find the purple triangle.”) This activity helps with reviewing shapes and colors at the same time.
We have had a lot of fun playing with our cinnamon/gingerbread play dough….
Today we practiced our letter sounds while strengthening our wrist muscles and hand-eye coordination. Writing on vertical surfaces is very important in handwriting development. Training the muscles to work in different ways is great repetition for preschoolers. We identified and circled letter sounds on the smartboard today.
This week we read an focused our small groups on the adorable story Gingerbread Baby by Jan Brett.
Ms. Cally played “Listen & Color” and helped the preschoolers practice their listening skills. This is great prep for following directions and understanding classroom dynamic. So much of traditional schooling is based on auditory learning. Preschoolers need to practice being able to listen not only to directions, but for directions as well. We structure our classroom to give cues to call attention such as flashing the lights or clapping our hands. This helps create awareness for what is happening around us in the classroom. Ms. Cally instructed the preschoolers to ‘color the star orange’ or ‘find the spoon and color it purple’. This is a great activity to do at home with your little one!
Next with Ms. Lori we practiced our counting skills. Each child had a turn to roll the dice and count how many dots they had. Then we colored the spot on the gingerbread baby that had the matching number on it. This was a fun way to count, work on number recognition and strengthen fine motor muscles!
In Ms. Courtney’s group, the preschoolers practiced number recognition. On each gingerbread baby was a number. Their job was to count the right amount of pom poms to decorate the gingerbread baby. This is a great task for hand-eye coordination.
This was the first of our December Gingerbread Study. We are very excited to explore more stories!
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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