Our PreSchool Blog

My magic reading finger helps me learn how to read.  It helps make sure my mouth says what my eyes see.  When my finger’s under a letter, my mouth makes a certain sound.  It moves faster when I’m blending, for sounding out it must slow down.  For sight words it can HOP SKIP JUMP, these words I read with ease.  It covers up tricky parts, and makes looking for chunks a breeze.  This magic finger will help you, but there is one thing it please.  Keep the magic in the finger…by only using it to read!

-Jodi B. Whalen

Open-ended center exploration time is an important part of early childhood education.  Children are allowed to make their own decisions.  It might seem pretty basic to us, as adults, but it’s incredibly important to young children.  It gives them more ownership over their learning experiences.

Open-ended play also allows children to express themselves in play freely and creatively, not bound by preset limitations. Playing with open-ended materials with multiple uses and limitless possibilities, such as molding clay, wet sand, paint, blocks and other loose parts, allow for imaginative play. There are no rules to follow, no expectations, no specific problems to solve, and no pressure to produce a finished product when engaging freely in open-ended play.

Our theme this month is scary cute… MONSTERS! We read “Go Away Big Green Monster” and our toddler friends are already starting to make monsters of their own!

We also have lego-eating monsters. Our lego-eating monsters are used to teach our toddlers to match the color of the lego, with the color of the monster. With feeding the monsters, our friends are learning how to sort colors, use fine motor skills, and take turns!

The preschool prep class was able to go on a fall leaf hunt this week! We found leaves from maple trees, birch trees and oak trees. We sorted them by color, size and shape!

We had our first rainy day of the school year this week. You know what that means… indoor recess! Our friends had fun with parachute games and songs. We also had Ms. Joanie come in Tuesday for music. Combine that, with a lot of dancing during music and movement, it was a rainy day well-spent!

We learned all about apples in preschool!  We discovered the parts of an apple, how each different color tasted and conducted our own sink or float science experiment.  We even explored the seasons of the apple tree.  This is a great time to pick apples!

The Children’s Museum center visited the K Prep class today to teach us all about dinosaurs!  We learned to growl, claw and walk like a dinosaur! We Dug up fossils and identified what dinosaurs they came from. We learned about different kinds of dinosaurs, including what they looked like, what they ate and how they protected themselves. We had so much fun!!

Hello, parents! We know that some of our toddlers may not be able to tell you what a typical morning looks like in our toddler room, so we want to show you! Here at Creative Tots we follow a daily schedule. Following a daily schedule is beneficial in several ways, such as giving them a sense of familiarity, and helping them to learn self-discipline and independence. Below you can find our schedule and some pictures of our toddler friends going about their daily tasks!

9:00-9:25 | Morning Tables and Free Choice

9:30-9:40 | Whole Group Story Time

9:40-10:00 | Outside

10:00-10:20 | Pre-Academic Group Time (10 minutes in each)

10:20-10:30 | Snack Time

10:30-10:50 | Art/Discovery Tables

10:50-11:10 | Outside

11:15-11:25 | Music and Movement

11:25-11:30 | Dismissal

(After school, we’re sure our friends look forward to their lunches and naps!)