Our preschoolers turned our classroom into Santa’s Workshop today as we turned red licorice and white yarn into a candy cane! This is no ordinary candy cane….it’s a number nine candy cane! In order to make this yummy creation, the children had to follow step-by-step directions, use their fine motor skills to twist, and use number recognition to create the number nine. It was a quite a treat to work on so many skills in one fun activity!
Pencils and crayons are not the only materials we use for pre-writing skills. The children were given M&Ms to work on fine motor skills by outlining the first letter of their name.
We created our own individual M&M graphs today to compare the quantities of different groups of colors in a bag of M&M’s. They REALLY enjoyed this activity and I was VERY surprised at how many kids did NOT want to eat them at the end of, but rather take them home to repeat the activity at home. TOO CUTE
We wrote our friends’ names on mirrors today to continue our writing conventions unit of study. We focused on formation and orientation. They really enjoyed showing off their accomplishments to their friends…
Our second focus this month is on writing conventions including formation and orientation. We began, of course, with the letter Gg!
We continued our math study in small groups through the creation of a Gingerbread Graph. We took one big bite of a delicious gingergread cookie and recorded where we took our first bite on a class graph. We then compared each column by identifying which location had the most names and the least names. Looks like the leg was the winner!
Sparkles anyone?! Activities with sequins, or anything sparkly for that matter, are always exciting. Digging through to find the exact color and shape that you want is excellent fine motor practice. Using the tips of their fingers, each child grasped and place sequins to trace his/her name. As we outlined the names in glue, the children were also able to practice tracing their names. Each child was very focused as they paid close attention to their sequin details!
What better cookie to have to celebrate the holiday season than the traditional gingerbread cookie? Today, the children helped to measure, pour and stir our ingredients. We discussed wet and dry ingredients, smelled some of the ingredients (molasses anyone?!), and talked about getting the dough to just the right consistency to roll and stamp. The children enjoyed all of the stirring involved and cracking the eggs, but I think kneading the dough, stamping out the gingerbread, and decorating topped their list! Everyone brought home a festive, tasty treat!
‘Tis the season for gingerbread! Ms. Courtney spiced up our fine motor skills by having the children cut out their own gingerbread houses. The children worked on following lines while holding the paper with the other hand. There was more fine motor practice when the children were eager to color their very own houses!
With the month of December comes a new destination to learn and explore! We have traveled to the land of gingerbread, Germany! Today in small groups Ms. Lori and the students created the flag of Germany while strengthening their fine motor skills. By ripping bits of paper and gluing them in the right spot we worked together as a class to create the flag of red, black, and yellow. Along with a new destination comes all new activities at our centers. Some of the activities were introduced and practiced during small groups to ensure that everyone understands how to play and will benefit as much as possible during free choice time.
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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