Our PreSchool Blog

Name recognition is a skill practiced daily in preschool. Today we strengthened our fine motor and wrist muscles while working on a vertical surface. The Smartboard makes name practice especially fun. Some fun ways to practice names around the house are writing in shaving cream, flour, dirt, sand, steam on the bathroom mirror, sugar or salt. Letter building is fun to do around the house as well. Help your preschooler create the letters of their name with dry or cooked noodles, beans, candy, or coins.

In the Toddler room, the children have been going over the shape of the month… a Circle! During group time, the boys and girls have been looking around the room for circles. Today, Ms. Bree-Anna read the book “What is Round?”. It highlights objects in everyday life that are the shape of a circle. For example a nickel or a balloon! The children also used their fine motor skills to paint a circle yellow. Go on a scavenger hunt around your house and look for all of the round objects!

While helping some sea creatures find their home in the ocean the preschoolers strengthened their fine motor muscles. Fine motor development is imperative to build a foundation for handwriting skills.

There are many benefits to writing on a vertical surface.  Vertical surfaces can make an average writing activity into a great activity for developing fine and gross motor skills.  Using vertical surfaces strengthens shoulder and arm muscles, as your child’s arm must move against the pull of gravity in this position as she/he lifts their arms to reach.  Vertical surfaces also places your child’s hand in the best position to develop wrist strength and stability.  You can buy window markers in any craft store and they wash off easily with a little windex….get writing and have fun!

Today during small groups we practiced and reviewed our letters of the month F, E, and D. We played Alphabet Cover- Up, watched and sang along to videos on the Smartboard, and built our letters with blocks on our magnet boards. Practicing skills in multiple ways helps to reach all types of learning styles.

Click on the picture to watch The Letter F Song with your preschooler!

Click on the picture to watch The Letter D Song with your preschooler!

We learned today that letters build words.  When we change the letters we change the whole word! Word building activities are an important part of learning to read and are easily modified for any reader.    We built the sight word and searched for the word in a grouping of familiar words.  We also took a word from this week’s reading group book, I JUMP, and used our knowledge of letter sounds to build it phonetically.

So what’s the deal with using your fingers to read with? Because our eyes naturally follow movement, placing a finger, on a page and strategically moving it down the text, a reader will naturally keep their place and be more focused. This helps readers concentrate and understand what they read making reading a more satisfying experience.

Despite the dreary rainy day yesterday, the Toddler room was still buzzing with fun and excitement! The children had a blast exploring at the sand/water table. They used their fine motor skills to dig deep to find treasures underneath the styrofoam peanuts. The also socialized and practiced sharing, as they took turns using the table. The boys and girls also had a blast practicing their gross motor skills to jump and skip on bubble wrap. The popping sounds caused lots of giggles in our room!