What starts with the letter M? Mirror, marble, markers, magnifying glass…the list goes on. Having the children manipulate these items and make the connection that these items begin with the letter M, helps the M to become more concrete in each child’s memory. What child doesn’t love to use markers?!
Counting and number recognition are two very important mathematical foundations. Putting those together and practicing those skills brings a child’s thought process to the next level. For example, some of the older children were able to recognize the six dots on the die with out counting them, and then identify the number six on the paper and stamp it. These types of hands on activities are excellent practice to those children who are still working on building up their math skills.
We explored and discovered the science of leaves today during small groups. First, we observed the details of our leaf an drew a sketch making sure to include all the details we saw. Next, we found the “area” of our leaf by covering it with pennies. Some leaves had an area of 8 pennies while others had an area of 15! We had leaves of all sizes! Lastly, we made our leaves float in a bowl of water and found how many pennies it took to sink them! The children recorded their finding on their own science log.
During our small groups today the children enjoyed learning the colors of the rainbow. Our focus this week will be on rapid recognition of color words. During reading groups we were introduced to many color words in our reading book, Birds. We used the initial sound in each word to determine each color. This would be a great time for you to add the basic color words to your sight word practice during nightly homework (red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple).
The kids then had a ball reading, writing then stamping each color sight word into their own booklet. We will work on these booklets this week and bring them home on Thursday.
To help cement what we learned today we played a game of color matching using our color sight word cards and our colorful sorting bowls from the math center.
Recognizing his/her name is most likely the first word that a preschooler learns. Once that is established, the next step is to learn the letters and the order they belong in. Today, we reviewed the order of the letters by matching them to the name that was written above. We then talked about what each letter was, and counted the amount of letters in his/her name.
Fall is a colorful time of year. Today, the children were able to express their creative sides with Ms. Lori while creating their own fall tree. The children discussed fall colors and why the leaves change colors. Using our fingers to paint is always a memorable experience!
Apples or….apples? Apples are a healthy snack, especially if you’re on the go. Today we learned about how our yummy snack can differ: dried apples. Using our taste buds and Smart Board, we made a graph that told us who liked fresh apples and who liked dried apples. The results? Fresh won by a landslide, but dried had a few votes!
We finished our reading group book on Friday…I Can Moo! We used a second color of highlighting tape to find our last sight word, you. Next week our focus will turn to color words.
The toddlers are working hard on their art show pieces, but needed the Pre-K children’s help to prepare for the big day. The toddlers have created their own Very Busy Spider from Eric Carle’s popular children’s book. The Pre-K students created spider webs for them to display their spider’s on for the art show. They were very excited to help and their spiderwebs were beautiful. Stop in the toddler room to take a peek at their creations on Friday at the art show.
Cutting with scissors is a skill that takes time to develop. Since the beginning of the year, the children have learned how to safely hold scissors when not using them, how to properly hold scissors when cutting, and how a line can be followed to help guide your cutting. We are still working on the latter. Today, the children did an excellent job trying to follow the lines while cutting out a barn. Following lines to cut out specific pictures or shapes gives the children purpose for cutting. When they finished, they glued the barn onto red paper, and then practiced tracing their names.
Working on more fine motor skills, Ms. Lori had the children make (adorable!) cotton ball sheep! The children used their fingertips to pull the cotton apart and glue it onto the sheep. Manipulating objects with fingertips is an excellent way to build fine motor muscles. These sheep are being used as classroom decoration.
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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