The month of September has been a study in the shape CIRCLE! We have colored circles, matched circles, glued circles, played with circle toys, discussed our favorite circle shaped food, sang circle songs, read circle stories, eaten circle crackers and cookies…basically immersed ourselves in circles!
It has been a wonderful September, and the studio toddler class has been breaking in our brand new classroom wonderfully! Below you can find some of our students enjoying their free play time and see them exploring their new environment.
Art is a favorite activity for many of our students, and their curiosity and eagerness to try new things has been so amazing. We did a craft incorporating yellow, our color of the month, and circles. We use an abstract painting tool–a lemon! They got to smell the lemon, and taste a piece of it if they wanted, and then used it as a stamp on their paper.
We also had our first visit from Ms. Joanie. Ms. Joanie is the music teacher at Creative Tots, and she visits our class every other Tuesday! Our students already got to play her drum, and say hello to Elmo (Ms. Joanie does an awesome Elmo laugh FYI 🙂 )
Check back in to see a sneak peak of our art show we will begin working on, as well as some examples of the small group activities we do.
It has been a month since the start of the school year so our students have gotten a chance to familiarize themselves with their different choices for free play, and most already have favorites! Talk with your child about which center they enjoy playing at the most each day 🙂
We love learning through play, especially when doing art projects! We have been incorporating the color yellow into several art activities so far this month. Encouraging young children to use different types of tools for art is great for their creative thinking and sensory skills. We got to smell the lemon and taste it, before using it to paint–using multiple senses to reinforce our lesson!
Keep following along to learn about some of our small group activities, and for a sneak peak at alphabet books and color books!
We have spent the first few weeks getting to know each other. At around 18 months, there are changes in cognitive skills that help real friendships blossom. Toddlers become more consciously aware of themselves and others. Even when toddlers are playing side by side, without much interaction, they are still picking up play behaviors from one another. These shared experiences help toddlers gain the play vocabulary they will need when they begin to play with friends. We try to foster an environment that invites interaction, observation, as well as parallel play. As teachers, we play alongside the children giving them simple words and vocabulary to help facilitate communication. It has been so fun fun to watch the toddlers begin to bond. We look forward to a year full of friendships.
Our early reading adventure began in K Prep last week. The focus last week was how to use their “Magic Reading Finger.” Why do we have children use their finger to track the words while they read? The reason for this practice is 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. They did a wonderful job!
Number sense is an emerging construct that refers to a child’s fluidity and flexibility with numbers and what numbers mean. Number sense develops gradually over time and at different rates, through exploring numbers, visualizing them in a variety of contexts. Our focus last week was the number six.
Letter and Word Awareness is the ability to identify individual written letters and words. Once children are able to identify printed letters, they develop the ability to identify entire words. The entire developmental progression from letter awareness to word awareness to fluent reading typically begins around age three with letter awareness and continues through age five, six or seven with fluent reading. Our K Prep class is beginning working on understanding that words are groups of letters separated by spaces on either side. Children’s names are the most important word to them, so what better place to start!
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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