Our PreSchool Blog

The studio toddlers had a fantastic February.  We focused on the color pink and heart shape in honor of Valentine’s Day.  Pink hearts were repeated during games, finger plays, crafts, sensory bins, songs, stories, and more.  The toddlers practiced fine motor skills making love bug hats, lacing hearts, and  painting bags during our Valentine’s Day party.  We also incorporated purposeful play throughout our study of space.  The toddlers loved dressing up as astronauts, blasting off rockets, an astronaut obstacle course, stamping letters to spell their names on rockets, puzzles, books and scooping in our space sensory bins. The Bengals heading to the Super Bowl was all the rage in Cincinnati so we had a class pep rally learning about Bengal tigers and creating a keepsake craft.  A fun February for all!

Happy New Year from the studio toddler room!  The weather has kept us busy indoors this month but we have filled our days with crafts, discovery bins, winter centers, stories, dancing, and learning through play.  Our color focus is white and our shape is the triangle so we incorporated these focus targets into most of our centers, small groups, whole group and purposeful play.

All the colors and senses of the season give the toddlers opportunities to learn through purposeful play.  Hands-on activities and crafts along with a sensory rich environment lead to peer interaction, learning, and fun!

The toddlers are enjoying a fabulous fall full of squirrel songs, apple sorting /peeling, rectangle scarecrows, and name building with fall leaves.   Our centers this month are designed to give the toddlers the opportunity to explore farm animals, farm books, farm puzzles, new textures in the sensory bin,  and “cooking apple pie” in the dramatic play center.  We have milked a “cow”, sorted leaves, and continue to enjoy the season through purposeful play.

Orange is the focus color for the month of October!  So many fun purposeful play experiences to immerse the toddlers in all things orange.  Pumpkins, paint, playdough, discovery bins, fine motor skills, large motor skills, new vocabulary, songs, games, and more have kept our class busy learning through play.

The studio toddler class has taken the month of September to explore our environment, learn routines, and adjust to being away from parents for the first time but it is also a time of socialization and making new friends.  Socializing with other children  is an excellent way to foster a toddler’s social and emotional development.  We set up our environment for purposeful play and social experiences.  Children begin to mimic during parallel play and then start to communicate with peers. They learn vocabulary and appropriate ways to express themselves through pretend play, free choice centers, and games.  As teachers, we facilitate the environment and activities and then gently guide the toddlers to use words, solve problems, take turns, and have fun through play.  The result is a classroom full of new friends!

The toddlers celebrated Earth Day this April by creating headbands and sorting trash versus recycling.  We also have sorted flowers, talked about the parts of a flower, created a name garden, painted bottle print flowers, and planted seeds.  To round out our unit the toddlers painted a flower picture to put on the back of a special gift for Mother’s Day.

Spring is the perfect season to do an insect study.  The toddlers have painted, colored, and created  insect crafts.  We have read stories and sang songs about butterflies and bumblebees.  We have also played some fun games that reinforce counting and color recognition.

We had a quick turnaround from spring break to Easter.  The toddlers spent the week doing chick prints, egg matching, egg hunts, washi tape egg crafts, and matching bunny tails.

The toddlers have focused on one letter each week of school.  We review the letter each day and discuss the sound, shape, and words that begin with letter of the week.  Using our five senses we try to provide opportunities to see, touch, smell, hear, and even taste items that begin with the letter of the week.  We do crafts, read stories, fill the mystery can, and use hands on activities to reinforce the letter of the week.

U is for Unicorn, Umbrella, and Ukulele

V is for Vase

W is for Watermelon

X is for Xylophone and X-Ray

Y is for Yak, Yellow, and YoYo  (we read a cute book call Yak and Gnu)

Z is for Zipper, ZigZag, Zoo, and Zebra

We will a review of all the letters while we read and do a craft with  Chicka Chicka Boom Boom in May.