Our PreSchool Blog

We had a great time celebrating Autumn in the toddler room!

Our Discovery bins were filled with beans, leaves, mini pumpkins and scoops and bowls to practice pouring and scooping.  These bins also foster discussion of colors, letters, and shapes.

We used fall colored fingerprints to make turkey feathers for a Thanksgiving craft!

Our watercolored leaves turned into fall foxes!

We practiced fine motor skills by coloring, stickers, and fall themed playdough cookie cutters.

Fall provides some yummy apples.  We used the special peeler to get our snack prepared!

Fall was fun! Winter is coming…

The farm theme has provided some fun center options and activities in the toddler room.

The toddler sensory bin filled with corn kernels and farm animals.

A horse barn has provided a fun place for imaginary play.

We used our sense of hearing to listen to the farm animal sounds!

We have practiced fine motor skills while lacing farm animals!

Fun farm animal magnets were mixed with letters to provide discussion.

Another sensory activity included washing big and little farm animals.

We sorted farm animals by size (big and little) and by color.

Then we acted out our book of the month, I Spy On the Farm,  with face puppets.

The Creative Tots Halloween Party was a blast!  A special snack, crafts, and games made our classroom celebration lots of fun!

We practiced the fine motor skill of scooping to make a ghost to take home.

We played a ghost game of throwing the ghost into a basket.

Our bat hat craft was a big hit amongst the toddlers!  The children added eyes and fangs.  They had fun checking themselves out in the mirror.

There were some fun costumes this year too!  Lions, and pandas, and donuts…oh my!

Class pictures are always a fun challenge!

Everyone received a fun yummy treat to take home.  Trick or treat!

The Lego eating monster only likes legos that are the same color.  The kids took turns

feeding the monster with matching legos.

This monster likes beanbags.  Kids named the color of beanbag before they threw it in!

Five little pumpkins sitting on a gate…  We have had so much fun with this little song.  We did an art project with pumpkin stickers, read several book versions, put 5 pumpkins on the magnet board, and acted the song out.  We also made yummy pumpkin muffins, decorated mini pumpkins with washi tape, and played hot pumpkin (a version of hot potato).  Our sensory bin for the month has been pumpkin seeds with scoops and tins to “make pumpkin pie”.  We also plan to use all of our senses to explore the outside and inside of a pumpkin!  Happy orange October!

Learning positional words like over/under, on/off, and in/out is an important preschool skill. Not only do children develop spatial awareness by practicing these skills but they are also learning the fundamentals of early math.  Using positional words in connection with concrete objects and situations helps children develop vocabulary.  We had lots of fun this week learning the positional words IN and OUT as we took turns going IN the tunnel and coming OUT.

On March 9, 2018, we will host the annual Creative Tots Art Show.  This is a fun evening for children to show their families selected art pieces that they have worked on during the year.  The art projects involve fine motor skills and different art techniques.  The students have already started working on pieces for the art show but we don’t send them home.  We keep all these at school for the big reveal in March.  Here is a sneak peek at part of our first piece.

We are using the dinosaur theme to incorporate fine motor skills, sorting, matching, position words, and more. We have read several dinosaur books including Dini the Dinosaur, we have learned dinosaurn fingerplays, and danced to Laurie Berkner’s We are the Dinosaurs. Toddlers are learning through play!

Hello Yellow!  The color focus for the month of September is YELLOW.  We have used all of our senses to immerse ourselves in yellow.  We have read a book called Hello Yellow about a parade, we have watched videos and sang songs about the color yellow, sorted items by color, and our “lemonade” sensory tub is filled with all types of yellow items for pouring and scooping.  During small group, the mystery can was filled with all yellow items (banana, corn, yellow crayon, yellow car, yellow monkey, duck, etc.).  We also tasted yellow lemons and did lemon prints.  The children combined our letter study and color study by string painting a “B” to create a yellow bumble bee.  On Friday, we took turns measuring and pouring and made yellow play dough!  We will continue to focus and yellow in the classroom throughout the month.  You can reinforce at home by having your child find yellow items around the house and pointing out yellow things in their everyday lives.

Young children thrive on routine and repetition.  We plan our toddler day around a regular schedule so our friends know what’s coming next.  We mix up group activities, free choice, gross motor activities, etc. to engage the kids and accommodate attention spans.

Daily Schedule

9:00-9:40 Arrival/Free Play

9:45-10:00 Story Time/ Fingerplays

10:00-10:25  Outside Time /Parachute / Gross Motor Activities

10:30-10:45 Snack Time / Quiet reading

10:45 – 11:00 Letter Review / Pre-academic Small Groups

11:00 – 11:15 Centers / Art / Sensory Bins

11:15-11:30 Music / Movement / Dismissal

Here is a glimpse into a day in the toddler room:

Morning Free Play

Story Time

Fingerplays

Outside Time/ Gross Motor

Parachute

Snack Time

Quiet Reading

Pre-academic Groups (Mystery Can; Letter Mailbox)

Small Groups

Centers

Art

Sensory Bins

Music/Movement

Dismissal