Our PreSchool Blog

We continued our letter Ss study while building our hand strength in small groups!  Continuing to develop large and small muscle strength in the hands and forearms is extremely important during the preschool years.  When the large and small muscles of the forearm and hand are slow to develop, weakness and incoordination may result.  The large muscles of the forearm may overcompensate for weak inner hand muscles.  As a result, the child will find ways to hold, pinch and grip small objects in awkward ways.  By now your little ones should have transitioned from their fist grip on their writing utensils into a more developed grip.  Find the age appropriate pencil grip development chart here.  If you notice that your child shows signs of awkward grips, never hesitate to contact their teacher.  Click on the picture below for easy activities to build fine motor strength and hand strength at home.

We worked our fine motor muscles during our phonics study last week.  Our focus letter was the letter Ss!  After singing out letter s song during group time, we came up with words that started with the letter s as we used clips to pinch the poms and build our letter s.  There are many ways to build small motor muscles.  They are critical to becoming a great writer.  Keep working those fingers!

After reading the book “Mouse Shapes”, we learned that shapes are all around us! The KPrep and Preschool classes made pictures using the 2D shapes we learned about.

We practiced the confusing curves of the letter s today in small groups.  First, we traced each S with our finger.  Then, we wrote the letter S with our magic maker.  Last, we used mini magic eraser to work our fine motor muscles and traced over the S’s to magically make the line disappear!

\

Shapes are all around us!  During group time in preschool today, we discovered a secret shape hidden under our carpet circle then searched the classroom to find its match,  then we sorted them on our shape mats.  What a fun way to explore squares, ovals, diamonds, circles, and triangles.  After our hunt, we read the book Mouse Shapes and watched as the little mice used a variety of shapes to create different pictures, then we used our own creativity to create our own shape pictures!

Click to Watch the Shape Video from our Lesson Today!

Last month in preschool we learned a lot about the Arctic Habitat!  We got to learn about various animals like the walrus, narwhal, arctic fox, and polar bear.  In order for animals to live in the harsh, cold weather, they had to have special adaptations that allow them to stay warm.  Some animals have lots of fur to keep them warm, others have lots of fat or blubber.  Others hibernate.  We learned that hibernating is when animals go into a deep sleep during winter.  We learned where certain animals go when they hibernate and we got to pretend we were hibernating animals too!  Animals wake up when it gets warm and they go on hunt for food, so when we finished hibernating it was time for snack!!

We got to do some fun art projects this month too, like this fun walrus!

We learned a lot this month!

We turned our eyes to the night sky on Friday and learned about constellations.  Many of the students were already familiar with the big and little dipper…we were impressed!  We used our newly learned knowledge of constellations to create our own in the shape of our focus letter:  Oo.  Using our small motor muscles in our hands, we punched holes in black paper with a toothpick, then held it up to the light to reveal our constellations!  Be sure to check out the night sky this week to see if you can spot the big dipper!  Send us some pics of your little one star gazing…we’d love to add it to our blog post!