We had such a great time the past two days celebrating Valentine’s Day. We invited families in to help deliver Valentines, decorate cookies, and share special music time with Ms. Joanie.
We had such a great time the past two days celebrating Valentine’s Day. We invited families in to help deliver Valentines, decorate cookies, and share special music time with Ms. Joanie.
We are humbled by the number of votes that were cast to help earn us Most Loved Preschool Award 2018 from Hulafrog. Thank you to all of our amazing families past and present for continuing to spread the word and support us. Year two of this award makes us feel loved!
P is a fun letter to study. We had pajama days, ate pancakes, played in the pink sensory tub,
and created a pig out of the letter P.
We had so much fun in the Toddler room this month! Focusing on the color white – we made sparkle white playdough, had white food for snack, and created white collage art. Triangles are the shape of the month this January. We used hands-on manipulatives (craft sticks and pretzel sticks) to create triangles and practiced with glue sticks to create a class mural of triangles. Our study of polar animals led to some yummy snacks, a fun obstacle course through the arctic circle, matching animals, songs, stories, and fun!
Our second semester of enrichment classes have begun and Ms. Joanie’s music class is rockin’! As parents, we want to give our children every opportunity for successful growth. Yet, we don’t want them to grow up too fast! Music allows children to savor the best parts of childhood. There are also many benefits of music participation in the early years. Music encourages children to move! Moving is an integral part of preparing the brain to learn. Music also fosters a sense of community and belonging as well as provides an outlet for self-expression. School readiness is closely linked to music readiness. The same skills and experiences necessary for a child to be ready for music lessons when they are older are the same skills and experiences that enhance and even accelerate academic readiness and success. Listening, identifying patterns, problem-solving, creative thinking, and self-confidence are skills that music develops.
Tis the season! The toddlers have had a great time dressing up in elf outfits and “baking” in the dramatic play center.
We have been decorating our tree by sorting balls!
We have been focusing on our color of the month: RED! We drew red items out of a red hat and played in the candy cane sensory tub!
J is for Jingle bell – We painted our J’s with jingle bells!
HAPPY HOLIDAYS
Using our five senses strengthens our everyday experiences. The five senses introduce toddlers to methods of exploring the world around them and expanding their view of how things work. Drawing a child’s attention to the five senses and discussing them increases understanding of and communication about the world around us.
We used the all five senses (sight, hearing, smell, touch, and taste) to explore a giant marshmallow!
Children use their ears to take in information about things around them. Like other skills that children learn, listening takes practice. Indoors and outdoors, there are many opportunities for toddlers to engage their listening skills. The marshmallows were hidden inside the mystery can. We used our ears to try to guess what was in the can. As I shook the can – our class discussed that they made a soft quiet sound.
When children play games that involve sight, they’re practicing early literacy skills! Sight games help children recognize words, patterns, objects…and help them develop their memory! Sense of sight activities help preschoolers learn about their eyes as they explore the world around them. We used our eyes to observe the color, shape, and size of the marshmallow.
Over time, children will recognize certain smells as comforting, yummy, scary, exciting, etc. As children are exposed to different smells, they learn more about our environment. They will be able to distinguish between good and bad smells, comfortable and uncomfortable smells. In the toddler room, we used our noses to smell the sweet sugary marshmallows.
Most touch activities involve the hands and feet. Children learn how to communicate with others through touch. Engaging their hands builds their fine motor skills, helping them learn how to do more for themselves, such as writing their names and buttoning their coats. Everyone got to hold a marshmallow. We discussed that it was soft and squishy and sticky inside.
Many events in a child’s life involve food. Sense of taste activities teach children that the sense of taste and smell are connected. This was the best part – tasting the giant marshmallow!
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…
Now that Thanksgiving has come and gone, we are getting into the holiday spirit!
We started by making open ended creations using red and green gum drops and tooth picks!
We went on a letter hunt in pretend snow! (Even though it happened to be 60 degrees outside at the end of November!)
We painted with star shaped cookie cutters! Our December shape is the star, and color is red.
The students were able to make homemade red, peppermint play-doh! We will use this in class activities throughout December.
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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