Our PreSchool Blog

February was all about things that “go”! We learned about trains, cars, boats and airplanes. We created fun crafts around those different modes of transportation. Some of the crafts focused on color or name recognition, while others focused on fine motor skills, such as using stickers or tape to decorate cars and roads! Following directions is also something we practice at each small group time. Check out below some of our learners hard at work, creating!

Name trains:

Creating Cars + Roads:

Name planes! (names redacted for safety reasons 🙂 )

Transportation sort: Air, Land, or Water?

Hands on car activities! Driving our cars on a “road”, washing our cars, and parking our cars in their colored parking lots!

An objective in the toddler class is starting to recognize the different colors and shapes. We love implementing different methods of learning these objectives through play! Being able to incorporate gross motor and fine motor into our learning also makes the activities more fun and interactive. Check out some of the activities below!

In the toddler class, we’ve also been working on our crafts, which entails sitting at the tables, following directions, and taking turns. This is something we have to practice from the start of school, and our little learners have been doing great! Last week we made a “donut” out of the letter “D”!

The studio toddlers had a penguin party, using penguins to help us match colors. They had to match the penguin’s hat to the color scarf the penguin was wearing. Sometimes our friends will choose a color on their own, and then they try to name the color for us. Other times we will direct them to a specific color to try and challenge them to find colors they may not know as well as others.

In our other small group, we used our shape of the month, triangle, to make a penguin of our own! Here, our learners follow 1 and 2 step directions to complete the activity.

Color recognition is a skill that uses the cognitive function, which is what our brains use to think, reason, and remember. Through cognitive reasoning, children link visual clues, such as colors, to the word it corresponds to, which is recalled from the use of their cognitive function.

The toddlers have been learning all about the color green this month! We incorporated the color green into lots of activities this week, for them to have the continual to exposure to one color, in which they can link to the word, “green”. They went on a hunt for the color green, used green markers, crayons, chalk, and paint, to create different artwork, and used green circles and triangles to sort shapes! Our friends sure made green week fun!

The boys and girls had a blast fishing with Ms. Laurel today! This was such a fun and interactive way for the children to review their colors and shapes. The boys and girls were given a chance to go fishing, then they told the other children what color their fish was and what shape it had on it. They all did a great job recognizing their shapes and colors!

This activity is all about exploring their names to help the boys and girls begin to recognize them. Recognizing their names is the first step to early literacy.  Their names have meaning and value to them…it’s personal.  One of the best places to start early letter recognition is through name activities.  Be sure to make it fun…write it with chalk when you’re playing outside…write it in the sandbox or even in the steam on the bathroom mirror after bath time.  If you’re feeling adventurous use play dough to spell it!  The great thing about play-based, name recognition activities is they won’t even know their learning…they’ll just know their spending time with you!

This month in the Toddler room is all about Bugs! We will be discussing things that live in the garden in the month of April. In the sensory tub is all sort of bugs, bug catchers, buckets to sort and flowers. The boys and girls will have so much fun exploring in the sensory tub!

Today in the Toddler room we are having a foam party! Ms. Laurel mixed together liquid soap, water and food coloring to make rainbow foam! The boys and girls enjoyed watching Ms. Laurel mix it all together. Then they had some sensory fun mixing all the colors together!

Our shape of the month is a heart. During group time the boys and girls had the chance to play a matching game! Each child came up to the board to match a heart. The children did a great job finding their matches!