Our PreSchool Blog

Learning the letter N and associating it with words and names we already know was very exciting today.  While tracing the shape of the letter with our finger, we learned the sound that the N makes, and discussed items that begin with the letter N, such as nose, no, noise, note and newspaper.  Using a glue stick, the children traced the N again, then tore newspaper to glue onto the N (excellent fine motor practice!).  Some children remembered that they have the letter N in his/her name!

Ms. Penny joined our classes Thursday and Friday afternoon to teach us about a french artist who used dots to create his paintings.  His name was Georges Seurat.  After we learned about his technique and examined one of his famous paintings, Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, we tried our hand at our own creation using his unique painting technique.  Some of us even put it into practice at the art center all by ourselves…there were snowmen made out of dots and other great creations too!

The children have been hard at work putting the finishing touches on their special holiday gifts for their families!  Just a sneak peek of our little elves at work for all of you.  Homemade gifts from our little ones are a true gift from the heart.  They can’t wait to bring them home!

Hand Made Wrapping Paper

Hmmm...what could we be creating with our Blocks?

N is for necklace

This afternoon at group time we learned the letter “N”.  For our art project today we made necklaces for the letter “N”.  Here you can see Rutva, Caroline and Connor working so hard at stringing the beads onto their necklaces.  They did a wonderful job working with those fine motor skills to make beautiful necklaces!

This week we have some creepy, crawly, colorful spiders in our sensory table. There are over 100 spiders hiding in the table and the children love searching for the small creatures. Once they’ve found a colorful spider they place it in the corresponding color bucket with the tongs. This spooky spider activity is great for a our fine motor skills!

play-dough sculptures

The kids had a wonderful time with play dough this morning!  They were using their creative minds to turn their play dough into many different things.  Morgan turned his play dough into a pair of glasses and Audrey made hers into a hat!

exploring the sensory table

This week in our Sensory Table, the children are enjoying “Scooping up the Pom Poms!” We’ve placed shovels, spoons, scoops and tongs in the table along with our large, medium, and teeny tiny Pom Poms. Now, its the preschoolers’ very important job to make sure the colorful fluffs find their way into our Pom Pom containers. We love the soft and cuddly feel of these fuzzy Pom Poms.  Each week we have a new theme in our Sensory Table, whether its an ewy-gooy messy zone or a simple sand and water theme, the Sensory Table Center always has something exciting to explore!

We have been working diligently all summer to advance our curriculum this year.  With the teachers now returning from their continuing education conferences and various workshops across the country this summer, they are bursting with ideas.  As always, our focus on creating the ideal learning environment by inspiring by good functional color and design has us implementing yet another vision of what we think children should be surrounded by in order to instill creativity in academics.  This means a facelift to many of our regular areas.  In fact, we have had many of our returning students drop by to take a look around this summer.  At Tots, we are always happy to see our students take an interest in the process of learning.  Even if it means just grabbing a paint brush and helping out with some of the remodeling.  Its amazing how quickly skills develop in the kids that are given an opportunity.