Our PreSchool Blog

On Friday, we continued our “How We Go” transportation theme with HOT AIR BALLOONS! We read the book “Up, Up, Up”…Our question of the day was: “Which hot air balloon is your favorite?” {the blue hot air balloon got the most votes!} We do the question of the day to give the children a chance to interact during group…and I use it as a chance for them to recognize their names when I hold up their little person. “H-A-N-N-A-H…..who is H-A-N-N-A-H?” {“me!!!”} “Hannah, Which is your favorite hot air balloon?” This also gives the other children a chance to learn/practice their classmates’ names.

Next we talked about hot the air that is used to make a hot air balloon fly is HOT. Cold air is what makes it sink in the sky. I got a hair dryer and a grocery bag to demonstrate how the hot air blows into the balloon to inflate it, lifting it into the air.

In one of our small groups, the children decorated hot air balloons. They used their fine motor skills to glue tissue paper onto their “balloon.” In another group, we painted butcher paper with combs to make the hot air balloon basket. While we painted with combs, we practiced pre-writing words like “up”, “down”, “across”, “straight lines”, “curvy lines”, etc. This will help the children develop the vocabulary necessary for learning to write. {i.e. “Today we are making a ‘B’…it has a big straight line and two little curves.”}

Ms. Sarah

September 15th (ish) is International Dot Day!
This story by Peter H Reynolds tells us to make are mark, and Friday in the Preschool…we DID!!!

Make your mark…and see where it takes you!!! -Peter H. Reynolds

The K Prep students did their second entry in their journals today.  Last week our entry was about what/who we love.  We saw a lot of family faces in those entries!  Monday, after reading the book, We Love School we wrote/drew about our favorite thing at our own school.

Journal writing is one of the foundation blocks of our language arts philosophy. Each week, the children have a set time to write in their journals. The journal serves as a valuable learning tool. The children are beginning to get their ideas on paper and learn first hand the power of words. Research shows that journaling is one of the most effective ways to teach and learn phonics.

Children at the beginning stages often use “scribble writing” or random letters to represent words. As they progress, they will begin to use the letters that represent the sounds in the words that they are attempting to write (“btrfli” for butterfly). We make good use of the children’s growing phonics by helping them listen carefully to the words they wish to use. Our ultimate goal is for each child to learn to communicate on paper whether it is through words or illustrations.

Children draw pictures as the main part of their communication at these early stages. Drawing helps them find the words they might want to use in their writing.

"Painting Center"

"I like to play on the playground."

"Me and Bode Playing Basketball"

"To Draw with Sam on the Chalkboard"

"I like to play in the writing center."

"I like when my family comes to school."

It is important to strengthen all of the muscles in the hand and wrist while working on the handwriting process. Forcing little fingers, hands, and wrists to move in new ways is great for developing stronger muscles. Writing on a vertical surface challenges the wrist to use different muscles than writing on a flat surface usually does. The preschoolers worked on recognizing their names. A fun way to work on these muscles at home is writing with window markers or using foam letters/numbers on the walls in the bath tub. Have fun working those muscles!

We have introduced smaller writing utensils to continue to strengthen different fine motor muscles. Developmentally our preschoolers are ready to try controlling those muscles while tracing smaller letters as well. We are also working on writing our names without lines to trace.

Unicorn.

Uncle Scott.

Uncle Jay.

Uncle Todd.

Uncle Frank.

Utensils.