Our PreSchool Blog

Our toddler classroom is filled with opportunities to explore, problem solve, create, and learn through play.  Our curriculum theme of the month is winter.  We have used this as a guide to introduce and practice new vocabulary, incorporate our focus of shape (rectangle) and color (white) of the month, practice fine and large motor skills, and build on natural curiosity through using our senses to learn and grow.

Gross Motor Fun inside!  An indoor snowball fight and balancing on a rectangular beam.

Individual discovery tubs are filled with items to discover by touching, pouring, sorting, and scooping.

Polar bear shape sort and a rectangular polar bear craft have been a fun way to learn about arctic animals, shapes, and fine motor skills.

Free choice center opportunities provide toddlers with materials to explore and create igloos and “homes” for arctic animals.

Using our five senses to discover hot cocoa / cold whipped cream and enhance a Maurice Sendak classic Chicken Soup with Rice!

Lacing provides problem solving skills, patience, and practice.

Easter came early this year at Creative Tots! Our Preschool class celebrated by doing Easter themed activities all week!

We had a blast this week celebrating Dr. Seuss’ birthday! Each day we chose one of his books to focus our lessons and snacks around. These books included: Horton Hears a Who, The Lorax, Wacky Wednesday, Hop on Pop, and The Cat in the Hat.

Monday: Horton Hears a Who

We made our own snack to represent the clover Horton carries!

Tuesday: The Lorax 

We planted green bean seeds in our Lorax cups!

Fine motor truffula trees

Truffula seeds (aka Trix cereal) for snack!

Wednesday: Wacky Wednesday

The kids and teachers dressed “wacky” for the day, even the classroom was “wacky”!

Coloring under the tables… How wacky!

“Wacking” specific letters with a fly swatter!

Wacky Wednesday snack:  jell-o that appears to be red koolaid! We tricked them all!

Thursday: Hop on Pop

We practiced our rhyming skills by hopping on words that rhymed and trying to pop the bubble wrap!

Popcorn snack!

Friday: Cat in the Hat

Dr. Seuss sensory tubs!

We have stayed busy in the PM Preschool room this winter! From acting out winter literature, to learning about arctic animals… the kids are having a blast and of course, learning a lot!

Arctic animal bingo!

We focused in on the penguin for our science day! The kids learned that penguins have a layer of blubber to keep them warm. To help them understand this concept, we did an experiment to show the kids what blubber feels like for the penguins! We had two ice cold bowls of water. One bowl had a bag of coconut oil in it, to act as the blubber. They put one hand in each bowl and decided that the bowl with pretend blubber kept them warmer!

We then put a block between our legs so we could waddle like penguins!

We counted goldfish into the penguins belly’s!

5 Little Snowmen Readers Theatre!

Building shapes and open ended creations with toothpicks and marshmallows.

Letter building with “O” shaped cereal

Getting ready to count and build our towers

Getting our bodies involved on a cold winter day, with a gross motor shape hunt!

Melted snowman art!

Counting out “snowballs” with tongs for a fine motor addition!

Hand Strength and cutting practice

Learning positional words like over/under, on/off, and in/out is an important preschool skill. Not only do children develop spatial awareness by practicing these skills but they are also learning the fundamentals of early math.  Using positional words in connection with concrete objects and situations helps children develop vocabulary.  We had lots of fun this week learning the positional words IN and OUT as we took turns going IN the tunnel and coming OUT.

Although the weather here hasn’t been very “winter-like”, we are still learning about all of the things we do during the winter. We have talked about bundling up to go out in the snow, building a snowman, going sledding, having snowball fights, and having yummy hot chocolate to warm us up from the winter chill.

We practiced matching patterns and colors using different kinds of mittens to match!

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Playing outdoors allows our toddlers to learn about the world around them. Can sticks stand up in the sand? How does mud feel? Why do we slide down instead of up the slide? How do I make my truck go faster? How does the tree create cool shade from the sun? Why is the water in the water table cool in the morning and warm in the afternoon? Not only do children learn many of the basic and fundamentals about how the world works around them, they are more apt to remember what they learned because it was a concrete and personally meaningful experience!

The weather has warmed up fast!

Time to get outside and enjoy the beautiful sunshine and warm up our muscles!