Our PreSchool Blog

This month we are talking about community helpers.  This week we are focusing on the denstist and mailman.  Today during group time we asked everyone who had been to the dentist before and how important it is to take  care of our teeth!  We also played a game with teeth!  Each tooth had either a shape or letter on it.  The kids had to close their eyes while Ms. Sarah hide the baby tooth behind one of the labeled teeth.  When they opened their eyes, each child had a chance to guess where the tooth was hidden by describing which tooth they thought it was behind.  This was a great activity for practicing letter recognition and our shapes and colors!

shapes and letters at the dentist

We continued name practice today with our Pumpkin Seed Letters. The preschoolers Identified the first letter of their name and placed pumpkin seeds all around that letter. Our names provide so much exposure to those important letters of the alphabet and are such a great tool for teaching. We talk about the first letter of our name and how it is ALWAYS uppercase while the rest of the letters in our name are lowercase. These types of activities are not only great for letter recognition but they start our students down the road of becoming readers! Children are excited to be able to read their own names and feel very proud when doing so! What a great confidence builder, too!

Today was a great day for puzzles, but not just any puzzles…puzzles of our very own names! The students put together puzzles of their names as well as the names of their friends.
A child’s name is quite possibly the most important word in their young and growing vocabulary and therefore can be a great avenue to letter recognition. They begin to not only memorize the letters in their own names but also the letters in the names of their classmates. The children took great ownership in their name puzzles and were excited to take them home to show to their families.
We will use our names for many activities and learning games throughout the school year and these puzzles are great preparation and practice for what’s to come.

The children were excited today during group time when Elmo came to visit with his friend Dorothy the Fish.  Dorothy will be surprising the kids each week with a special letter on her fish bowl.  Elmo helped us count to three as we unveiled the mystery letter “L”.  Apart from touching and feeling, the toddlers will also “see” the various physical differences between the different letters and quickly begin to recognize the new letters each week.  We will be focusing on letter recognition and letter sounds as we sing and learn with Elmo and Dorothy!

Dorothy the fish introduces our toddlers to the new letter this week