Our PreSchool Blog

Young children function best when working in small groups due to the fact that their social and cognitive skills are still developing.  The bulk of our day is devoted to small group activities to help children grow both socially and cognitively.   When children work with only a few other children, in a small group setting, they learn important lessons about cooperation, compromise and the give and take of conversation. Also, when working in small groups with a teacher, children are able to receive the more focused attention they need for completing complex tasks and activities.

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!

In small groups with Ms. Caroline, the boys and girls are working on letter recognition! For some of the children, they match letter magnets with letters on a sheet. Others are working on matching the letters in their name. No matter what the children are working on, this is a great way to introduce letters, sounds and their names. The boys and girls have so much fun playing and learning with these games!

We continued our letter Ss study while building our hand strength in small groups!  Continuing to develop large and small muscle strength in the hands and forearms is extremely important during the preschool years.  When the large and small muscles of the forearm and hand are slow to develop, weakness and incoordination may result.  The large muscles of the forearm may overcompensate for weak inner hand muscles.  As a result, the child will find ways to hold, pinch and grip small objects in awkward ways.  By now your little ones should have transitioned from their fist grip on their writing utensils into a more developed grip.  Find the age appropriate pencil grip development chart here.  If you notice that your child shows signs of awkward grips, never hesitate to contact their teacher.  Click on the picture below for easy activities to build fine motor strength and hand strength at home.

We worked our fine motor muscles during our phonics study last week.  Our focus letter was the letter Ss!  After singing out letter s song during group time, we came up with words that started with the letter s as we used clips to pinch the poms and build our letter s.  There are many ways to build small motor muscles.  They are critical to becoming a great writer.  Keep working those fingers!

Our phonics study continued today in K Prep as we chose items out of the mystery box and placed them on the letter that corresponded to the beginning sound for some groups and the ending sound for others.  Keep practicing at home!