Our PreSchool Blog

February was all about things that “go”! We learned about trains, cars, boats and airplanes. We created fun crafts around those different modes of transportation. Some of the crafts focused on color or name recognition, while others focused on fine motor skills, such as using stickers or tape to decorate cars and roads! Following directions is also something we practice at each small group time. Check out below some of our learners hard at work, creating!

Name trains:

Creating Cars + Roads:

Name planes! (names redacted for safety reasons 🙂 )

Transportation sort: Air, Land, or Water?

Hands on car activities! Driving our cars on a “road”, washing our cars, and parking our cars in their colored parking lots!

While learning about Fall and the farm, we are learning all about the different animals you find on a farm! Below you can see some of our farm animal activities we have been doing in our small groups.

Matching is a great mathematical skill for our toddlers to practice. We also talk about big and little, so we practiced matching the big farm animals to the little farm animals!

Name recognition! Although name recognition is an advanced skill for most toddlers, we try and incorporate ways in which they can start to recognize their own name. In this activity, they put their name under which farm animal they like the most!

Farm gross motor movement! We used our die with inserts to play a fun game that also practices listening, following directions, and taking turns. You could roll like a pig in the mud, flap your wings like a chick, gallop like a horse, etcetera.

And we always like to sneak in some fine motor practice using stickers 🙂

Stay tuned for some Fall and Thanksgiving fun from the end of this week and next week!

As our “All About Me” unit has come to an end, here is a look at a couple of activities that we did to teach them about their own uniqueness, and to talk about how each of our friends are different and special in their own ways.

One day they painted their names, using watercolor paints. The trick was that they had to find their name at the table! Some of them recognized it, and some needed guidance. Name recognition is a skill we will gradually work on throughout the year.

Another activity, which was sent home, was when each of our toddler friends took turns being measured by Ms. Kristen, using a ribbon! Each ribbon represented the height of the child at this time in their lives. We hope they will look back one day and realize how much they have grown!

The preschoolers have been reviewing everything we have learned this school year! They were able to use stickers to review letters, numbers, colors, and shapes we have learned. We even practiced our names. Exploring with stickers was great fine motor practice and a fun way to talk about everything we have covered this school year.

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.

The preschoolers traced their names this morning. We learned proper letter formation and practiced letter sounds. We focused on using the correct grip and  recognizing our own names.