Getting back into the swing of things means reviewing old routines and practicing procedures. For our small groups, the boys and girls learned new games and activities that are available to them in our centers. Teaching them how the activities and games work ensures that the children are playing the game/activity the correctly, ultimately gaining the educational purpose it is designed for. A new month means new centers, which means new ways to learn!
Welcome back!! It was great to see everyone’s smiling face back in action today! To start the new year off, we introduce new center activities, along with a new January country: Greenland. With a cold climate and lots of white to see, the children have lots of opportunity to explore activities with letters, numbers and shapes that represent snow and ice. In Ms. Leslie’s small group, we played “Flurries or Snowstorm?” The children chose a number, then put the corresponding “snowflakes” onto our winter scene. In Ms. Lori’s small group, she showed the children several ways to build a snowman: rolling balls using playdoh, stacking different sized circles, and tracing a snowman. In Ms. Courtney’s small group, the children used “snow” to trace out the letters V, W and X. We had a snowtastic day!
Our preschoolers turned our classroom into Santa’s Workshop today as we turned red licorice and white yarn into a candy cane! This is no ordinary candy cane….it’s a number nine candy cane! In order to make this yummy creation, the children had to follow step-by-step directions, use their fine motor skills to twist, and use number recognition to create the number nine. It was a quite a treat to work on so many skills in one fun activity!
The fun part about gingerbreads are decorating them! Today, we traveled to our favorite nation, the imagination, and had a fun time pretending to decorate our gingerbreads. Using number recognition, the children pulled a number, then put their one-to-one correspondence skills to work by putting the corresponding number of buttons on the gingerbread. Working with the numbers four through nine really helped the children focus on their counting skills.
As a preschooler, numbers and matching are two skills they will become very familiar with. Today, we merged the two by having the children use number puzzles. Each child had puzzle pieces with numbers and had to match the number to corresponding pieces with pictures on it. The children enjoyed the challenge of the hunt and practiced those number recognition and counting skills.
We explored math today in preschool during small groups. We talked about different constellations (or parts of constellations) during group time and viewed them on the smartboard. Then, we tried our hand at creating our own “Number Constellations.” We used our fine motor skills (important for successful writing in the future) and poked holes in black paper to create different numbers. Then we traveled over to the light table to view our creations.
Counting and number recognition are two very important mathematical foundations. Putting those together and practicing those skills brings a child’s thought process to the next level. For example, some of the older children were able to recognize the six dots on the die with out counting them, and then identify the number six on the paper and stamp it. These types of hands on activities are excellent practice to those children who are still working on building up their math skills.
Numbers one through five are the easiest for preschoolers to count because they are able to do those on their fingers. Once we move on to six, seven and eight, it gets a little trickier. Today, we focused on the numbers four, five, six and seven. Using barnyard animals and a pretend barn, we hunted for those numbers hidden in our barn. The children identified the number they found, then matched it with the corresponding animal on the paper.
To reinforce what we discussed at group time, we colored “1” Chicken today!
Creative Tots has specialized in the private education of both toddlers and preschool age children for over 15 years. We began in the heart of Madeira and now also have a new Mason location. We are specifically designed to focus on early childhood development for children ages 18 months to 5 years.
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