The preschoolers are starting to get into the routine of the classroom. They know what's coming next and what to expect. Everyone loves to be the classroom helper (1 preschooler each day gets to be the helper). They are in charge of turning off the lights when we leave the room, encouraging other during clean up times, pointing to various things on the magnet board, etc. It's a fun job.
Dress up is a big thing in this class. They get very into dressing up and imaginative play. I even caught Abby pretending to be ME! She was playing the cookie game with Jackson and Warren. She had that teacher role down! "Let's sit criss-cross applesauce before we start, please."
And Sofia with her sick patient game. She is quite the actress. She walks up to the other kids fake coughing, or holding her leg saying it's broken, to get them to play along. It works every time.
The kids worked those fine motor skills a lot this week! They cut out shapes for a fun art project. They were to cut out 2 circles and 2 triangles. Jackson informed me that "cutting straight lines would be easier, so maybe circles should be flatter." So funny. He cut circles anyway, along with everyone else.
We talked about ART and how "good art" is good because the person creating it tried hard, and had fun. Each frog artwork turned out different, and good, because they all worked hard, and they all had fun. Warren told everyone, "You can't really WIN at art, but you can have FUN." I liked that.
We are working hard to know all our letters! Those 'b' 'd' 'p' and 'q' letters are tricky! A simple letter match game made it more fun.
Color Clix (or Smart Links if you get them from Wendy's kid meals) are the most fun building toys! The kids can get so creative with them, and they have to use their fine motor muscles to get them to fit together. They also did some sorting and counting which was a happy surprise. Jared sat here forever making creation after creation. Then he would count how many pieces, and tell me what it was, and start all over again.
The Grandparents Day activity was painting. We talked a lot about what Grandmas and Grandpas liked, and the common thing was LOVE. So they decided that painting hearts (and other things) would be best. They went to town and because we used that thick water color paper, they turned out very vibrant. The kids also told me what to write on the note to the grandparent of their choice. It was cute to see how much thought they put into it! Those paintings and little messages were sent out on Friday afternoon!
Our outside time was pretty soggy this week from all the rain, and then on Friday, we decided to stay inside.
I still wanted them to be able to have some large motor movement time, so we played "The Name Game". I wrote each of their names on a piece of tape and put in on the floor. At first they would each go to their own name, and then I had them all go to one of the names. We sounded out the names slowly, and they encouraged each other when one of them found it first so the others could come. It was a nice team building game.
I brought out the Lite Brite for some more of that fine motor work, see it really was a LOT of fine motor this week! Using that nice pincer grip helps them with their ability to hold a pencil correctly, and form letters and numbers more clearly.
They played lots of Scramble too. It was called perfection when I was little, but it still does the same thing. The timer is set and after just over a minute, it pops the pieces up and messes them all up, whether you're finished or not. It's very surprising and very fun. This game is also good for shape recognition, matching, sorting, visual discrimination, fine motor skills… I could go on.
And of course there was lots of other free playing going on. Together or separately, there is always something to PLAY!
We got the chance to celebrate Christian's birthday! Usually we can celebrate closer to the actual day, but since his birthday happened on the first day of school, there was much too much to do. So we sang to him, and he picked his prizes, and then asked that we sing again. So we did. Happy birthday Christian!
Our quiet reading room has been more popular this week than last week. There have been several times that they came in to look at books and sit quietly. Lullaby played family with Sofia and Abby and was reading them a bedtime story, and telling her baby to drink her bottle. Then they would switch roles, and someone else would play the mom.
