Read to your child every day!

Read, read, read, and read some more! 

Children who are read to daily have a much larger vocabulary by the time they begin kindergarten than children who are not read to as often. They also are more inquisitive, prepared to learn and do better in school.

We read to the children every day at preschool, in our story time, often in small groups or just to a child individually.  

Parents should read with your child every day, and yes, they love repetition and they love to have the same book read over and over again.  These books get tiresome to parents, but children love them because they are familiar, they know what is coming next and can follow the story.  

When you read with your child, move your finger along under the words, and if there is a book with a word that is repeated over and over like " hops", have your child " read that word" when you come to it.

Talk about the pictures and the story, ask questions about what they see or what they think might happen next. Rather than test questions like " what color is the car? Or how many boats are there?" Ask questions your child can think about, like " where do you think the boat will go? Or what do you think he and his friends will do at the park?" Or even " what do you think will happen next?"

Model reading for your child, let them see that you read for information, but also for enjoyment.

Utilize your local library.  We are so fortunate to have many wonderful libraries in our area and most of them allow you to check books out if you have a library card to any local library.  You can get a library card free with proof of residency.  The library has computers, books, some toys, puzzles, cd's and movies, plus so much more.  The librarians are a wonderful resource to help you choose appropriate books too.

We also have a small lending library at our entrance door.  Please feel free to borrow a book, take it home to read and bring it back.

Large motor time

The children at Trinity Preschool have "large motor time" every day, which could also be called gym or playground time. This is an important developmental activity which helps children develop their larger muscles which help with movement, body control, sitting , and help their neurological system develop as well.  There are so many reasons why it is important for children to have time and space to move their bodies freely, including helping them learn.

Many programs and schools pull back or drop gym, recess, large motor time to allow extra "learning time" , but we understand that this time is "Learning Time" as well and include it in the schedule every day.

Music time

Music is another brain booster and we have music time at school every day.  Finger plays, songs, movement songs, music instruments like shakers, drums, bells, rhythm sticks and more are used each day during music time.  

We also use CD's to sing along and move to and some of our favorites are Jim Gill, Miss Carole, Greg and Steve and Dr Jean.  

Fun fact: Music uses a different part of the brain than spoken language uses and makes learning easier. We often see children who speak limited English able to sing and understand songs.  We also have many visual props we use with the songs.  If you want your child to learn something faster, put it to music.

Play dough

Play dough

We make a great home made version of play dough that is soft and pliable, but not crumbly.  I will post recipe later.

Why do we do play dough? The full answer is rather lengthy, but I will put an abbreviated version here.  Play dough offers great sensory input, the softness, pliability, scent, and color all make play dough an activity that can sooth an anxious child, and help calm their sensory overload too.  It is a great activity to bring a child in to when they first come in the room and are unsure what to do first.  It can give them the time to organize their thoughts so they can choose their next activity.

Play dough is great for fine motor development, those fine finger muscles which will need to hold pencils to write.  I have also seen children who could not write their name be able to form the letters out of play dough and then immediately become able to write their name.

Play dough is a great social, communication activity, between children or an adult with a child. They also build their confidence as they are able to make something. Children who may not comfortably engage in conversation can talk about the butterfly they made or the cookie and adults can extend that conversation into what kind of cookie?, do you bake cookies? What is your favorite kind of cookie? Let's count how many we made....etc.

You can use play dough for letter formation, a math activity, such as counting, adding, subtracting, even patterning. 

We make play dough to go along with colors and smells for various seasons too, orange pumpkin scented in fall, peppermint white play dough in January. 

It is easy to make play dough at home and just give your child cookie cutters, straws, any small kitchen utensil, plastic knives, Legos, or other small easily washable toys.  You can put it on a tray or cookie sheet while you make dinner and your child can happily play nearby.

Kindergarten enrichment class at Trinity preschool

We live in an area with half day kindergarten and so much expected of the children that we decided to offer an afternoon kindergarten enrichment class.  Right now we started with one afternoon a week, but may expand it to 2 afternoons if there is enough interest.  

The class will be focusing on language, phonics, and math activities, with occasional art, cooking, science and other activities that will extend the learning on a topic.we will look at books with rich vocabulary, and help the children recount stories, recalling details, and dictating their own stories.  We will engage the children in active learning, because many of them have to sit too long in the morning at school.  We will also be giving the children recess and time to use our wonderful materials at choice time.  In a small group setting, we can find where a child needs their skills built up and work on those skills.  We will also be working on important social skills and fundamentals like following directions, remembering instructions, etc.

We are excited to be offering this new class at our school.

Transformation from caterpillar to butterfly project

 This is such a cute project.  

We always get painted lady caterpillars in the spring and watch the transformation from caterpillar to chrysalis to butterfly; we then have a release party to set them free.  In our Maple room the children paint egg cartons to look like caterpillars.  Then as our real caterpillars transform into the chrysalis stage, we have them put their caterpillar inside a paper bag to be their chrysalis.  They stay in there a couple of weeks having on a bulletin board in the room.  Meanwhile the children paint "wings", we used eye droppers and folded paper to make them look symmetrical, but you can do any creative art process.  Then the fun part begins.  When the children are not there, we take their caterpillar out of the bag, add wings and put it back in the bag and back on the bulletin board.  Then we wait and when our real butterflies start to emerge we do something really fun.  We added to the paper bag on the end a piece of fishing line and when the children are sitting at circle time, one of the teachers is gently pulling on the fishing line, to shake the bag until one of the children notices the noise or movement.  Then we announce the butterflies are trying to emerge from their chrysalis and take the bags down.  The children open the paper bag (chrysalis) and find their butterfly inside!  They are beyond excited!  We tie this all in with various books about butterflies including The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle.

Fall bulletin board leaves, pigs, corn and chickens!

We like to use the children's art in our room decorations.  The children enjoy seeing their work valued this way.  We use it in the rooms and in the halls too.  In the Willow classroom the children have been learning about farms and fall, so we incorporated it all to make fall, farm art.

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We added chickens and corn for our fall bulletin board.

We painted bubble wrap and made a print on paper, then cut them into corn shapes for our bulletin board.

We glued feathers on to chicken shapes.

We fingerpainted with chocolate pudding and pressed a pig shape onto the pudding. 

Chenille Kraft Papier Mache Classrm Activities Kit - Art Supplies & (Googe Affiliate Ad)

If you give a mouse a cookie bulletin board

To start the school year in the Oak Room, we read the books by Laura Numeroff and the children help create this bulletin board for our classroom. 

Preschool Birthday Bullletin Boards

The Willow Room will make the children feel special and welcome with these great, colorful birthday bulletin boards. 

What will your child grow up to become?

When I see the children in our preschool, I often wonder what will they "do" when they grow up?  Will they have a passion for something that leads them into a specific direction?  What kind of learner will they be? 

I think all too often we look at children in one way and expect them to all learn the same way.  There has been so much research to show us this is not true, but it is hard for us to adjust to different styles of learning.  I enjoyed watching the Olympics this summer and I also enjoy watching "So you think you can dance"; but one of the parts of those shows I appreciate is when they talk about the backgrounds and how these amazing athletes and dancers were not always the "best students" or the "easy student" or "the regurgitate the answers you read in a book student".  Often they were the students who could not sit still, or needed to move to stay focused.  They were the students who had to try things hands on to see how it worked, not just read about it.  They probably were sometimes the students who frustrated parents, teachers, classmates too, they didn't seem to listen, or were always touching stuff. 

I found their stories compelling and enlightening too.  I feel it is the role of a parent and teacher to help a child find what it is they are meant to do. This is my wish for each of the preschoolers who come through our school.  That we can not only help them learn to be successful students, but we can ignite a passion in them for true learning; and that someday they will find something in life that excites them enough that they want to put all of their energy and focus into it. 

More Eric Carle fun in the Maple Room

We added watercolors to the collages we made on Monday.

We showed more of Eric Carle's art style and made out own stars from collage

Adding watercolors to our collages

We followed the style of Eric Carle and did an outline of a star, the children filled it in with snips of the painted paper they created on Wednesday. 

The did a great job with this project.

The children snipped the painted paper into small pieces to place them where they wanted.

Each child's picture became a unique creation.

The children really enjoyed learning about the artistic style of Eric Carle.  We showed them and read to them many of the books he has done and did several art projects that continued over a few days.  I love how they created the paper, then used it later to make a different picture. 

Maple Room Learns about Eric Carle

A selection of materials the children were given to embellish their painting.

Each child was given a paper plate with fresh paint to begin their picture.

First the children painted using brushes or other tools to spread the paint on the paper.

The children used bubble wrap, potato mashers, scrapers, dab tools to make unique images.

They also had legos, and texture pads to use for painting.

The teacher wet the paper slightly and many children spread paint all over the paper before adding textures with other tools.

Each picture came out so unique.

Two of Eric Carle's books the teacher read first and showed the children how he made his illustrations.

 

We watched a video by Eric Carle about how he made the illustrations for  The Very Hungry Caterpillar

The children are learning about the wonderful illustrator and author, Eric Carle.  We have been reading some of his books all week and today we talked about  how he creates his illustrations.  The teacher showed the children tissue paper and tracing paper and explained how he paints right on tissue with paint and other materials to create the various looks.  We didn't paint on tissue paper as it is pretty thin and fragile, so we used regular paper, but followed some of his techniques. We are going to use the paper after it dries to create some pictures on Friday.  I will post those pictures too. We watched a video on you tube by Eric Carle about how he created his Very Hungry Caterpillar. We talked to the children about what an author does and what an illustrator does.     It was fun to see how excited they were and how much they understood.  You can find many great videos about Eric Carle books, art, etc on you tube.

Here is the link to the Eric Carle video we showed the kids.
http://www.scholastic.com/browse/video.jsp?pID=1640149541&bcpid=1640149541&bclid=1557820329&bctid=14259130001

Preschool Dramatic Play- Library fun

In our Pre-k room, the dramatic corner has been changed into a library. We have books the children sort into the right spots, a computer keyboard, stampers and paper, and each child has their own library card which the children sort into a filing system alphabetically. They check out books, write their name that they checked out a book and return them too. Each child got to come into the office to borrow a book for their class library. They said the topic they wanted and the teachers helped them find a book.

Cutest cupcake ever- preschool art idea

We gave the children a large piece of construction paper with a cup cake shape drawn on it. We made the lines in the bottom portion- but older children could do it themselves.

We mixed shaving cream and glue and the children spread it on like frosting and then they sprinkled little colorful cut up squares to look like sprinkles....adorable!

Multi day art project- paint, oil pastels, and watercolors

In the Willow room the children did a project over the course of three days. The first day they Painted on a big sheet of paper with potato mashers, and other kitchen utensils. The second day, they colored over the picture using oil pastels and the final day, they did watercolors over the whole picture. We hung it in the hall for every one to see.

How to use play dough to teach concepts in preschool children

There is a debate about "academics" verses "play" in preschool years. Basically an academic program focuses on teaching children primarily reading skills, and math skills by giving them worksheets, and assignments. The children learn rote memorization and can often regurgitate facts back to the teacher or parent. An example would be to be able to count to 100. You can certainly teach a preschooler to count to 100, but the understanding of the concept of "what is 100?" may not be there. In a "play" preschool, the children are learning all of the time, they are just constructing their own knowledge and learning it through concrete means. A child learning to count will count objects, or stairs as they go up or down. Numbers themselves are an abstract concept, children develop into abstract thinkers by experiences.

Here are some ways play dough is used to teach the needed concepts:

You may just see a child squeezing play dough, and rolling it or cutting out shapes with a cookie cutter. Some of the things I see are:

1. Fine motor development, the small muscles of the hands need to be worked to develop properly, this aids holding a pencil or cutting with scissors later. Being able to use a rolling pin to flatten the dough works the fine motor muscles and the larger muscles in the arms. Sometimes the dough is harder and takes more pressure, having to learn how much pressure to apply without making it too flat.

2. Spatial relations: making the dough the right size to fit the cookie cutter, children usually start out making it too small, part of the cookie cutter hangs off the edges. Later they are able to judge the size easily.

3. Math concepts including addition and subtraction: how to divide the play dough evenly for everyone at the table. How many pieces do we need, real life counting. There are four children, plus one teacher, how many pieces is that. Also math skills such as adding and subtracting, start with two balls of play dough, make one more, how many do we have now. Add another, how many now? Lets take away two, how many now?

4. Measurement/Size comparison: Children compare sizes of play dough balls, which is bigger, smaller, put them in order from smallest to largest, which is longer, how long is it, use a ruler, or a block to measure it. How many balls can we make, let's count them, then they are learning to count real, concrete objects, and understand what 1 or 20 or 100 means. They can learn one-one correspondence, meaning that they understand that when I point to one object I say "one". They also can begin to understand object permanence, for example, if I put out five objects and we count them, and then I add one more, developmentally, children will have to count the original five objects again, and then count the added one; but as they gain understanding they will start at five and count from there. Another example is that if I take a piece of play dough and break the same piece of play dough into two pieces, younger children will say I now have more play dough. They have to develop the understanding through concrete objects to understand that it is the same amount of play dough.

5. Social Skills: what to do to divide up one large clump of play dough into enough for everyone at the table, evenly. Then when another child comes, being able to share the dough a little more. Sharing the tools, sometimes sharing ideas about what to do with the play dough, what to create, making a group project. Joining a group is often hard for children. The social skills needed to join play is hard, but play dough is something that is easy to join. It makes that social transition easier. Then often those same children will feel comfortable playing at another activity together later, or will leave play dough and go to something else together. Play dough is great for solitary play, parallel play, or social play. They children can play at their level and feel part of the play.

6. Alphabet/shape The teachers put out a variety of materials to use with the play dough. When the alphabet letters are put out, the children can use them in variety of ways. They may just use them as a cookie cutter, or may use the letters to make the alphabet or their name. Letters are also made out of rolled play dough. The same types of things are done with shape cutters. Children at this age are concrete learners, they must touch to learn. Things have to be in solid form in front of them for them to understand it, they are not little adults who think in abstract ways. That is a developmental process that takes many years. When children are able to manipulate play dough into letters, it helps them form those letters with a pencil to write their names, it helps them to remember those letters when they see them written (which is abstract).

7. Listening to directions/conversation with teacher: Sometimes at the play dough table the teacher will give directions, make a small ball, make a rope this long, etc. This gives children the skills needed of listening, following directions, two step directions, and more. The children also have the opportunity to talk in important casual conversation with a teacher at the play dough table. They can discuss their pet, or what they did this weekend, and have a relaxed opportunity to talk. Conversational skills are something which develops, they learn the give and take of conversation, another child may join the group and they learn how to include them in the conversation.

8. Sensory experience: sometimes the play dough is warm, sometimes it is cold, it may be hard or soft, it may be a different recipe, it may have cinnamon in it or peppermint oil. The color changes and sometimes two colors are there to mix. Play dough is a wonderful, sensory substance which also helps children who are unsure about being in school to feel ok. When a child is upset coming to school, or is having problems separating from mom or dad, play dough is one of the best tools to help them feel ok. When they start squeezing it and manipulating it, they become so involved that school is ok. It is also a quiet activity, and feels safe. It can be a solo activity if needed, or others can be involved too.

I hope from this glimpse at how "playing" with play dough helps children learn the concepts needed for current and later school success, you have a better understanding that "learning and academics" are going on all the time in a good preschool setting. The materials are chosen with specific goals in mind, and the ways children play with them is teaching them. The most important part to understand is that children learn different than adults. They must have concrete objects to manipulate to learn. The more experiences they have, the more the brain develops.

Trinity Preschool Activities for Friday, May 13, 2011

We have had a couple of warm days and today started out nice and warm, but the temperatures dropped about 10:00 a.m. so it was a little cool on the playground. The children ran around and had fun anyway.

BLOG INFORMATION: They had trouble with the BLOG site on Thursday, so I didn't get to write about Thursday's activities, I am going to skip to Friday.

Willow Room: MWF class:

We read the story "The Rainbow Fish" by Marcus Pfister. We talked about the letter "V" and asked if anyone has a "V" in their name? Three children do!

For art today, we made "mini oceans". We added blue hair gel to a baggie, then put in some little plastic fish and glitter. We taped it shut and it was our pretend ocean.

You can also make an ocean in a bottle. Add some water, blue food color and some mineral oil. Tape the top on tight, (Or glue it one) and when you tip the bottle back and forth it will look like waves in an ocean. The oil and water don't mix.

We planted our Radish seeds today. We gave our grassy heads haircuts.

We did a lady bug rhyme and color song for music today.

Maple Room: MWF

We read "The Tiny Seed" by Eric Carle

We planted grass today and the children love doing science experiments, so when they ask questions, or wonder about something, we try to jump on that "teachable moment" to follow up. Today, we put dirt, grass seed and water in a cup and put in on a sunny window sill to grow. One of the children asked what would happen if we put it int he dark, another asked what if we didn't give it any water, and another child asked what if we gave it sugar water. So we made three more cups of grass seed.
1. Dirt, grass seed, water, and put in the dark cabinet.
2. Dirt, grass seed, NO Water, and put it on the window sill
3. Dirt, Grass seed, and sugar water and put it on the window sill.
We will see what happens!

If your child asks a question like "What if..., what will happen....etc. See if you can do an experiment to find out. Good science words. PREDICT, OBSERVE, RECORD RESULTS, TALK ABOUT RESULTS.

We had tulip shape stencils and rollers at the easel.

We had soapy water in the water table with cups, water wheels, sieves, and scoops.

We played a small group game using numbers.

We practiced writing the letter Z and words the children thought of that start with the start with the letter Z, zoo, zebra, zipper, zucchini.

We sang The May song, Sticky Bubble Gum, and Bumble bee

Oak Room:

We read "Clifford's Spring Clean up and Clifford and the Grouchy Neighbors both by Norman Bridwell.

We painted with dish pot scrubber. We love to paint with unusual objects.

We had out a patterning board game, and a some nursery rhyme sequencing cards. They had to put the cards in the correct order.

We did "Ready set, let's dance", (do the swim, the pony, twist) and a circus balloon's
color rhyme- each child will brought one balloon up the board for the clown.

Pretend Camping Trip in the Maple Room Classroom

We had so much fun going on a pretend camping tip today in our classroom!

We all came to school in our "camping clothes" and we brought flashlights, bug catches, hats, binoculars and other things we need for a damping trip. We closed the blinds most of the way (which was hard to have to do, since it was the first sunny day in weeks!), but we needed it dark for our camp out. We all had on glo bracelets and we sat on the rug in our campground area with our pretend fire and our teacher read us a story in the dark. We had a tent set up and we had camp lanterns, cook out supplies and flashlights. We did some fishing too. We made hand puppets on the side of the tent by shining the flashlight at our hands and looking at the shadows.

We did everything in a darkened room- we never turned on the lights today! We even did our art project in the dark. We made campfire pictures, it was a cutting, and gluing project using brown paper for wood, and red and orange for the fire.

When we went outside, it was very bright! We each had out own bug catchers (a small clear plastic carry out container that our teacher printed computer tags that said our name and "Bug Catcher" on it. So we went on a bug hunt; but it was still chilly out so we didn't find bugs. We will have to save our bug catchers for another day.

We had no cook s'mores for snack. Graham crackers, marshmallow fluff, and chocolate syrup.

The children had a great day on our camping trip. The only thing missing was the rain! It always rains when I go camping!

Trinity Preschool Activities for Friday, April 29, 2011

We finally got to play in the playground today. The rain let up and we had fun!

Willow Room: MWF class

We read "What makes a rainbow?" by Betty Ann Schwartz

Our butterflies are out, we looked at and enjoyed our butterflies today!

For art we made an alphabet rainbow!

We sang some fun songs to practice for Mother's Day.

We made a chart of the words that start with the letter "T".

Maple Room:

We had "Camping Day Today!" It was so much fun. See the BLOG listing for Camping in the Maple room for complete details.

We read "Good night, Sleep Tight, Don't let the beg bugs bite" by Diana de Groat. We read it in the dark around out "campfire!"

We made a camping picture with gluing and paper for art and we had flowers with paint at the easel.


Oak Room:

We read "Where's my mom? by Julia Donaldson and Harry the Dirty Dog" by Gene Zion

We made a special card for our mom's for Mother's Day and we did finger painting today.

We had magnetic writing boards out with letters and word cards.
We had the parts of a flower out and the children arranged them in the correct order on a magnet board.

We have flowers and a flower shop in our dramatic corner.

We sang the Pirate song, Bear Hunt and we practiced our songs for Mother's Day.

Trinity Preschool Activities for Thursday, April 28, 2011

Oak Room:

We read "No roses for Harry" by Gene Zion

We made flower pictures. We used a cardboard tube with slits cut in it dipped in paint, so it looks like flower petals. We added other things to embellish the picture. The children dipped Q-tips in green paint to make grass, and we glued on mini muffin papers, and pom poms to be the center of the flowers.

We had rubber band design boards out, bead stringing, and bristle blocks.

We did a color rhyme- each child holds a flower and "Two little blackbirds"

We played a small group game - rhyming words.


Willow Room: T/TH class

We read "Let's paint a rainbow" by Eric Carle

We used watercolors on doilies, we will make something special out of them.

We had chalk and stencils at the easel.

We are practicing our songs for Mother's Day at music.

Four of our butterflies just opened! We were all very excited. We are still waiting for our moth and the rest of our butterflies to open up. We put flowers and sugar water in with the butterflies for some food.