We've got SPIRIT!

Homecoming for high school students is a time to decorate the halls, wear crazy clothes, ask people to the big dance and enjoy the big game while cheering on our team.  For our preschoolers, we took full advantage of the Spirit Week wardrobe challenge and learned all about various sports (including football of course).

Monday was pajama day and our little pirates fit right in wearing sleepwear to school with the rest of us. It's the best day of the year!  Wednesday was amazing as our preschoolers arrived as Wacky as ever in their crazy outfits with wild hair!  We enjoyed playing games out in the hallway and took a group picture by some of the Homecoming decorations.  Friday, is always full of Pirate Pride, and with Super Fan Friday we did it right showing red all over the room as we celebrated another birthday with a preschooler and teacher as well.

Patterns and sorting were a large focus for us this week as we organized various sporting equipment by sport, size, color and shape. We talked about the Olympics and strung beads on our medals to build fine motor skills.

As we did all these activities and more I noticed a few commonalities that show up at the start of every year- an absense of summer scissor use. The high schoolers have been observing the children's social and emotional competencies and taking drawing samples for their case studies but I've been observing small motor (hand coordination) skills as the children work. This is why I decided to add this information into this week's blog. 

Parents often ask me, "what can we work on at home?"  Here's one answer for nearly everyone - scissor skills. Most preschool aged children enter preschool not knowing how to properly hold a pair of child appropriate scissors and don't know how to use them.  In fact, most kids need to be told and shown how to open the scissors back up again after they squeeze them closed.

We have scissors in our classroom to help the children learn this but I thought I'd send a few tips home to you as well.  Make a game out of cutting with your child by giving her some straws and then holding a contest to see who can cut the straws up into the most pieces. This gives your child incentive to cut as you do the same activity TOGETHER.

Play dough is another great item to practice cutting around the house. I don't recommend allowing your child to cut unsupervised so please be sure to be with him as he works these skills. One more thing, I ask you to save cutting paper for the end. This is a tough skill that takes time to develop and its best to play theses games first before setting you and your child up for an afternoon of frustration. 

I'm going to be sending more tips your way as these weeks go on, please feel free to ask more about this should you have further questions or follow me on Twitter to see more links about fine motor skills in preschool aged children.

 What's Coming Up?

We are going to be talking about Space next week and have been starting to get the room ready for the season of Halloween.  If your children have started talking about Halloween, it's because we now have a giant spider web hanging from our ceiling!  

A flyer went home on Friday for the Trick or Treat with Pirate Pete Festival we have at Palatine High School each year.  It's on our calendar as well but FYI (it starts at 5 PM and is FREE Trick or Treating for ALL!)  Our Halloween party is going to be on Wednesday, October 30th from 9:30 to 11:00 and more information will be coming soon.