Pirate Pete Preschool: Home Sweet Habitat

This week we learned the word Habitat. The children had a terrific time looking at various places animals from round the world live and what different regions of the world offer to different animals.

We had a great time matching fish to the correct fish tanks as we sorted by color and patterns. This is something easy you can do at home and is terrific for all children to do as they sort.

If a child is younger, have him/her sort by color, if he/she is older, then do it by patterns and vary the difficulty by changing the details in the patterns. We often play file folder games the teachers have made and you can do it at home by just printing images and gluing them to folders. Have your child help you make the game and then play it together!

As we talked about fish, we talked about not just our pets who might live in fish bowls at home, but the fish who live in the oceans, lakes and streams. We practiced writing letters without paper: but in sand!

We also practiced drawing various lines creating paths from animals to their habitats.

We used yarn to trace lines of a butterfly on paper to work on our fine motor skills which in turn, impacts writing skills. When children get frustrated with writing, activities like this just might be the ticket to build those skills without them realizing it.

For science this week, we created habitats of the tundra, jungle and beach.

The children sorted animals and placed them in their homes. Then, to check their memory, we asked the kids to create art of animals from habitats to take home.

We also created a bubble mixture from scratch; dish soap, water and a little bit of sugar is all it takes.

We also made books about various animals and the children practiced reading.

Remember, when learning to read, a child needs to learn how to operate books correctly; facing the right way, turning pages one at a time, reading top to bottom and left to right, etc.

We also practiced reading by matching letters with letters to build words related to animals we talked about this week.

A fun math game to try this spring is sorting plastic eggs into nests by color then counting to see which nest has the most or the least eggs.

We also counted how many animals we placed in the tundra, beach, and forest.

Asking questions to find the least, the most, and the same all are important math terminology students need throughout school.

After sorting our eggs, we sang the 'Baby Fish Song.' The preschoolers loved showing a tiny baby fish with their fingers moving up all the way to the giant whale with their arms waving around opening and closing the whale's mouth.

We sang this song about 10 times, and put on a show for the teachers; it was such a hit!

We also made it 'rain' in our rain forest with rhythm sticks. Each child gets a pair of sticks then follows the teacher's pattern- because children have different processing times, the room starts to sound like it is raining!

Some other large motor activities we played were games similar to Simon Says with a twist. The children would roll a dye and the number rolled would determine the animal they would act out.

For our younger crowd, we labeled dice with pictures and the children played well into free time on their own with this version. (This is the best sign of a game they would like to play at home.) Grab an old Kleenex box and print out some pictures of animals. Tape each picture to a side and then let it roll!