Just Imagine!

We started off the week with more terrific All About Me posters in the morning and afternoon classes.  These posters look terrific and it was great to hear the preschoolers explain their families, wishes and favorite things!

Then, the magic began!  We used the wonders of Disney and Dr. Seuss to get kids cutting, writing, moving and creating: and boy was it fun!  

Using the excitement around the new Disney movie Frozen, we started off the morning with Olaf puppets as the preschoolers cut out the parts of the snow man and attached them to paper bags creating puppets.  Try this printable puppet at home and you can enjoy two snowy characters!  

For science, we then made snowmen and melted them the way we hope the sun will soon melt our snow around town!

We traveled 'Under the Sea' to find Nemo and match his fish friends together for a math activity and we counted the total amount of fish to see which school was the largest.

However, with all the Disney fun we were having, we couldn't forget the magic of Dr. Seuss!  

So our first pre-reading project of the week was to make a book about magical numbers to help the children practice recognizing numbers while they 'read' a book to someone at home.  

Whenever you get any books from your preschooler, help them 'read' it at home and practice these skills with him/her.  As the book gets memorized, the confidence in reading grows making them more excited to try reading sooner.

Here you can see our preschoolers making Itty Bitty Books about the letter M (for Mickey Mouse).  These printables are small and easy to print out at home and have basic language the children again can memorize to learn word recognition.

Other pre-reading activities we did in school had to do with showing words to movies they see often and asking them which picture matches the word.  We make this game in powerpoint (which is something most people have at home on their computers) and the kids LOVE playing this word guessing game!  Give it a try!

Now if you are going to talk about Dr. Seuss in school, you have to talk about the Cat in the Hat!  So, our preschoolers practiced what Dr. Seuss does best; rhyming! First, we had boxes on a sheet of paper where the children had to practice writing two words that sounded the same, then, the teachers helped them come up with a sentence with those two words that rhymed, a great activity extension for our older preschoolers.  Next, we ended a list of words with 'at' and the preschoolers filled in the blanks with letters of their choosing and read the lists back with us then, we turned those lists into hats! You can see some of the kids created rhyming lists like, bat, cat, hat, sat, etc.

Hats were a popular choice this week as we let the preschoolers use strips of paper and circle shapes to design their very own Mickey Mouse ears like you can in Disney World!  This started off a lot of creativity as we moved into this exciting week with for the afternoon group too!

After designing our Mickey Hats, we took a load off to hear a Disney story about Bambi's friends in the forest and then played Disney bowling to get ourselves more active!  

If you have old water bottles at home, you don't need to buy bowling pins, just print out pictures from the computer of your favorite Disney characters, or draw them, cut them from magazines, anything.  The preschoolers enjoy setting up the characters they like the most, or the least and knocking them down again and again.  Taking turns all the while, a great skill to learn during this game as well as hand-eye coordination!

 Speaking of hand-eye coordination, we created an imagination station of sorts this week as well.  We filled our sensory motor table with all kinds of small objects the preschoolers can play with and it is the location of choice right now during free play!  

We have rice, beans, pompoms, marbles, gemstones and more!  Measuring tools of all kinds are thrown into the bin so the kids can sort and find out what fits into what container, how many items can fit into certain cups, etc.  

This week both morning and afternoon groups enjoyed One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish and we made Thing One and Thing Two as well as the Lorax and Oobleck from the many books of the great Dr. Seuss.

  

Though we had lots of fun Dr. Seuss projects, we made fun Disney projects this week too.  We asked the children to make a wish and the teachers wrote the wishes on the paper lanterns we made with the preschoolers and we have them hanging in our classroom right now as we talked about the movie Tangled!  Some of the children wished to, "be a good a friend," and others wished for, "new dogs," so watch for those wishes in the coming weeks to be sent home parents!  

The children also did a wonderful job 'sewing' clothes for Cinderella's little friends as they moved string from one hole to the next to design and make shirts for the mice.  Threading is an excellent fine motor skill that is linked to improving cutting and hand writing.

We matched up words to characters for pre-reading and writing this week as well and ended with some structured free play with puzzles.  Most children start with puzzles that have pictures matching the image of the piece so they can play a matching game to visualize the images.  

Later, to grow in difficulty, the space under the pieces doesn't match but is a solid color thus asking the child to visualize in his/her head.  Work on getting these kinds of puzzles at home and you will see critical thinking skills improve too!  They make great gifts for preschoolers!

Lastly, in the land of imagination this week, I leave you with this drawing story one of our teachers performed for the children, you can look it up here and tell it at home.  Eventually, the children can learn it and tell it too.  There are also great apps like Educreations and Toontastic Jr. that encourage storytelling!

What's Coming Up Next?

Fall 2014 Preschool Registration is upon us!  Hard to believe, I know but starting Monday, March 10th we will be accepting updated registration forms and fall payments from current preschool parents and for new preschoolers, we will need registration paperwork along with birth certificates, immunization records, physicals and payments. Check out our Registration Page here or our website for any additional information. 

We accept 20 preschoolers for the fall and then begin the waiting list based on a first come, first serve basis. The race is on so good luck!

Next week we will be focusing on St. Patrick's day and have lots of fun treasure hunts and rainbow activities planned!

Thursday our Advanced Early Childhood Education students will be going to Make a Messterpiece in Glenview to learn more ideas to bring back to our preschool program!  It's an amazing place so bring your preschooler some time and check it out; we promise your kids will love it!