Here we go!

Another school year is upon us and Pirate Pete Preschool is now in full swing.  Of course it was hard to see some of our long time preschoolers and families go last year, but the excitement has been building as we meet and learn more about our newest little pirates!

We welcomed many three-year-old children to our program this fall and have been working on adjusting once again back to the variety of age groups we have with us this time of year.  

Our preschoolers range in ages from 3 - 5 years and therefore we must be at the top of our game to differentiate our curriculum in order to meet everyone's developmental needs. (This is not to say there aren't certain standards we work on with every preschooler.) 

 

Letter of the day, for example, is a consistent part of our program and every child participates in guessing the letter of the day while viewing visual clues as a class. We take a volunteer or two to help demonstrate on our white board how to draw the letter (in both upper and lower case) then the entire class goes to the tables to work on their letter of the day individually.

This is where that differentiation comes into play.  

Don't be surprised if your three-year-old child comes home with only scribbles on the page or maybe your four-year-old only has the upper case letter written legibly.  These are normal for their age and this exercise.  We are looking for progress over the course of the year, not miracles the first weeks so praise the improvements and perfection will come later.

Speaking of improvements, any good teacher is constantly working to improve her craft and this year the teachers of our program decided to try a new way to focus learning; we will be moving from very specific weekly themes to more broad monthly themes.

Knowing what topics we have covered in the past that preschoolers have enjoyed and having conversations with them this year during free play, the teachers chose to start school with the theme of 'Imagination' so they could incorporate Disney, Nick Jr., Super Heroes, Thomas the Train, and more into their weekly lessons.  

The teachers have been very excited looking for materials to create these lessons knowing the children will be enthusiastic about such fun topics.  Through the enthusiasm of these terrific characters, movies and the general idea of imagining will get our students excited about math, reading, science and more this month by centering our activities with this broad theme of 'Imagination'.  

We kicked off this week with a pre-reading activity building ice cream cones with the alphabet; each ice cream cone had a lower case letter written on it and the children had to match the scoop of ice cream with the capitol letter on it to create terrific 'treats'.

We worked on our fine motor skills by manipulating pipe cleaners around Popsicle sticks to create magic wands like Mickey Mouse and a variety of other beloved characters have created and used over time.

We have many manipulatives that help preschoolers build small motor skills as well as math or language skills so this week we introduced our math puzzles to many of our newer students.  One side of the puzzle has images and the other side shows the number that corresponds with the amount of images.  We also have basic addition and geometric shape math puzzles for our older preschoolers.  

These are used during free play as well as math time throughout the year.  We also have plastic bears of various colors that are used during free play as well as structured math time to help preschoolers with sorting, patterns and counting.

Our first art project of the year was creating our own treasures by painting rocks with metallic paint to hide around the classroom or at home and then find during treasure hunts just like Jake and the Neverland Pirates!  There are so many terrific ideas you can do with rocks at home from creating 'pet' rocks, to treasure, to yard decorations and more!  Got some paint, glue, and maybe some stickers?  Then you can create masterpieces at home any time with the rocks in your backyard or a nearby park!

We find many of our ideas for preschool through our Pinterest page or on Twitter and this year's treasure hunt science was a blast.  Our teacher in charge this day created baking soda cubes and placed treasures (beads) inside each one.  As they solidified the treasure because trapped inside and it was up to the preschoolers to use the magic solution (vinegar) to dissolve and find the treasures.

Our Pinterest boards are so full of ideas in these areas we encourage you to check them out as well because there only so many we can do in one month but you may also be looking for fun ways to encourage learning at home.

Another math activity we worked on this week turned into a project about castles after we spoke about the tall castle Rapunzel lived in made up of rectangles and triangles.  The children then were given rectangles and triangles to try to recreate this castle on paper (some even added a princess with long golden hair).

The children also enjoyed drawing faces on Mickey and Minnie Mouse heads before attaching them to bands to wear.  In fact, some ended up looking more like Winnie the Pooh!

More science lessons included sorting animals who live in the sea (like Nemo) from those who don't. The children loved naming the various animals and the comparing their sizes and finding ones who look the same.  During free play we also offer these animals and bring out the magnifying glasses to look at things more closely.  

Our water table was a fun activity during free play this week but will be changing (with the weather) to dryer activities soon.  This sensory table is often used for structured curricular activities as well as free play over the course of the year and we enjoy looking for many fun things to fill it with as our units change.

Not only do we want to change up stations, we also need to change up our locations and one thing to remember is that inside the classroom isn't the only place we have fun while at school, we need to get moving and stretching out those muscles!  So, sometimes we head out to our hallway for good old fashioned obstacle course fun!  The preschoolers this month are pretending to join the circus, fly and travel like pirates on adventures as they balance, crawl through 'caves' and perform hula hooping tricks! However, we did break out the parachute in the preschool room and turned it into a circus tent!

Our last activity this week was one to work on our cutting skills by creating Mike from Monster's Inc.  We were so impressed with so many young pirates taking the time to work on this skill without our help!  Many of the children took their time and practiced using the scissors in one hand and holding the paper in the other to cut out his arms and legs.  

Please keep supporting their independence and desire to improve cutting by having them cut at home.  Whether it is paper, straws, play dough, etc. this is a skill usually forgotten about or not worked on at all until a child starts school so the focus and interest on Friday this week was amazing!

What's Coming Up!

This next week will be another full of imagination and fun characters from stories and movies we all love!  If your child has a favorite tale or character please let me know and we will try to create an activity for them at school that can keep them excited about coming back! 

If you haven't noticed, you can follow our calendar online by clicking the link here or in the upper right hand corner of our blog, this way you will always know planned days off or changes in our schedule. 

Special Note:

Please remember it takes about 2 weeks for some children to adjust to the school schedule, while we are doing our part to keep routine, please help us by dropping your child at the door and letting us escort him/her to the classroom.  It helps your child get into the routine much faster and encourages his/her independence.  We know it can be hard to do but know your children are in good hands and will come out to you at the end of the day with smiles!