Careers

The theme this week focused on understanding the topic of careers.  We learned that careers are another way to say jobs people have and we talked about many jobs we see people perform in our community.  The first thing we worked on were making police badges the way police officers wear to help them be someone we can recognize as a safe person who can help us.

We also did some free drawing of ourselves in our future careers of choice.  Keep in mind our preschoolers still are of the mindset to tell us they want to be supermen or princesses or ballet dancers or ninja turtles.  All things are possible so they drew themselves in some of these roles and the teachers wrote down whatever they said, but know that some of our preschoolers have big goals to be police officers, fire fighters, moms, doctors and teachers too!

After tracings some letters and drawing we played a matching game at the tables similar to memory games.  The children had to search for career images that matched the words teachers read to them.

Since we lost out on last Friday's lesson about seasons, we modified the scope of a few activities to teach about the career of a meteorologist.  The children learned about the job that focuses on the study of the weather and were able to estimate what the weather at tree stations and decorated the tree with items appropriate to the clue they had given to them.  For example, if their clue was a sun, they guessed their tree was from the summer and they added green leaves to the tree, but if the clue was a raindrop, their tree only got some flower buds and a handful of leaves, etc. to represent spring.

On Wednesday we took on the roll of artist and created a few masterpieces for your refrigerators.  Some children made recognizable images while others were more "abstract."  Remember that the only way to improve these skills is to practice them.  Therefore you need to allow your child to practice painting at home too; finger paint, use brushes, use vegetables!  Anything to give them the experience to improve!

We also worked on identifying the things that people in various careers need to perform their jobs.  For example, a hair stylist needs scissors and a comb to help them perform their job each day and a mail carrier needs to use a mail bag to hold the packages and letters they deliver.  Then, the children were given a picture of a fire fighter and asked to identify the parts of his uniform and talk about why they are important to help him do his job each day.

We read a variety of books about many careers this week and learned about many options people have when they grow up.  Along with reading a variety of books this week, we played a few career based games on the iPads.  

We dressed children for various jobs using the parts of their uniforms and in a sense we were acting as fashion designers too.  We played games about driving trucks, about baking in a bakery, and more!

We sang a few songs this week about a variety of careers and roles in families like Dr. Jean's, "My Mother is a Baker."  This song is always a favorite of the children and many showed how much they remembered from last year while we sang it.

We have practiced writing some letters this week and many of our 4 and 5 year olds are doing a great job tracing their letters and writing their letter of the days both using the tracing clues and practicing some of them on their own as well.  For our three year olds and some of our young fours, it is totally age appropriate for them to still be scribbling and needing us to hold their hands to write their names.  This all will improve as time goes on and many of the children are already showing improvement.

What's Coming Up?

There will be NO PRESCHOOL on Monday, October 10th due to an institute day for Palatine High School as students get to observe Columbus Day.  We will see you on Wednesday, the 12th for Dinosaur week!

Wednesday, October 19th is College Day for District 211 and Palatine High School hosts this event.  This means that we will not be able to have preschool that day due to a change in the high school schedule.  

Thursday, October 27th from 5:00PM to 6:30PM will be a FREE Trick or Treat Event that is open to everyone in the community under the age of 12.  If you have never attended this event, we highly recommend it!

Monday, October 31st we will have our Pirate Pete Preschool Halloween Party during normal preschool times  Invitations went home this week so please be sure you have the correct date.