Healthy, happy pirates!

Our hearts and our minds were the focus of our health week this week as we learned about our bodies and how to keep ourselves mindful of being in good health.  We used stethoscopes to listen to our heartbeats and try to hear the heartbeats of others and put together our skeleton puzzles and x-rays again to work on remembering where they all go on the body.  

We learned about organs too and where they go in our bodies and what they look like and do by putting together human puzzles where the children would wear vests and their friends would put their organs on their bodies.

 After working on our organs we talked about hygiene and taking care of our hands to keep them clean so we don't get sick.  The children put germs on paper hands according to the number written on the hand.  

We did a variety of exercises this week as well to show the children some of the many ways people can get their energy out.  We played with hopscotch and balance beams and even yoga mats doing various poses to stretch out and work on staying quiet and relaxing; all good ways to relieve stress and practicing these things early will help make healthy adults later too.

 

We are still working on writing each week and helping the children form shapes that make up letters or helping some spell out what they want to say.  Whatever stage of development each child is in we have a teacher who will step in to help differentiate to work on whatever skill set that child is ready to do.  This is one of the best parts about our program; many hands make amazing work!

 The children loved a few of the apps we used this week during technology time.  One of them, Doctor Kids, was a big hit.  The children took on roles of doctors and dentists and read x-rays and blasted viruses and cleaned out teeth to prevent cavities.  

 We worked on spelling words like soap and toothbrush using letters a teacher hung on a string in order to make a word with the first letter being covered up by a post-it.  We made the sound of the word together and listened for what sound that word started with to think of the first letter.  Once the children made their guesses she removed the post it to show the children the letter and ask them if they were correct.  This made our spelling activities fun to play this week!

After spelling time we did an art and science combination activity.  We asked the children to trace their hands on paper and then fill their hand prints with glue.  Once there was plenty of glue inside the hand print they sprinkled glitter onto the glue.  Once the glue was covered with glitter they were told to touch their hand prints on the paper and check their hands for 'glitter germs.'  
This helped show the children how easily we can get germs we can't see on our hands simply by touching things.  Then they had to wash their hands with soap and water until the 'glitter germs' went away.  

We worked on fine motor skills with tweezers this week as we picked out the germ cells of water which were mini rubber bands.  The children had to pick them out and place them into a small bowl to rid the water of the germs inside.  



This week we did a lot with soap and water to practice cleaning away germs.  We did multiple experiments with pepper in water and watched the 'pepper germs' run away from the soapy fingers we touched to the water's surface.  We did this in big buckets and as a demonstration as well as individually in bowls at the tables.

 

For some large motor skill fun we pretended to be the soapy bubbles that grab the germs to get them off our hands.  Using blankets around the room we would begin to 'wash' (shake) the blanket slowly then 'scrub' (shake) the blanket faster and faster while trying to keep the 'germs' balls from flying out of the blanket.  Lots of laughs and smiles were shared around the room during this fun game.

 We didn't just talk about keeping our bodies clean this week, but also inside our mouths with toothbrushes and toothpaste.  The children got to decorate their dream toothbrush and added the 'toothpaste' of cotton balls to make sure they would get their teeth clean.  

Some children took a long time adding lots of details to their brush while others race to get it finished so they can go back to free play time.  Both are typical to the age of the child and are all developmentally appropriate actions for children to take depending on their age.  

If you see your child's work compared to another's and wonder why they might be so different remember that each child is different and the age, experiences, interest and abilities of each child vary therefore the products created will vary as well.  Our goal is to bring out the best each child has to offer and watch them progress over the course of the year.

During our oral hygiene lessons we talked about the importance of brushing our teeth to keep them healthy and showed them the power of brushing by using real toothpaste and a toothbrush to clean the cola stains off a hard boiled egg.  The children took turns coming up to the front to help the teacher get the 'tooth' clean again and were able to see first hand why we preach the importance of brushing twice a day.

To work on our fine motor skills we practiced ripping tissue paper and our older children learned how to use a pencil eraser to swirl the torn paper to decorate a tooth and fill it with white instead of yellow.  Some children filled their entire tooth while others placed a few pieces and then moved on to a different task.  

We picked out 'germ beads' on Friday to pretend to clean out a cavity.  Making goo is such a popular thing to do these days that we recommend you taking it a step further if you do this a lot at home and add small items into the goo then allow your child to use either their fingers or chip clips or tweezers to pick out the small objects.  This allows a lot of focus and is a game many love to play for a long time.

We made dirty hands this week and then added a bar of soap to them to get them bubbly and clean.  The children had many great stories of how their 'hands' got dirty and had to be cleaned as they made this project.

We talked about the directions a person should brush when cleaning their teeth and then used dry erase markers to draw food particles to some laminated teeth and then practiced going up and down and around and around to scrub the 'food particles' off the teeth.  The children did a great job making their mouths clean again!

Our teeth tend to hold on to various food particles more than others and this week we let the children decide and talk with their teachers about what foods we can eat to make our teeth stronger and happy verses what makes them sick and get more cavities.  Please review what your child placed on their teeth to open up discussion about healthy and unhealthy foods for our teeth.

More exercise games this week after yoga were playing musical chairs and learned the concepts related to that timeless game.   We settled in for one final project with food before heading home to sort out healthy and unhealthy foods for our bodies.  

The children were allowed to place food into whichever side they could justify for their food choice, therefore again, you might want to talk to them at home about why they placed which food picture in which column. 

What's Coming Up?

We will have a week off of preschool from October 9th through the 13th due to shorter days at Palatine High School.  We will see you all back at preschool on Monday, October 16th for Blast from the Past Week where we will be learning all about things that happened BEFORE the children were born.

Don't forget: Thursday, October 26th is the Trick or Treat with Pirate Pete fest at PHS.  A flyer went home last week for it and it is FREE to children under 10 years of age.  AND Friday, October 27th is Trunk or Treat at Falcon Park in Palatine and this is another free event for Halloween.

Our Halloween party at Pirate Pete Preschool will be Monday, October 30th.  Details will be coming home next week.