This week we focused on the power of imagination and dramatic play. We spent time in medieval lands with knights and dragons and traveled to the wild west to roam the range as cowboys and cowgirls. We finished off the week as pirates on the high seas in true Palatine fashion.
Dramatic play is crucial to all human growth and development as it shares a child's view of the world but also promotes creativity. As a part of the Pirate Pete Preschool curriculum we support and encourage both free play and dramatic play each week in our planning. Dramatic play helps teach through role play either while acting the role of knights who save the day or ranchers herding cattle or Pirates sailing a ship. One of the best ways to teach about something is to act it out and this form of learning was a huge part of this week. 
Some times this week we worked on building our large motor connections in our bodies by lassoing cattle on the range, collecting balloon sheep and walking the plank and learning the Pirate Loyalty cheer but we worked on small motor muscles too.
Some of our small motor activities happened when we added feathers to pirate parrots and sorted through dragon slime, built pirate flags, and hunted for gold in sand. All of these activities are consistently supported by the dramatic play and storylines of the day.
STEM work allows us to build things using creativity and the ability we all have to think outside the box. We learned about armor and the children worked to decorate and build armor out of paper towel and toilet paper rolls and built castles out of sticks and marshmallows. During that time we also had students build knights out of those sticks and marshmallows. The catapults and cannons we built this week helped teach cause and effect as the children learned how to adjust them to shoot pom pons higher and further across the room.
The stories we read this week and the songs we sang supported our dramatic play activities and our art projects of creating shields and helmets of armor as well as treasure chests filled with mysterious letters and numbers.
Please continue to work on recognizing letters and numbers within your home and when you are out and about. Read the menu at a restaurant and the numbers on the microwave. The more you ask the children to recognize the M in McDonald's and the number 4 to match their age the more confident they will become in reading but also the easier things will get for them as they learn to read. Letter recognition is the first step to reading and children are expected to read by kindergarten.
- This coming week we will be talking about Thanksgiving and the season of fall.
- Remember we will not have preschool the last week of November (the 25th - 29th); please have a fabulous Thanksgiving Holiday.
- Please ensure you have either paid for spring preschool or made arrangements for payment with Kris Stary prior to Friday, November 22nd.
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