Loving the kids in Pirate Pete Preschool

It's no secret how much we love our preschoolers in Pirate Pete Preschool, however we are even more in love this time of year during Valentine's Day!  The teachers in our program have a strong interest in working with children in the future and many of them plan to major in Early Childhood or Elementary Education.  We have a few possible pediatric nurses and doctors in our midst as well as social workers and psychologists.

Whether is is going fishing with friends, cutting out arrows for Cupid's heart or sorting candy hearts during math time we love to laugh and smile while we learn!  The children have been improving their skills in so many areas this year we can't help but beam with pride over their positive growth and development this year!

We had a lot to celebrate this week with birthdays and all the preparation for the big holiday on Friday where we were able to exchanged Valentines with our friends.  The system is a well oiled machine where we learn the concept of passing out Valentines as well as the purpose behind passing them out; to show our friends we care about them.

This week we learned that kindness can spread like the leaves on a tree and made such artwork in class to help showcase this concept.  The children also were able to see the colors of skittles spread into a rainbow of love in bowls of water as they lined up the candy in the shape of a heart then watched the water cause the color to leave the candy and create a rainbow in the water once we poured it into the bowls.  

Sometimes concepts like friendship, kindness or love can be a bit vague for kids to understand so creating visuals for them with the skittles activity or the tree heart project can give them something to see that is just as magical as these concepts.  Preschoolers are in the stage of development where they need to see concrete principles applied in order to understand bigger picture concepts.  These activities help with that.

We made friendship bracelets with pipe cleaners and shaped them into the shape of the week, the heart.  Many of the children gave their bracelet away to a friend or teacher to show they cared about them!  We hope we have modeled care and kindness within our school to help the children follow through with the same choices.

What's Coming Up?

• Don't forget we do not have preschool this week due to President's Day and the state gymnastics meet held at PHS.  We will see you back at school on Monday, February 24th for Food Week!
  
• If you haven't ever seen a state level gymnastics meet and you are looking for something to do next weekend, stop by the high school and see all it's about.
  
• Don't forget preschool registration will be coming up next month so if you have any new preschoolers you want "in" you will need to have copies of their birth certificate and immunization record ready to go.  We will only need updated registration forms and payment if you are a current preschooler since we have all that other stuff already on file.
  
• Keep in mind that next year we will only have one preschool session instead of two so spots will fill up quickly and you will want to be ready.

Hey Batter, Batter!

This week we learned all about sports.  We learned how to identify the equipment used and how things are used as well as elements of the Olympics and a variety of events too.   

From field trips to the gym and practicing gymnastic skills, track and field hurdles, bowling, golf, basketball and more we really got some great work outs this week!

We made sleds and skis for some awesome STEM creations and slid them down icy trays we pretended to be hills checking to see who's creation could make it down the fastest.

Our pre-reading skills of matching the correct baseballs to the bats with written words allowed for a brief slow down of all of our physical activity this week.  Our monster athlete pre-writing activity did the same this week as we followed the paths on paper to see which monster matched with with sports equipment.

Often this week we learned about why various sports use the equipment they do and also talked about some of the science behind that equipment.  We learned what parts of a golf club stay on the ground, that bats are a part of baseball, how a football goes through a goal post and a basketball is shot through a net.  

Using the scientific method we guessed how high certain types of balls would bounce then bounced them to see if we were correct.  

We learned many of our young preschoolers are athletes playing soccer, swimming, doing gymnastics, dancing and more.  Thanks for keeping those kiddos busy with lots of healthy activity, especially during these cold winter months.

What's Coming Up?

• This coming week we will be celebrating family and friendship with Valentine's Day.
  
• Mark you calendars for no preschool next week; the 16th - 22nd.  Remember we have multiple changes in the high school schedule next week making it too difficult to host preschool.  We hope you are able to enjoy President's Day on Monday with any older siblings and then find time on Friday afternoon or Saturday to check out the Girls' State Gymnastics meet held at PHS every year.