An exciting first day!

Today was a very exciting day. It was the first day of preschool for 2011-2012 school year. Together we are starting a very important stage of your child's development. Your children are wonders; filled with curiosity, delight and energy. They were eager participants today and I want to start the year by thanking you for allowing me to be a key role in shaping how they feel about school and learning.

Routine:

*Every preschool time, children will be practicing their writing.

*I will also meet individually with your child to introduce the phonic sound of the day. This sound will be written as a lowercase letter and will be added to your child's letter ring. Please practice it at home a few times during the week with your child. If it is important to you that your child learn the phonics he/she will need practice at home. I also have a you tube page to help with practicing the phonic and under my favorite links http://www.youtube.com/user/kvetonPreschoolpage#p/u/9/qFXLRVIh1fo,

there is a link to a quick phonic sound page. http://homepage.mac.com/ashleya/villa/spaldingmp3.html

(note if there is more than one phonic sound for a letter I am teaching the first sound given which is the most common phonic sound, unless you have told me individually you wish for me to teach your child individually multiple phonics at one time)

When practicing the sound, say it together 5 times. If your child still seems interested, use the Montessori 3 period lesson to reinforce and teach this concept http://www.montessorimom.com/three-period-lesson/ (I also have this information in an earlier blog post on MY blog)

* Read at home. I will send a pre-reader book home for you to read with your child. Remember to keep reading and phonics positive and fun. If your child is struggling try again another time or another day when he/she is ready.

* Other learning that takes place EVERY preschool time:

calendar: month, day, year, days of the week.

ABC chant with ASL sign

Spanish

Perceptual Motor Skills Development

School skills: lining up, raising hand, taking turns, cleaning up, washing hands

Now on to some of the special parts of today. We began our color theme. Students learned about the color indigo and how scientists use the word violet when talking about a rainbow's colors.

In lab time, each student completed a math/art activity on the easel mixing the primary colors to result in a secondary color. Other students used a muffin tin to find matches of colored objects and gave each pair a spot. They sorted color-coded clothes pins and used fine motor skills to clip them and then unclip them around a container. They sorted magnetic color images in a book about color. They used 7 colors from the crayon box to color a paper full of all the rainbow colors. They also began a project where the first task was to use a scissors to cut a piece of construction paper into pieces so it would fit in a sandwich size ziploc bag.

During our motor skills time we played Simon Says. Each child had colored craft sticks where Simon told them to put the red stick on your head or the orange stick on your knee. One child suggested Simon tell everyone to balance on one foot and put the green stick on your thigh of the foot that was in the air. Another suggested to balance the blue stick on your back and pretend you were a puppy.

Then after washing hands, the children had time for a snack, individual phonic time and the ever popular playtime. Some went grocery shopping, others took babydolls for walks, and some played at the train table. I heard children inviting a new friend to play with them and others making plans for a future playdate at their house.

We got back to circle time for our Spanish time, singing our "Hola, amigo" song and our color song in Spanish. Children listened to book called "Color." They all took turns saying ALL seven colors of the rainbow to earn a rainbow sticker. Finally we ended with a silly game of colors that can easily be played in the car or grocery shopping... it goes something like this: apples are red, strawberries are red, stop signs are red, the sky is red, NO!!!! haahaa then the sky is BLUE! blueberries are blue, the pool is blue, a blue jay is blue, pumpkins are blue, NO!!!! haahaa etc!

Next week will explore color with some fun glasses, a prism and light and more! I can hardly wait :)