Exploring Shapes...and Friendship!

We wrapped up the month of September by exploring shapes, and how they are the same and different- just like all of our friends at preschool!

While reading the book Friendshape, we worked together to recreate some of the pictures from the book. 

There are a lot of fun ways to explore with shapes- 

a topic that we will continue to visit throughout the year.

We finished off the week by practicing some friendship skills with this simple high-five game from Teach Preschool. You just ask a friend to give you a high-five, and then fill in a finger on your recording sheet.

Simple invitations often lead to deeper interactions, like how these two started talking about and counting each other's fingers. :)

After a month of getting to know each other and exploring things together, I asked each class to come up with some rules or guidelines for being a good friend in preschool. I loved hearing what was important to them, and will use that understanding as the foundation for building up our community as we move forward this year!

Book Love: Should I Share My Ice Cream?

I just love Elephant and Piggie books, and really anything written by Mo Willems. So I take any chance I can to fit them into our curriculum. This book was perfect to read during birthday week and helped us talk about what sharing looks like in preschool- something we will continue to address all year long... :) 

Connecting Activity: I can't take credit for this activity, and adapted it from something I found here. We tried it passing or sharing our ice cream with balloons, which was extra tricky, but we had a bunch of balloons out since it was birthday week. There were a lot of smiles, and it was also a great activity to get the kids talking to each other. I loved the chance it gave us to practice asking to share with someone in a fun, no-pressure way.

Dramatic Play Connection: I set out our ice cream cones, pom poms, and scoopers in the dramatic play area, and the students became really engaged in making, "selling," and sharing their ice cream. One group even built an "ice cream house," where they made the ice cream and then scooped it out to give it away. :)

Kind Friends in Preschool

Also during the month of February, we tried to highlight ways that we can be kind and caring friends.

Sometimes with this age group, relationships seem to be constantly teetering back and forth between completely joyful play and dramatic conflict. Their emotions are so big, and their ability to self-regulate is still just beginning, and so happy moments often suddenly erupt into emotional outbursts. As a teacher, I try to focus on teaching kids how to handle the situations that often cause these conflicts, and at the same time celebrate the moments when their naturally kind and loving hearts shine through.

We read two books this month that specifically helped us to visualize kindness and friendship in different ways.

Fill a Bucket

The elementary school I worked at used this series as a guide for encouraging acts of kindness, and I love that this book makes it a little more accessible for younger children. We played a bucket filling math game as a connecting activity. We also had some buckets for filling in the water table.

The Invisible Boy

This book was new to me this year, and I wondered if the concepts were a bit mature for my preschoolers, but we were able to connect to it in our own way.

We created invisible friend art by drawing in white crayon on white paper.

I also wrote the name of a secret invisible friend for each student to find.

Then we painted over the paper with watercolor to reveal the invisible lines.

 After they finished, they gave their completed creation to the friend they found on their paper.

  Many students wanted to continue exploring the process after we were finished.

Back to School 2016

The weeks surrounding the start of school always feels a little bit like a whirlwind: finishing last minute details, finalizing plans, getting to know new children, and establishing classroom routines. It's exciting and fun, and a little bit exhausting-- and yet it's one of my favorite times of year. Here are a few of the things we did during the first week of school!

Playdough

Part of our welcome routine is a gathering activity at the table that usually involves some sort of fine motor work. I love to start the year with play dough because of it's a calming and relaxing sensory experience. This year I made lavender scented dough for that very purpose, and introduced some gems and smooth stones for loose parts. 

Exploring Play Areas

During the first month of school we are learning a lot about each other and how to work together in our classroom. So learning about and exploring the different play areas and materials that we use is an important part of learning how to be in preschool. This week we explored blocks, the home center, painting, table activities, the sensory table, and our outdoor space. We will continue to learn about using these areas and others in our classroom as the weeks go by.

The kids spent quite some time examining this snail they found outside. 

Dinosaur Play

One book I like to read at the beginning of the year is How Do Dinosaurs Go to School? So I like to include a few dinosaur activities into the week.

Musical Instruments

We also jumped right into exploring my collection of rhythm instruments. I've found that making music together allows even the most shy students to enjoy participating with the group. :)