Thursday, August 29, 2013

What a fun day of school!

We created pictures in the writing center.  This is a great opportunity to work on fine motor skills!








Oh the delicious food we eat each morning!  On today's menus was ice cream flavored hamburger with  a corn cob bun.  Sounds delicious!  


We have been using the blocks to build creative and intricate structures.  Today we again made roads for the cars using the blocks. We also made tunnels for the cars, and buildings for the cars to drive around!  As I have said before, children learn through their play. It is important that children have time to play freely because it is through play that children make sense of the world.  Through play, children also develop social skills and problem solving skills.  Furthermore, children develop the critical thinking skills necessary to ask questions and figure out how things work.  






Some of the children were making structures with the bristle blocks!





Brian made a car with the LEGOS.  




We read many books together throughout the day here in preschool!  Although the children might not be able to read the words in the books, they are learning valuable concepts of print (understanding that words have meaning, identifying the cover of books, naming a few letters on the page, etc.)  which are pre-reading skills!



Social skills play a vital role in children’s emotional health and well-being. Research has documented that children with poor social skills are at risk for difficulties including peer rejection, behavior problems, and poor academic achievement (Gilliam & Shahar, 2006).  Therefore, a large part of early childhood education is learning social skills!  Each day children have the opportunity to learn skills such as positive conflict resolution, cooperation, self-regulation, and showing God’s love to our friends. 


A part of learning social skills is learning to regulate our emotions.  Today we read the book If You're Angry and You Know It.  This book showed us some things we can do if we feel angry!  See if your child remembers a few of the things we can do when we feel angry. 

We can:
stomp our feet
bang on a drum
walk away 
take deep breaths
tell a friend


We went to chapel today!  Mr. Debrick told us how much Jesus loves us!  We sang songs together and said the Lord's prayer.  It is great to hear the children participating in worship!

We played outside for a shortened time today.  We loved having our water bottles with us to keep us hydrated!! 














When we came inside, we worked on a creation mural full of pictures of things that God made! 







Because we have been so interested in building roads for cars, we decided that we should learn all about cars! Over the next few weeks, we will use The Project Approach, as inspired by Reggio Emilia, to learn about cars.  The Project Approach is an in-depth, interdisciplinary, investigation of a particular topic of interest to the children.  To learn more about the Project Approach, click HERE.  

The children worked with me to tell me what they know about cars already. During the first part of a Project, teachers gather student's prior knowledge and experiences with an area of study to engage children and to help develop questions which will guide the Project.











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