15618 NE 107th Ct Redmond, WA 98052 US
Preschool Activities
Preschool Worksheets
lETTER cRAFTS
lETTER cRAFTS
Lead Teacher Melanie creates fun age appropriate packs for each student that is over the age of 2 years old. For a example of a pack check link at bottom.
lETTER cRAFTS
lETTER cRAFTS
lETTER cRAFTS
During the school year, September to June we do a Letter Craft that goes with the letter of the week. We create at Upper Case craft and a Lower Case craft.
Summer
lETTER cRAFTS
Summer
During the Summer, July to August we spend a lot of time outside with water tables, sprinklers, bubbles, and bouncy house. We also do summer theme crafts.
Our Mixed Age Group Curriculum
All children do group fine motor work together while Preschool age student's work on their preschool packets. Most of the curriculum is created off of the groups interest to best engage them in learning.
While your child works on their preschool work sheets, your child is learning:
· Hand over hand muscle memory
· Hearing/auditory the teacher says the letters
· Visually seeing the letters on the page.
We do this till the child can hold the marker on their own. Each week is either a letter or number.
Preschool packages have 5 work sheets including:
· First name
· Tracing letter/number page
· Letter/number activity page
· Letter/number/shape activity page
· Free coloring page
· Mindful tracing activities, for example, can help the hands and eyes work together, it encourages your child to use both sides of their brain and is a fun visual activity for getting your child to strengthen their muscle memory.
After preschool package is done, we do 10 minutes of flash cards 5 minutes in the morning in 5 minutes in afternoon as a group.
Some weeks preschool will be skipped for holiday theme crafts and activities.
For example, I will take a week for:
· Halloween
· Thanksgiving
· Christmas/Winter Holidays
· Valentines
· Spring/St. Patrick’s Day
· The 4th of July
· Mother’s Day
· Father’s Day
During those weeks we learn about that theme and do crafts and activities related to that theme of the week. Then we continue the letters and numbers.
Preschool is done through the months September to June, July and August is more outside play and a break for both student and teacher.
The reason why we wait till children are over 2 years old is the first few years of a child’s life, your child “lives” on the right side of their brain, which is more commonly known as the creative and emotional side.
As your child gets older, we want them to transition to more left-brained thinking or logical thinking that helps them regulate their emotions, solve problems, think critically and complete harder tasks like reading, writing and math.
During birth to 2 or 3 years old is the time when we let them grow and explore the environment in a play structure way that helps foster their growth and development in all the domains.
Preschool Goals:
· To keep focus and sit in chair for up to 5 minutes while doing a learning activity.
· Learning to sit in a chair for 5 to 10 mins
· Learning to hold a marker alligator grip - fine motor
· Learning to say and identify letters A through Z - cognitive development
· Learning to say and identify numbers 0 through 25 - cognitive development
· Learning to say and identify colors and shapes - cognitive development
Structured Play Goals:
· A child follows directions or rules
· Learning to play with others
· Learning to share and take turns
· Learn to follow directions
· Learning to build cognitive brain skills
Learning fine and large motor skills
Importance of Play
Additional Information
What Is Structured Play?
Structured play is typically a physical or cognitive (brain skill) activity that helps a child learn how to set and achieve goals. Examples of structured play include board games, outdoor games like tag, organized sports such as soccer or anything else that requires a child to follow directions to complete something.
Benefits of Structured Play:
· Helps a child learn how to set and achieve goals
· Problem Solving
· Active Listening
· Lower stress
· Learn to follow direction
· Learning to work with others as a team
What is Unstructured Play/Free play?
Unstructured Play/Free play is exactly what it sounds like — open-ended, unstructured play that allows children to creatively engage with each other and the world around them. Examples of free play activities include time spent running around a playground, make-believe games such as dress up and coloring.
Benefits of Free play:
· Exploration of the world around them
· Socialization
· Sharing and taking turns
· Freedom to make mistakes
· Confidence
· Physical Exercise
The Benefits of Mixed-Age Preschool Groups
· Mimic family structures and neighborhood groupings
· Leadership increases among older children
· Mixed-age classrooms stimulate each other’s development
· Academics and social skills are improved for all children
· Mixed-age classrooms can boost self-esteem and confidence
Mixed-age Childcare helps foster peer tutoring environments which increase positive social interactions while decreasing negative social interactions.
The toys and activities we do through out the day help with all the different developmental domains for each child to development in their own time. We do not force it on them if they are not engaged. We let it be and let them choose a different activity or toy.
The Development Domains of Learning
Additional Information
Gross Motor
This is one of the most basic of the domains that your child is already learning. In the simplest terms, this is when your child learns how to use the big muscle groups in their body. While your child either is learning to crawling or has moved on to walking, there are always more gross motor skills to be learned. Participating in active games and playing sports are just a couple of ways these skills can be obtained while your child is attending childcare and preschool.
Fine Motor
Children have to learn how to control their muscle movement in their hands in order to obtain hand-eye coordination and more. There are specific ways we do this in the classroom such as having your child use coloring with small and large markers, play with Legos, play-dough, draw pictures and more. These skills can turn into more advanced skills later on in life like knitting or play the guitar.
Language
While we are sure you have been working with your child so that he/she knows how to recognize the letters of the alphabet or even read shorter words, this is one domain that takes a while to perfect as even into adulthood, this domain can be improved. We like to read to the children and also speak to them as often as possible so that they can learn to communicate their wants, needs, opinions and more. We also sing and encourage the children to join.
Cognitive
The cognitive domain is the one that children develop in order to understand cause and effect. This sort of skill will also aid in early math skills such as counting and recognizing patterns. Promoting Cognitive development through play like wooden puzzles, matching games, and counting games.
Social/Emotional
In order to be successful in the long run, children have to socialize. Not only does spending time with other children teach them important skills like how to share, but it also gives them the chances to develop good manners and overall behavior.
Self Help/Adaptive
One of the best things about enrolling your child in a childcare and preschool is that they can begin to rely on themselves a bit. While they have been relying on you, the parent, since the moment they were born, they are now spending an extended amount of time away from you, meaning they have to rely on themselves and only themselves. One of the most important ways children learn to help themselves is when they begin to go through potty-training, which we work with each child when they are showing signs and are developmental ready.
Morals/Values
While we truly believe that self-respect and love is behavior that is learned from the parents, children tend to learn a lot about themselves by being exposed to the personalities and habits of others, like those in their classroom. Additionally, positive influences like the instructors at childcare and preschool can help your child to get a better grasp on the difference between what is right and wrong, as well as learning to accept those who are different from them.