Busy and Happy Children

Field trips, gardening, games, parent gatherings and more have been happening throughout the Early Childhood Center! Each class took its first field trip to the park where the children enjoyed the chance to play on a different playground and a simple snack. The highlight of the trip, particularly for the Alpha and new JK students, was riding on our special Early Childhood Shorecrest school bus that is outfitted with 5-point harness car seats. Our driver’s ears were ringing with many renditions and verses of “The Wheels on the Bus!”

Back at school, Alpha began a study of the farm. They are learning about the crops and animals found on farms as well as the chores involved in taking care of them. After planting vegetable seeds in the garden box outside and in cups in the classroom, the children made graphs showing their predictions about which would sprout first. In Junior Kindergarten, the students continued their study of their senses and used their herbs to look at, touch, taste,and smell. They planted their vegetable garden in the playground and also started a unit on pets that will culminate with the Junior Kindergarten Pet Show on October 7.

Out on the playground, the Alpha students have been having fun with some of their fourth grade friends. The fourth graders, many of whom are our morning safety patrols, have been using their own recess time to engage with the younger children. They're being a great help as they push the children on the swings and engage them in games and pretend play.

As I visited the classrooms last week, I saw games being played in several classrooms. 

Games reinforce skills such as listening, symbolic recognition and counting, while also teaching patience, turn taking, and sportsmanship.   

Working on puzzles cooperatively also enhances these skills while also teaching collaboration and visual discrimination.

This game involved listening to and identifying sounds and matching the sounds to pictures.

The avove picture and the ones below show you some of fun the Junior Kindergartners have been having during their Friday Exploring.

We used a variety of tools to explore their imprints in paint. It was also an experiment in color as the paints overlapped and mixed with each other.

The children never tire of shaving cream They delight in its feel and exercise their fingers as they expore what they can do with it.

Making  puppets and using them in the special theater was a new experience that integrated creativity with exploration of shadows.

The translucent blocks allowed the students to build creatively while experimenting with light and color.

They painted boxes one week

and used them as blocks the next.

Tubes, chutes, balls and cars were used to create ramps and experiment with incline and speed.

A large number of Alpha and Junior Kindergarten parents joined me for this year’s first EC Parent Chat.  It was a lively discussion as the parents shared their concerns and suggestions on dealing with a myriad of issues including morning tears, ensuring that every child in the family has individual time with parents, when and how many organized activities outside of school are appropriate for preschoolers and how to get your children to talk about their days at school. Two topics suggested for the next chat were dealing with challenging stages and choosing relevant consequences. We will meet again on Wednesday, November 2 at 8:15 am in the Student Activity Center.

The Last Few Weeks

We have been busy in the Shorecrest Early Childhood Center! Today when the children had their pictures taken for the yearbook, I could visibly see how they have already grown physically and developmentally! They move comfortably around the campus with their teachers, and walked all the way to the Black Box Theater this morning. They are  making transitions smoothly and engaging more fully in the wide variety of hands-on activities available in their exploratoriums and classrooms. Here is a small sampling of some recent activites, both indoors and outdoors.

During their first Exploring Day, some of the boys discovered that this linking manipulative could be suspended from the archway.

When exploring their sense of touch, the Junior Kindergartners reached into bags to feel  the substance inside and tried to guess what they were feeling. They didn't always come up with the correct answer but had lots of great guesses. They also drew pictures of it and dictated the way the substance felt to the teacher, combining science, small motor and language development.

The students in our 3- to 4-year-old Alpha classes are enjoyed their socio-dramatic play in the animal hospital. They take on the roles of the pet owners, the veterinarian and the technicians.

Using the stilt buckets on the playground is a great way to develop coordination and balance!

During the second week of Friday exploring in Junior Kindergarten, the students enjoyed gently handling and observing the behavior of worms! The worms will later be added to the garden the children are planting with their herbs and vegetable plants.

Creating Mat Man using the Handwriting Without Tears lines and different props continues to be a favorite center for Alpha and Junior Kindergarten. The complexity of the figures is a great way for the teachers to observe the growth in the children's developmental levels of body awareness. This experience also helps the children as they learn to draw human figures.

Here the boys are using their eyes (another sensory experience) and magnifying glasses to observe the frog eggs found in the ditch outside the building. It's great to watch the process of metamorphosis all the way from  eggs to tadpoles to frogs.

These JK students are incorporating the use of puppets into their use of blocks extended a building experience into one that includes dramatic play and lots of cooperation and teamwork.

Housekeeping is an area where we watch the children making sense of their world, learn to negotiate and problem solve as well as to have lots of fun!

Using red and yellow paint at the easel lead to the discovery that combining certain colors creates an entirely new color.

Safety is number one! We drop everything when the fire alarm rings and go outside quickly and quietly in an organized manner to ensure everyone's safety. These safety procedures are practiced regularly.

This is a complicated structure for a three-year-old. He provided himself with a quiet place all his own to think and watch others.

Watch this blog for lots more interesting pictures and videos of our enjoyable educational experiences!

The Second Week of School

We've had so much fun this week. Here are some pictures to give you a peek of just some of our activities!

We made a new friend this week and had fun playing together.

Mrs. Jotch's class formed their initials by rolling dough into letters.

Ms. Bowen's class celebrated its first birthday by making cupcakes.

Exploring snack for JK was made by creating a rainbow of fruit.

The exploring craft was creating "stained glass" with tissue and glitter on clear contact paper.

This was a very popular activity!

Our rainbow snack took time and care to create but it was worth the effort!

Hoppity Hop balls are a favorite on the playground.

Girls and boys like to play with trucks!

These are the wave bottles created by coloring water and adding oil.

These boys exhibited great teamwork to create a complicated structure.

Colored chalk in the shade is a fun way to escape the heat on the playground.

This is a pretty complicated puzzle for a 3-year-old but she has stick-to-itness!