Children 3-4 years old (preschoolers) will participate in various activities throughout each day. These activities will incorporate skills, which focus on all the major developmental areas- cognitive/thinking, language, social-emotional, fine and gross motor.
Activities as well as materials used will be adjusted depending on the child’s age and developmental level.
Preschoolers’ Activities
The following activities will be utilized throughout our school’s daily schedule.
Circle Time
During this time children will learn to interact with their peers as well as adults. Skills worked on are as follows: eye contact, attention, socialization, and name recognition and language development. Children will describe the weather and discuss the calendar (name the month, day of the week & count numbers). Children will engage in theme related games (ex. hunting for colored leaves). They will also sing songs, play instruments, streamer dance, and exercise.
Gross Motor/Outdoor Play
Children will develop their gross motor skills by participating in various activities (ball games, parachute play, playground equipment, etc.). Other skills addressed are eye/hand coordination and balance.
Math
Children, depending on their age and skill level, will work on the following mathematical skills: sorting objects into sets, shape identification, patterns, rote counting, and number recognition.
Self Help
Children will use dressing boards to work on buttoning, snapping and zipping. Children will also work on putting on and taking off their jackets as well as socks and shoes.
Story Time
Children will develop attending and listening comprehension skills during story time. Stories will coordinate with the weekly theme whenever possible. Children will be asked a variety of “w” questions after each story.
Fine Motor/Prewriting
Children will engage in the following activities to strengthen their fine motor skills: string beads, lacing, puzzles, tracing stencils, cutting activities and tweezer/clothes pin activities to develop pincer grasp.
Language Arts
Children, depending on their age and skill level, will work on the following language arts skills: name recognition, letter recognition and letter identification.
Special Projects
Each week children will work on group projects in art and cooking the incorporate the weekly theme.
Learning Centers
Learning centers foster creativity, curiosity and experimentation. Children will be encouraged to make choices, solve problems and engage in hands-on learning experiences.
Children will rotate to 3 different centers in which they will work independently or in small groups. Our centers include writing, science, block, dramatics, and art.