Children 2 1/2 – 3 years old (toddlers) 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.
Toddlers’ Activities
The following activities will be utilized for toddlers 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, gender identification and language development. Children will describe the weather and put the appropriate clothes on the dress-up bear. 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.
Sensory
Children will manipulate materials of varying textures & consistencies including play dough, shaving cream, rice, sand & water.
Prewriting
Depending on their ability, children will either work on tracing or drawing linear and circular lines.
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 “wh” questions after each story.
Fine Motor
Children will engage in the following activities to strengthen their fine motor skills(ex. develop a pincer grasp): beading, coloring, building with small blocks, dressing, and simple puzzles.
Cognitive
Children will play games that focus on the following skills: matching, sorting & identifying colors/shapes, size discrimination, name recognition and body part identification.
Special Projects
Each week children will work on a group project in either art or cooking that incorporates 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 three different centers in which they will work independently or in small groups. Our centers include writing, science, block, dramatics, and art.