Blog for French Valley K-Prep Preschool, LLC: February 2013

Gg is for grocery. Many children know the name of the local grocery store where their parents shop for food, so learning that the food that they buy is also called groceries or the store is called a grocery store was new to them (including my daughter). I asked the children to raise their hand if they shopped at: Stater Brothers, Albertsons, Ralphs, Vons, or WinCo (those were the ones that popped into my head). It was neat to see them raise their hands, because they knew which stores you (the parents) shop at.

I'm still assessing students, so for centers, it's free choice. Many preschools do not assess their students in their abc's. They do informal assessments in the development areas. Taking time to assess them in their knowledge of their letters, numbers, shapes, colors, and letter sounds takes a lot of time. I can only work with one child per class and I don't always get through the whole assessment if there are a lot of questions. It helps me to see where the child is at in these areas. Just understand, that development doesn't always follow a schedule. Not every child is going to be "on schedule". That does NOT mean there is something wrong with them. Sometimes they'll go from not clicking to exploding in their development in some areas!! This is why our school system has a problem. It is designed for the children who are "on schedule". What about the children that are not? This is why I am a true believer in "red flagging" a child or to hold them back until they are ready. I did it for my two boys for two different reasons. My oldest was so delayed in his speech that he couldn't start school, because he had to catch up in his speech. Because his speech was delayed it got in the way of interacting with others so when he caught up in his speech (age 5.5), I helped him develop in his social skills (at home and in mom's groups). He didn't start kinder until he was 6 1/2. He was and is still advancing and has an advantage over children who are falling behind right now. My middle child was held back, because he was so immature. He was more like a four year old. I'm glad I held him back, because he had a year to mature and gain knowledge in his ABC's and other "academic" areas. My youngest (who is in my program) has known her "academics" since the age of two, but is still very immature and is slightly delayed in her speech. I think she'll be ready when she's five, but her birthday is so late (end of July) that I am going to consider giving her one extra year so that she is 100% ready. We'll see...

Here are some pictures during center time:

They all played with the musical instruments while my Pandora "Seseme Street" radio played.

I don't often take pictures of circle time, but here are some:

Here are some photos of our snack time:

One of my students is moving across the country and her mother brought in fruit for snack to match our theme! Thank you!!!

Last day = cup cakes with candies that are arranged like grapes (see below).

Here are some outside play photos:

For art, we stamped with food dipped in paint. Most of my art is "free style" where they are learning about the tools and figuring out how to manipulate everything. I don't care for crafts that have a specific result, because it doesn't allow a child to develop in their art. This time, however, the children did have to follow specific directions and there is a result that they had to pay attention to. They were to simply put the stamp in the paint and apply it to the paper. I wanted them to follow this simple set of directions and if they chose to then take the stamp and smear it across the paper, they were done and were asked to wash their hands. Since I teach four classes, the first class was the hardest to teach and as I got better at explaining to them and figuring out how to set up the paint, the last class was the easiest...well, my last class is all pre-kers, so that also helps, because developmentally, they follow directions better. My preschoolers were the ones that ended up smearing the paint around and asked to wash their hands early. It's actually quite interesting to think about from a teacher's point of view of early childhood development. That is why, next school year, I am putting my pre-kers in one group (K-Prep) and creating a relaxed social preschool class for ages 3 and up.

We stamped with celery, bell peppers, and apples.

This is my example.

The bell peppers are supposed to look like a clover, except when the white part gets cut off like the one on the left. The celery looks like a flower, and the center of an apple looks like a star

The green one is really round and if it's not cut right, then it looks like a round circle. The orange one was the best one, because the bumps made the right kind of "four leaf clover" stamp. The red one was so bumpy that it actually looked like a butterfly.

Here's what they look like on the bottom.

For writing, I am ditching the developmentally appropriate book that helps the child fine tune their fine motor skills in handling a pencil and writing and going back to the traditional phonics matching letter writing. The book I was following is perfect when it comes to developing fine motor skills. However, when a child writes a letter after learning it's phonics, they learn their phonics better. The day we learn a new phonetic letter is the day we practice writing the upper and lower case matching letter. On the second class day, we are reviewing past phonetic letters through writing.

We wrote the letter Gg and reviewed Aa.

One of our little girls is moving across the country :(. She and her mom made a giraffe pinata, because it starts with the letter 'g'. They also brought in a fruit platter and cupcakes with candies that looked like a bunch of grapes. She will be greatly missed!!! Here are some photos of her celebration: