Play is the Work of Childhood
9/28/2019
A few parents have asked me recently when we are going to start learning our numbers, the alphabet, and other “school-type” things. At PNA the curriculum we use is the Creative Curriculum for Preschool by Teaching Strategies. It is based on the premise that the best way to help children succeed is to teach them to be creative, confident thinkers. That means offering them opportunities for hands-on exploration and discovery that help build lifelong critical thinking skills and fostering confidence. One reason I love this curriculum is that it ties-in so well with the concept of 21st Century Skills. These are skills, abilities and learning dispositions which educators agree that students will need to be successful in the 21st-century world. In preschool we primarily focus on the first four of these skills: communication, critical thinking, creativity and collaboration. https://www.gettingsmart.com/2017/09/ten-strategies-to-help-children-build-21st-century-skills/ Every day we are constantly striving to help students communicate effectively with each other. Learning how to take turns in discussions and listen with respect are challenging but vital skills for preschoolers. Our goal is to provide a language-rich environment which foster enthusiastic group discussions and conversations. These discussions help children begin to learn the vocabulary and conventions of effective communication. Having lots of playtime during the day enables children to practice these skills. We also strive to help children develop critical thinking skills and use a wide range of problem-solving techniques during their days at school. We try to help children think critically by providing materials which can be used in a variety of ways, asking lots of open-ended questions, and allowing children time to develop hypotheses and reach their own conclusions. Again, it is vital to provide plenty of opportunities for play and investigation, so children may practice these critical thinking skills. Creativity in early childhood is more than just art projects; creativity is at the heart of problem-solving and innovation and discovery. At PNA our goal is to provide an environment where creative play experiences are possible, imagination is encouraged, and the process of creating is emphasized rather than the product. Of course, we make time for lots of art projects and coloring to help things like fine motor development, but we also make art and other materials available to the children every day and allow them to experiment with them in their own ways. Young children learn collaboration as they watch and then gradually share play experiences. Through these experiences they begin to learn about friendship and the value of working together. We also encourage collaboration by facilitating small and large group activities, games and project-based activities. Every day we are encouraging children listen to the ideas and perspectives of others and to work together, make compromises as necessary. So, although you won’t see lots of worksheets coming home with your child, we will certainly be working with letters, numbers, and those sorts of academic things! Meanwhile, I want you to be assured that your children are very much engaged in learning! Maria Montessori, Piaget, and Fred Rogers are all credited with the phrase “Play is the work of childhood”, and I truly believe that! If we can foster the 4 C’s of 21st Century Skills through play-based learning experiences, your children will be better prepared for the rest of their academic careers. And, if we can help students learn these skills in an atmosphere of kindness and joy, they will develop a life-long enthusiasm for learning! What a gift!
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Fabulous Fall Fun
9/21/2019
This beautiful fall week was full of exciting activities and learning opportunities! We began our week with a super fun Fall Outing Event. We were blessed with a break in the rain and all the classes headed outside to spend the morning playing some fun games and then enjoying a popcorn and muffin snack. What a great time everyone had!! We first used a parachute and some fall leaves to practice working together to make room for everyone and then accomplish something really fun. The children learned that we had to work together to get those leaves to really fly! Of course, hiding under the parachute is always fun too! There was also bean bag toss into the “pumpkin”, and ring toss onto the “candy corn”. Pumpkin Bowling with green and orange balls was especially popular! These games were opportunities to practice gross motor skills, as well as the importance of taking turns and cooperation. After the children had participated in each of the games they were treated to an outdoor snack of popcorn and muffins. After our snack our class walked around the fence and out to the field to do some exploring and investigate some cracks in the field where the soil had settled and cracked during November’s earthquake. We also have been examining the changes in the leaves and other foliage this week. We have been comparing the different kinds of leaves, sorting them by types and have begun some leaf art projects. We made our own pictures of fall leaves with dot markers and then our fingers! The highlight of week though, had to be our trip to Pyrah’s Pioneer Peak Farm in Palmer! Our goal was to see how vegetables grow, especially pumpkins! We had a fun bus ride there and everyone was super excited!! We enjoyed a story from Miss Janet about a boy who hated vegetables until he found out how they grew and actually tasted them. Then we all piled into wagons for a hayride around the farm and out to the fields to see the pumpkin patch and the other vegetables. We looked at the potatoes and other vegetables growing, and each child was able to take home a bag of their very own vegetables! The children and (grown-ups too) had a wonderful time in the fresh fall air, and we even got a little sunshine as a bonus! We had some tired little farmers on the way home! Thank you to Pyrah’s farm for providing a wonderful experience for us, and thank you to all our parent helpers who came along with us! It was the perfect start to our study about Autumn and all the great things it brings.
Wash, wash, wash your hands!
9/14/2019
Last week in EK2 we talked about how sharing is an important part of friendship. This week we talked about something that we don’t want to share: GERMS! We started the week by talking about the importance of hand-washing. We used an object lesson to help the children visualize how sneaky germs can be and why we wash hand so often in preschool. I pretended to wash my hands with some hand sanitizer, and everyone agreed my hands were clean. I pretended to sneeze into my hands and then I put a small amount of glitter on them to represent the germs. Everyone could see that I now had germs on my hands, and we agreed that sneezing into our elbows is a better choice! I played with a toy cup while I had glitter on my hand and then passed it around. Everyone could see glitter on the cup and then on their hands just by touching the cup! Then I shook hands with each child, and they could easily see that they all had my “germs” now. All week everyone was much more compliant with hand-washing! On Friday we made an art page by practicing using white glue to put drops of glue on tracings of our hands, and then sprinkling them with glitter. Beautiful work from very proud (and a little silly!) artists! We made name puzzles and practiced putting the letters in order. We also practice our scissor skills by cutting on lines using both regular and fancy scissors, and did LOTS of drawing on paper and on individual white boards! Art and Music are always highlights of our week! We are practicing the skills of being good friends and are building a strong classroom community. We are having fun together as we talk and sing songs, play games, take turns, and practice being kind to one another. We are developing great friendships!
Friendship and Rules
9/7/2019
This week in EK we focused on friendship and our school and class rules. Among the many books we read this week were favorites Room on the Broom, Mine-o-Saurus, and The Grouchy Lady Bug which helped us understand more about friendship and sharing. We learned about the importance of safety rules with Officer Buckle and Gloria, and we ready about the trouble Big Anthony got into for not following Strega Nona’s rules about her pasta pot. We put into practice our understanding of friendship and sharing both inside and out! We got new journals for drawing and writing in which the children were very excited about using. We also talked about taking care of our earth by being careful with our paper usage, and how we can reuse and recycle.
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Melissa SmithMs. Smith has a degree in Early Childhood Education and has taught kindergarten for many years. Alaska has been home to Ms. Smith for 28 years, and she can't imagine living anywhere else! She has four children, a dog and two cats. She loves reading, camping, gardening, and genealogy! Archives
April 2021
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