Friday Fun With The Four Year Olds

My! What a jam-packed and fun-filled day with the fours!

We celebrated the "Number of the Day" today. We have this fun circus-like "game" for lack of a better word. Our helper gets to drop the number down the "shoot" and tell us what the number of the day is! Today Erin gave us the number 5! Each child got an opportunity to write the number on our dry erase board! Writing numbers can be a challenge for many at this age. However, these guys handled number-writing very, very well! Yeah for them (and the adults at home that are working with them).

We finished up our Swimmy craft. On Wednesday, we read about Swimmy the black fish who made some friends with a school of red fish. The small, red fish were afraid to leave their cozy part of the ocean for fear they might be eaten by a shark. The school of fish learned how to work together and form a larger shape to resemble a big fish so the shark would leave them alone. We hope the story reminds our gang to always work together (btw, they don't need much reminding).

To refresh our memories, we played the "name game" with a ball. We rolled it to a friend who would tell the class their name. That child then rolls it to another friend, and so on. Our class has already become a family. They know each other's names, have made fast friends, and are very considerate of one another. This is a huge goal in preschool. Realizing their are others in the class, caring for them, being patient, etc. is a big part of socialization that they will take with them throughout their lives.

We worked with some more spatialization. Mrs. Sapp took pictures of our class monkey (stuffed animal that shows us how to sit on the rug). The kids each got a photo and were asked to describe where the monkey was in the photo. These guys and gals are genius! They understood "in front", "behind", "next to", "on top", "inside", and "beside". We were blown away! These descriptive words will go a long way in helping them with math. When they are able to see and differentiate attributes, they can put things in order, do patterns, and recognize shapes!

We read a book today about sharing. We followed up the story with a sharing and art project. The kids colored a chocolate chip cookie and had to decide how to share. They realized they could cut it in half! One sweet child went a step farther ... she cut it into several pieces for her siblings at home to all have a piece. The kiddos didn't realize it, but we were also providing them with an opportunity to hone in on their scissor cutting skills. Remember, their hands still need strengthening s0 this can be difficult for them. After they colored and cut, they were allowed to paint with a Q-tip to show us where the chips were! We were so proud of the time they took to work on this project. We saw some of the best preschool coloring jobs ever! More importantly, those that took their time really showed us that they take pride in their work and this is important to their self-esteem.

Finally, we wanted to let you know lunch is going great! Thank you for spending so much time working with the kids on how to open things. Thank you for packing such wonderful and appropriate lunches. Everyone is so independent! And, they are eating instead of running around, etc. It's truly one of the best lunch experiences we have ever had in the Purple Room.

We hope this information helps you converse with your child over the weekend about their day at school. We hope you will have a super weekend and can't wait to see you on Monday!