"I Can" Week in Preschool - Fine Motor Practice & Fun

Last week in preschool our theme was "I Can". It was aimed at making the children feel successful about things they can do, getting them comfortable with basic tools and materials used in preschool, introducing basic skills that we will be practicing over the course of the year and of course trying new things as this is the first school experience for many of my students.

I have to say that I am finding it difficult to capture all we do. It's not as easy as when I am home with only my 2 Lil Divas. These kiddos are quick, things get messy pretty fast and I find myself needing more than just my two hands if I truly want to capture it all.

So, although it's not everything, I am going to share what I did manage to capture from "I Can Week" in preschool -

Unfortunately, I don't have a photo of the final product but I put lots of odds and ends we did throughout the week in an "I Can" Book that the students took home to share with their families at the end of the week. It had pages inside that celebrated things the kids could do like - I Can Cut, I Can Paint, I Can Glue, I Can Draw, I Can Tape and I Can Stamp. The parents loved it!

Here are a few of the activities I did manage to capture either via my phone or camera.

I Can Sort!

I snuck in lots of fine motor practice, sorting and color recognition into our week.

Pom Pom Grip & Color Sort

We used pincers to pick up colored pom pons and place them in the correct section of the muffin trays.

Beading & Color Sorting

I picked up styrofoam circles (used for floral arrangements, etc) from the dollar store and stuck pipe cleaners in them. Then I had the kids pick colored beads and bead them onto the correctly colored pipe cleaner. This was so easy to whip up and such a great activity for little hands. I can not tell you the focus on the kiddos faces as they sat and worked on these! It was priceless.

I Can Build!

We had fun building with wooden blocks, legos, Lincoln Logs and various other toys we have in the classroom. I can honestly say that through our play we worked a lot on teamwork, cooperation and sharing - skills that are crucial to build in preschool.

I Can Cut!

Scissor skills and fine motor practice. Many of my kiddos have never used scissors before. They LOVE them - seriously, they grab hold and get snip happy. I have to make sure I keep lots of scrap paper paper. We have these great lightweight starter scissors (clickable photo below for more info) that we are using at the moment in addition to regular child sized scissors.  They are fab for beginners! The kiddos love them.

I Can Glue/Paint!

I mixed some colored glue (add food color to your regular glue & stir to mix well) and let the students have at it! They thought this was the coolest thing ever. The artwork dries shiny and has feels so cool to touch. We have them displayed on our Masterpiece Wall and they look fabulous. 

The kids also did some stamping with various stamps and ink pads, cut colored tape and stuck it to paper to make art, drew pictures using markers/crayons, painted at the easel, and lots more practical skills like cleaning-up, helping with classroom jobs, dressing themselves after using the bathroom, opening their lunch/snack bags, etc. We are a class of busy little bees and our mornings are filled with activity.  

Please note, that while none of these activities are new or earth shatteringly fascinating to the casual observer they were mostly new experiences for the children and presented lots of opportunity for hands-on, sensory fun and learning for the little hands and minds in my classroom. 

I hope you will be inspired to spend some time celebrating what your kids can do! Kids feel so great showing off abilities, exploring & discovering that they can do things that they may never have tried before.

Books We Read for "I Can" Week -

 
  

Next week I will be sharing our Friendship Week fun.

Bern

Marvelous Me! All About Me Theme

It's time for me to give you an inside peek into my preschool classroom. Last week was our second week of school and I focused on getting the kids acquainted with our classroom routine and learning about each other in our Marvelous Me themed unit.

Here's an inside peek at a few of my favorite activities from last week -

Mirror Me!

I loved this activity so much! It was definitely one of my favorites of the entire theme. I bought dollar store hand held mirrors (Don't you love the dollar store! It's been a lifesaver for my teacher purchases) and let the children look into them and asked them what they saw. We discussed that they each saw someone very special looking back at them - themselves. One of our activities during center time was to let the children look at themselves in the mirror and paint what they saw. They used their fingers or paintbrushes, whichever they preferred. We had some pretty great portraits (and quite a few funny ones too) and the children had fun painting on the mirrors. It was a cinch to wipe off and I took photos of the  children holding their creations so we had a keepsake/memory of the activity.

Foil Art Mirror Craft

These turned out so cute and were easy to do. I cut out some mirror templates in various colors of card stock and the children decorated them with cotton swab painting - they got a kick out of using little swabs versus brushes. Then I cut out circles of aluminum foil to act as our mirrors and the children drew their faces on the foil. The end result was an adorable personalized mirror and each one was unique just like my little preschool cuties.

Marvelous Me Paper Dolls

We had so much fun making these paper dolls. I supplied the cut outs, paper shirts, pants and dresses in various colors and patterns, assorted sequins, yarn, glue, paint, markers and crayons and let the children's imagination do the rest.  Each one turned out unique and it makes me smile to see them hanging them up on our walls. Some children used lots of details adding hair, eyelashes, eyebrows, ears, fingers and toes. Others were minimalist - adding only the barest details. These cute little dolls say so much about the personalities behind the little hands that made them. 

Fingerprint Exploration

This was part of our science center during the week. We helped each child trace their hand and then they used our ink pads to make fingerprints of each finger. Once they were all done they took a magnifying glass and studied their prints and compared them to a friends print. What did they find? Everyone's fingerprints are unique - just like each of them! They were able to take home their handprint/fingerprints and share them with their families.

Books We Read This Week:

 

 

Did you see our Messy Preschool Fun Week post? 

Next week I will be sharing our "I Can" theme. 

Bern

My Name is Special - Preschool & Kindergarten Name Recognition Activities

This week we were working on our "All About Me" theme.

We started with the Lil Divas names: 

Tactile Name Fun

The Lil divas really enjoyed this activity. The had fun finding just the right objects to form the letters of their names and really took their time decorating. I think they did a fantastic job!

Tactile Name Recognition/Decorating Craft

What We Used 

(from my stash of goodies!):

small shape stickers

small pom pom balls

sequins

beads

pipe cleaners

jewels

small buttons

string

I wrote each Lil Divas name on sentence strip paper (half)

& let them at it!

Don't these looks great!

Besides celebrating their names this was a great activity to practice fine motor skills,  dexterity and positioning. It was fun and interactive as they planned which objects to use for each letter. 

I will be using these to personalize/decorate their binders where we keep all the work we want to save!

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I am working with the Littlest Diva to help her learn to recognize, spell & write her last name. To help with this I made a simple Name Puzzle File Folder Game.

What You Need:

File Folder

Sentence Strip Paper

Glue

Markers

What To Do:

1. I cut up cards for all the letters of her name (first & last) and wrote her full name out on a sentence strip.

2. To start I had the name in the folder and provided the first 2 letters. She had to follow the name strip and finish the name puzzle. 

2. It was fairly easy so we did it a few times with me changing up letter I provided.

3. Once she becomes comfortable spelling her last name (she can do her first name easily) I will eliminate the printed name card and let her do the name puzzle without any visual clues.

For the Oldest Diva I felt this was too easy. I made her one too (she doesn't like to be left out) but I wanted to challenge her a bit more (she still misspells her last name sometimes) so I made a few Missing Letter Name Puzzles where I added random letters of her name and she had to write in the missing letters to complete it.

To make it all reusable I put the puzzle sheets into sheet protectors and we used washable markers.

This was fun & just challenging enough for her.

What We Read:

Some other great name recognition activities we have worked on:
1. using letter tiles to spell names
2. stamping our name with alphabet stamps
3. using letter magnets to spell names
4. name hunt activities

A few great ways to practice name/letter writing:
1. write in shaving cream
2. write in a paint filled ziploc bag
3. use do-a-dot markers
4. painting names w/paint & paintbrushes or finger painting names
5. write on dry erase boards
6. write on magnetic erase boards (you can also use magnet letters to stamp on them!)

Great Ideas From Around the Web:
Name Books from Teach Preschool
Name Dig from Teach Preschool

Bern