Playing Games

We play a lot of different commercial games in preschool that support a variety of learning goals. The general pattern for playing games goes something like this:

1. I put a game out, open and with all the parts and pieces on a table. Then I let the kids explore and play any way they want, without teaching them the "traditional" rules of the game.

2. Use the opportunity of small group time to teach traditional rules of games, and how to "break" and "change" the rules is they prefer. 

3. Put the games out for free choice time and watch how the kids decide to play.

The games we choose for preschool support different skills including matching, counting, taking turns, following rules, making patterns, learning number and letter symbols, and starting to recognize words. 

Here are the games the kids have learned this fall and what skills they practice when playing.

Zingo: This is a bingo game which has tiles come out of a chute two at a time. If you have the picture on your board, which is a 3 x 3 grid, you say the name of the picture first and get to put it on your board. It teaches motor coordination to slide the chute back and forth to get the tiles. The kids need to have quick naming of pictures, so they need to pay attention. They learn "all" (by filling all the boxes in their grid), and they work on matching pictures.

Pop Up Pirate: In this game, a pirate in plunged down into a barrel that has a bunch of holes for swords. the swords are red, green, yellow and blue. The kids take turns impaling the barrel with one sword at a time until the pirate POPS out. Sometimes it takes 1 sword and sometimes it takes 10 and sometimes it takes all of them. This game teaches turn taking, counting, sorting colors (the swords) and predicting (how many do you think it will take this time?).

Memory: This game is a classic. We play it with commercial memory cards, as well as cards I will hand make to go along with our learning focus. The cards are all face down and each child takes a turn and flipping two cards over at a time. If they match, the child keeps them. If they don't, they get turned back over again. Sometimes we play that we are all working together to find all of the matches. Sometimes, each child keeps his own matches and we count them at the end to find out who "won." This game helps kids use their memory, problem solving, matching, and counting skills.

Connect Four: This is a game they have not been taught how to play by traditional rules, yet. At this time, kids are filling the Connect Four grid with the red and black checkers to make designs, fill up stacks and make patterns. We will teach how to see the Four in a Row patterns a little later. This game helps them learn visual discrimination and strategy, much the same way the Tic Tac Toe does. 

Lucky Ducks: This game is a lot like Memory. The ducks swim in a pond that moves. They all have a color on the bottom. The kids each have a board with one of the colors. They have to find all of their ducks by picking up a duck each turn and checking the bottom to see if it matches their board. This game teaches matching, counting, knowing "all" and memory skills.

Fudge For Funds

     Everyone should have the Fudge for Funds order forms. The whole idea of this fundraiser is to get more technology for the preschool and to help fund future field trips. The more we sell, the more we can do. Last year we raised over $900 and we were able to get a digital microscope and Bee-Bot robots as technology additions to the classroom. This year we are thinking about investing in an iPad or acquiring an LCD projector. 

     We would also love to get ideas for who to donate 33% of what we raise to. I am looking to parents for ideas for a deserving charity. Last year, we donated to the Franklin/Grand Isle Bookmobile.

Here are the criteria:

1. It needs to benefit children

2. It needs to be a non-profit

3. It needs to be local (at least Vermont local).

     Bring your ideas into preschool over the next few weeks. If you are able to gather a little information on the cause of your choice, that would be great. We will be letting the kids know about the different places and how they help kids. On Election Day, (November 3), the kids will vote for the organization to which we will donate.

     Fudge order forms are due on Thursday, October 14. The fudge will be ready for distribution on October 26. For anyone interested, here is more information on Snowflake Chocolates Fudge for Funds program.

Skype

Today we got a surprise. Carolyn, a grandparent who lives in New Jersey, called up using Skype. This is a free program for people to see each other face to face (with a webcam) and talk to each other. Carolyn, or Bodgie, as she is known in her family, was able to see all of the kids and we could see her. 

They asked some questions about New Jersey. Some one asked if New Jersey was great. She said it was, but that she also thought Vermont was pretty great. Many of the kids told her, "I live in Vermont!" This kind of exchange gives the kids both a sense of place as well as awareness of other places in the world. Hopefully, we can think of all kinds of creative ways to use this.

Bodgie did promise she would call us back. When she does, she is going to read us one of her favorite books. I will have to get a hold of good LCD projector and speakers so we can all see and hear her really well.

If any other families have relatives living somewhere else who are interested in Skyping into the classroom, please let me know. It will be fun to have more places to find out about and more people to meet this way.

Gak

On Thursday in science, we made a time-honored favorite substance in preschool: Gak (also known as Flubber in some circles).

Here is the recipe:

Make sure to use non-metal bowls and utensils

In one bowl combine: 1/2 c. warm water, 1 c. of Elmer's Glue. Mix until well blended.

In another bowl combine: 1 c. warm water and 4 tsp. Borax. Mix until Borax dissolves. 

Add your preferred food coloring color to each bowl.

Pour the Borax mixture into the glue mixture and watch it turn into a stringy goop before your eyes. A grownup will need to knead the mixture until all of the water is worked in and you are left with a consistent, rubbery substance.

Now for the fun part. Gak is slimy, smooth, cool, icky, slippery, and a lot of fun to work in your hands. With some patience, you can let it ooze down you fingers as it stretches slowly. The kids made it into balls, snakes, shapes and pancakes. They also worked on sharing and fairness. They worked on making sure everyone had about the same amount to play with, even when new kids joined the fun.

Playing with Gak promotoes fine motor coordniation development by having the kids use the muscles in their fingers to explore it. In the scientific realm, they also learned that glue and borax have a chemical reaction that makes the rubbery Gak. Alone, they were wet and liquid. They use all sorts of scientific descriptions to talk about how the gak moves, feels, and changes as they play with it. They even did some color mixing. We made a blue batch and a red batch. When they worked the two colors together, they got a light purple color.

Cutting with Scissors

It has been such a pleasure watching the kids in the class form new friendships. I think by now most kids know everyone's name. I keep hearing phrases like, "He's my friend," and "We can be friends."  It makes a preschool teacher proud. 

We did a project together last week that both helps us recognize the seasons, and share a bit of ourselves. At small groups, the kids traced their hands on two different fall-colored sheets of paper. Then, they cut out their hand shape and we tacked them up on our class tree. Right now, they are all on the tree, but as fall moves on, some of our classroom leaves will also "fall" to the ground. As the seasons change, so will the hand print leaves on the tree. 

This activity really focused on the fine motor skills of tracing and cutting. Many kids were able to cut their hands with just a little help from a teacher. Some kids chose child-sized Fiskar scissors, and others chose "squissors," scissors that bounce back open after you close them. Cutting around fingers is not easy, considering all of the paper turning that is required. We showed kids how to cut with their thumb up and how to hold the paper with one hand and turn as they opened and closed the scissors with the other. 

We will have many more opportunities to use and practice with scissors. This will help develop the kids' hand-eye coordination and fine motor muscles in their hands.

Preschool Musical

This clip may just get me ready to plan "Opera Day!" It is a lot of fun.

Opening Week

We had a great first week of preschool. The kids have been learning each others names and the names of the teachers. Everyone is getting to know the classroom rules and routines. We are getting a chance to explore with all the classroom materials and areas.
We missed Grandma Freda this week. She wasn't feeling well. We hope she will be back this week and we have to thank Rita Winegar for coming in to help. 
Here area few photos to give you some idea of how the kids have been getting used to their new preschool.

A bunch of kids discovered new sand and toys in the sandbox on the playground. They were taking turns, sharing and having a lot of fun.

The kids are taking responsibility for helping dry off the slides and bars so we can use all of the outside equipment to work on our gross motor skills of balance, running, jumping, and swinging.

The doll house is a small pretend play area in the room in which kids can work on social skills. They can plan the design of the house, make up scenarios for the dolls, and practice taking on different roles. 

These kids are putting together puzzles of different children from around the world. This helps them get to see kids of all kinds and recognize things that are the same about all kids and things that are different.


 

In the block area, kids are working on visual spatial skills when they are planning and putting together structures. They also work on persistence, matching, and math skills such as recognizing shapes and counting.

Playing in the sand allows kids to work on their scooping, pouring, and dumping coordination. They get to work with many different materials in the sensory table. As the year goes on, the materials in the sensory tables will change to provide more challenges.








The paint easel is an area in which the kids can show their creative expression. As the year goes on, their paintings will change and grow in detail, representation and use of color and more materials.