Preschool Newsletter
November 2016
Come Fall Into Preschool
Preschool is an exciting new adventure in our children's lives and it is important that our teachers are prepared to foster their early academic experiences. As teachers at Rainbow Child Care Center, it is important to be committed to providing a safe and secure learning environment where children feel comfortable to explore and take risks. Your daily schedule should provide flexibility and consistency, as well as a good mix of physical play, social-emotional development and early academic lessons.
It is best to modify educational experiences based on children's interests and strengths while still recognizing each child as an individual. Tracking each child's progress through the Child Assessment Portfolio system and daily communication tools will help show each child's parents their growth during conferences in May and November!
Vocabulary Cards
It is important that our teachers are using the Rainbow Vocabulary Cards everyday! Remember, they are not a flash card but a learning tool to help the children recognize words and objects related to the theme. Review the Vocabulary Cards with your class and then set up a scavenger hunt! Our teachers can set up a scavenger hunt inside or outside. Feel free to bring in real life objects so the children can connect it to the words on the Vocabulary Cards.
Estimation Jar
Children are becoming more familiar with counting and one-to-one correspondence now that they are in the Preschool room. Some milestones that your Preschoolers may reach include being able to count 10 objects accurately. There should never be more than 10 items in the Estimation Jar.
The teacher will be responsible for placing items in the jar once a week that are related to the theme the class is learning about. To make it fun and interesting to the children, they should change the type of item in the jar each time it is used. As the children practice and develop their skills, their ability to reasonably estimate and their ability to accurately count objects to check their estimation will flourish!
Zoo-phonics
For more information and resources on Zoo-phonics you can visit SharePoint>Education>Enrichment Programs>Zoo-phonics>Zoo-phonics resources
Kids of Character-Generosity
Ready, Set, GROW! Fit Foundations
Ready, Set, GROW! Fit Foundations takes health and fitness goals and adds educational concepts for children to get the most out of the activity. This is a type of hands on learning to help children understand from an early stage in life, how important it is to make healthy decisions in their lives. The activities are turned into games that help the children develop coordination skills, and also help support small and large muscle development.
Each school is equipped with a set of Ready, Set, GROW! manuals to use for finding the activities that teachers want to incorporate into their classrooms. You will simply find which volume we are currently using at the time, find the tab for the correct section, and open to the Preschool age group! Find activities and have fun with it!
In November, we will be focusing on Ready, Set, GROW! activities that have to do with "Look at Me Move". There are plenty of fun activities that you can incorporate into your daily lessons to get the children in your class moving and grooving. Be sure to model to the children what they should try to do during the activity. Don't forget to take down anecdotal notes about the children in your class as they perform these activities. It is the perfect time to get information together for their assessment and portfolios!
Journals
Our teachers should be asking open ended questions to promote discussion and creative thinking during Journal time about the new words they are learning about. For the "Construction" theme, feel free to give them a prompt. For example, you can say "Construction can be messy! Can you draw a picture of a messy construction site? Don't forget the trucks!"
Language Immersion Spanish
We offer a Language Immersion Spanish curriculum that blends fun and learning while expanding the children's language development. Through thoughtfully designed activities and a strong literature component, the children in your classroom will be able to learn a second language as you teach them, using a combination of different strategies to make learning memorable and more enjoyable.
Each school has two manuals for Language Immersion Spanish. Each volume is organized by theme and explores topic we will be covering that month. For the month of November, we will be learning about "Community Helpers" which is located in the first manual. Be sure that you are making the Spanish lessons fun for the children and offering Spanish lesson everyday! Remember, children learn by repetition! Continue to use the words they are learning in different areas of your lessons as well.