4K and EC Family Newsletter
Friday, March 20th, 2020
Week 1 "At Home School"
We have had the pleasure to hear some of your stories about the first week of "at home school". Some stories have been quite comical, however, we know for many of you these are trying times. We are working diligently at the Stoughton Area School District to provide you with a variety of at home learning opportunities for your children. Early Childhood and 4K families will continue to receive these SMORE newsletters throughout the time away from school buildings.
Reminder: Next week is Spring break and there will be no additional newsletters sent from March 23-27. We will resume communications on Monday, March 30th. Virtual learning will resume for K-12 students on March 30th.
Please continue to reach out to us if you are in need of anything during this time of at home learning via the EC/4K Google doc. We will do our best to support the SASD families and children during this time.
Stay well.
Erin and Sara Jane
COVID-19 Updates
Follow these CDC guidelines:
- Stay home, especially if you're sick.
- Practice aggressive social distancing.
- Continue strong everyday preventive measures.
- Avoid all nonessential travel.
For more information regarding Early Learning/4K go to the: DPI landing page for COVID-19
WWW.MINDHEART.CO
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 INTERNATIONAL PUBLIC LICENSE
Free Online Resources
Activities:
✅Indoor Activities for busy toddlers
✅Play games and learn all about animals
✅Play with fave show characters and learn too
Academic:
✅At home OT, PT, and ST resources designed to build skills in children through movement and play
Art:
✅Crafts, activities, mazes, dot to dot, etc.
✅Fun Highlights Kids- games, recipes, crafts, activities
Explore Places:
✅The San Diego Zoo has a website just for kids with amazing videos, activities, and games
✅Tour Yellowstone National Park!
✅Explore the surface of Mars on the Curiosity Rover.
Click on the link to get more ideas for educational free online sites.
Suggestions for Practice of Gross Motor Skills for Preschoolers
Locomotor – running, galloping, jumping up, down, and forward, and walking up/down steps, hopping, galloping
-Lots of time and space for running, galloping, and jumping (up, down into couch cushions, jump down from the bottom step of stairs, jump over obstacles)
-Run to “bases”, as part of kickball / t-ball games, or create simple soccer games (run, kick ball into makeshift goal)
-Tag games
-Walk up/down stairs (home, community, playground) - 2 feet/step first, progressing to an alternating step pattern
-Obstacle courses
-Animal walks (gallop like a horse, jump like a frog, bear walk, crab walk)
-Marching games (marching band, soldiers, 7 Dwarfs)
-Red Light / Green Light (start, stop, slow)
-Simon Says (run, gallop, jump, hop)
-Dance to music (there are a lot of music CDs for preschoolers)
For more gross motor activities click on the link: Gross Motor
Suggestions for Practice of Fine Motor Skills for Preschoolers
Control Small Muscles in Hands – manipulate small objects, eating utensils, cutting with scissors, drawing skills
-Dress up clothes to practice fasteners and dressing skills
-Play dough play encouraging squeezing, shapes, cutting, pinching, poking, rolling and manipulating
-Sand play – things to fill and shape with, dig and push tools
-Water squirting toys, squeezing sponge to wash off table
-Baster to push cotton balls, tongs to pick up different objects, (ex: to move packing peanuts “popcorn” into bags)
-Musical instruments – two handed, xylophone/piano (isolate fingers)
-Tear newspaper, tissue paper and other materials
-Hole punchers, staplers
-Spray bottles; squishy, squeezy toys
-Etch a Sketch
-Small objects to pick up and place (art projects, stickers, colorforms)
-Variety of media to cut
-Kitchen tools – stir, mix, knead, utensils to cut/stab/spread
-Finger play/songs, puppets
-Board games – requiring manipulation of small pieces
-Toys with small manipulatives (doll house, winding toys, spinning toys, nuts and bolts, small boxes)
-Toys with buttons to push, old phones with rotary dials
-Laundry station
Use Tools for Writing and Drawing- pre-writing skills, drawing
- Crayons and markers of different sizes
-Draw/color/paint on a vertical surface (like chalkboard, easel, paper on a wall)
-Trace and draw with a variety of media (chalk, finger paints, pastels, rocks, crayons, markers, different sizes of markers and crayons)
-Magic slates, magnadoodle
-Write/draw on different textures (like sand paper, plastic bag with shaving cream in it)
-Stencils, stamps, magnetic letters
-“Writing box” with a variety of writing utensils and different kinds of paper
-write on tiny pieces of paper and large sheets of paper, paper bags
For more fine motor activities click on the link: Fine Motor
Message from your teachers
We are happy that we can provide you some "at home" activities during this time.
Enjoy time with your family!
Stay well,
The Early Childhood and 4K Staff
Anita 4K Teacher Martin Luther
Cindy and Kristyn 4K Teachers at Pumpkin Patch
Casey 4K Teacher at Martin Luther
Carissa 4K Teacher at LaPatite
Jessica 4K Teacher at St. Ann's
Lori 4K Teacher at First Lutheran
Contact Us
Erin Conrad, 4K Principal/Kegonsa Principal
erin.conrad@stoughton.k12.wi.us
Kate Ahlgren, Director of Curriculum and Instruction
kate.ahlgren@stoughton.k12.wi.us
Sara Jane Lee, 4K Inclusion Support Teacher
sarajane.lee@stoughton.k12.wi.us
Mindy Holverson, 4K Educational Assistant
mindy.holverson@stoughton.k12.wi.us