Teacher Newsletter
July 2018
Six Outdoor Classroom Ideas for Preschoolers
The sun is shining, and preschoolers are ready to play outside! Taking your classroom activities outdoors can be challenging at times, so we've come up with a list of six outdoor classroom ideas for your preschoolers.
1. Take Art Outside
Preschoolers often love to explore art in the messiest ways. Painting indoors can be a headache to clean up, so taking the paint outside is the perfect solution. The Outdoor Fence Easel creates an easy-to-clean outdoor art space. The children in your care will love painting beautiful masterpieces in the warm sunshine. Another great outdoor activity for your preschoolers is Color Sorting Rocks. First, have the children gather 15 to 20 rocks. Next, have them paint the rocks several different colors. Finally, when the paint on the rocks has fully dried, encourage your preschoolers to sort the rocks by color.
Source: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/26458716536233178/
2. Make Math Fun with Outdoor Learning
Finding ways to teach math outside while keeping the children in your care focused can be a challenge. However, the Run Around the Numbersactivity is sure to keep your preschoolers actively engaged while learning about numbers.
Materials:
- Outdoor Pavement
- Sidewalk Chalk
What to Do:
- Ask the children to spread out, and let each child pick out a stick of sidewalk chalk.
- Assign each child a number to write on the pavement with chalk. (Make sure they make the numbers large enough to be seen at a distance.)
- Explain that you will call out numbers, and the children are expected to run to the number called when they hear it. (Tell the children to stand on the number until you call the next number.)
- Begin!
- Let the children have a turn calling out the numbers when they become comfortable with the activity.
Source: https://www.education.com/activity/article/number-dash/
Read the full article at: https://www.kaplanco.com/blog/post/2017/07/14/six-outdoor-classroom-ideas-for-preschoolers.aspx
Active Learning
Walking the Plank!
Varsity Club
Stewartsville, NJWater Day!
Pickerington, OH
Sensory Fun!
Verona, WI
Teacher Spotlight
Ms. Marci is the Kindergarten/Varsity Club teacher at Rainbow's SV1. She is always finding new and innovative ways to get the children involved in activities and bring the themes to life. For the Body Mechanics theme, they made brain helmets that told them all of the parts of their brain and talked about how they worked. They also made a huge 3-D heart that they hung from the ceiling. Ms. Marci runs our Full time Kindergarten program, as well as coordinates 22 Varsity Club students schedules, assists with Homework, and follows through on all of the aspects of the curriculum for Rainbow. She has currently planned an exciting and event filled summer camp!
July Curriculum
Toddler, Young Preschool, Preschool, Pre-K Academy:
July 2-13 Muddy Green Thumbs
July 16-27 Splish Splash
Private Kindergarten: Summer Camp
Montessori: Out of This World
Varsity Club: Summer Camp
Kids of Character: Independence
Pre-K Academy Project: "Life Size Water Cycle"
Varsity Club Community Service Project: "Alex's Lemonade Stand"
Baby Sign: Sun
Ready, Set, Grow!: Golf
Language Immersion Spanish: Alphabet
Zoo Phonics: uppercase: Q, R, S, T and U review: M, N, O and P
Family Calendar of Events: July Dates to Remember
3-Independence Day Parade
4-CLOSED for Independence Day13th-Summer Social
C.C.E.I.
T.E.A.C.H.
T.E.A.C.H Early Childhood® Scholarship Program
Currently active in 24 states, T.E.A.C.H Early Childhood® is designed to help the Early Childhood industry as a whole address education, compensation and turnover issues that affect the field by helping ease the cost of furthering employee’s education. It also leads to higher quality care for our families, because teachers will be more familiar with best practices. T.E.A.C.H Early Childhood® and Rainbow partner together to help cover some of the cost of tuition, books, and related education expenses as well as compensating employees for the time spent doing schoolwork in the form of release time and providing employees with bonuses as they finish classes and programs.
To be eligible to participate in T.E.A.C.H Early Childhood®, an employee has to have been employed with Rainbow for at least 6 months year. They must work at least 30 hours a week and agree to work for Rainbow for one year after finishing their T.E.A.C.H Early Childhood® contract. The employee must be going for either their CDA or Associates degree in the Early Childhood field. Currently there is a maximum of three employees per location in the T.E.A.C.H Early Childhood® program. Employees in North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, Indiana, Michigan, Alabama, and Ohio are eligible, because T.E.A.C.H Early Childhood® is currently is operating in these states.
After speaking with your Program Director to check that you meet the criteria to be eligible, call T.E.A.C.H. at 866-648-3224 for an application or visit your states T.E.A.C.H Early Childhood® website. You can find all contact information for your states T.E.A.C.H Early Childhood® Program at http://teachecnationalcenter.org/state-contacts/