Darling Dogs...

It's letter Dd week and I'm just delighted to share these darling dogs! We have been having a blast so far! Yesterday we used hearts to create these dogs. Aren't they adorable? I can see marked improvement with the children's fine motor skills as they use the glue and grasp small pieces of paper. It is so exciting to watch these little people grow and develop right before your eyes.


Today ends our last day of August. WOW, September already? Yikes, it will be the holidays before we blink. We have had a great month of learning, growing, sharing, and changing. Let me give you a little recap on what we have done.


Letters:
This month we learned the letters Aa, Bb, and Cc. The children did great with this. It's so exciting to see them beginning to recognize these letters in print when I'm reading stories or writing words. What's even more wonderful is when they also tell me the sound each letter makes. They are all doing fantastic and I am proud of each and every one of them!


Language:
For August, we continued with vocabulary development and also talked about prepositions. The children did great as we worked on describing words to enhance their expressive language. For prepositions, we played games with stuffed animals and placed them on, over, under, and in a variety of objects.


Math:
For math we covered several concepts. We continued working on color identification. All of the children have become very proficient with this and they enjoyed the games we played to reinforce this skill. We also continued practicing counting from 1 to 10 and number identification for the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. The children love the number rhymes we recite to help us remember how to form each one properly.


Social Studies:
In August we learned about families. We talked about where we live, who is in our family, and we listened to a number of stories about being a part of a family. Everyone enjoyed talking about who is in their family. A few of them even shared how old mommy and daddy are. Don't worry, I'll never tell! They did ask me how old I am. I told them to guess. Most of them think I'm about 17. That works for me!


Science:
Healthy foods were are focus this month. We discussed fruits and vegetables, whole grains, and also how sugar may taste good, but it is not good for our bodies. While they were all disappointed to hear this, I must say they were rather enthusiastic about several of my new veggie creations I shared at lunch. Most of these were vegan, but described as YUMMY!!!


Gross Motor / P.E.
Jump rope was our focus for physical education. I always love doing this unit with preschoolers. You can see them trying to motor plan when to jump and how high, so that they do not step on the rope. It is adorable to watch! We will continue working on this skill and I look forward to seeing how their motor planning skills progress.


Fine Motor:
We have been working on tracing simple shapes such as squares, circles, triangles, and rectangles. A great deal of progress has been with this. The children see their accomplishments too. Squeals of excitement could be heard followed by the words "I DID IT!!"' I'm so proud of them!


Character Trait:
For the month of August we worked on having good manners. I'm happy to report that I am hearing "please" and "thank you" much more consistently from our little friends. We also worked on "excuse me" and the appropriate times to use this phrase.


Community Service Project:
This is our first month doing a community service project and I have to say it was FANTASTIC!!! We adopted Daisy the chicken from The Gentle Barn and started a recycling program to earn money to assist with her care. We needed $5 to help support her and guess what? We did it! We earned $5.17. I sent in the $5 today and we will carry over the .17 for September and Daisy's care. Thank you for assisting to make this project a success. We will begin a new community service project in September, while continuing our recycling program. Details will be sent home soon.


Well, once again, thank you for all of your support! I love your little ones and it is a blessing every day for me to have the opportunity to be a part of their lives.

As always, if you have any questions or concerns, please let me know! Thank you!
achievepreschool@hotmail.com