This week we welcomed March and the color green! We have certain areas of the classroom that change every month: the playdough and tools are green, the books are new, the Tub Table has green digging and sculpting tools, and all the Tiny Things are green.
Our new Alphabet Friend is Sylvester the Snake and is based off a little song about him singing in the shower! We have our swing up in the classroom and an S walking path. There are bars of slippery sensitive skin soap and squishy pom poms to squeeze in the Water Tables.
Grandma Bonnie was back with her spinning wheel and umbrella swift yarn winder. The children love watching and helping…some are very curious about the mechanics of it all!
Our Coping Skill is Squeeze. Intentionally squeezing certain muscle groups and then relaxing them is known to help reduce tension and stress. At preschool we already work on strengthening their hands for writing and drawing with squeezing hand activities like play dough, scissors, grasping crayons, markers and paint brushes, etc. We’ll be squeezing paper this week for our journals. This is a fun activity that strengthens little hands and regulates nervous systems that you can try at home!
Our Clean Up song is The Sharing Song by Raffi…a sweet tune that is full of concepts that our preschoolers know all about.
Our Letter of the Week is S and our two Golden Letter friends, Sophie and Scarlet, were both back at school today! Today we focused on squeezing things, including people! We squeezed paper to put in our journals as well (and practiced lining up to wait for a turn with Ms Kristin to put them in our journals). Read on to learn more about that.
Conversation Starter: Snack Time
Morning class: Thank you, Millie for a wonderful S snack: Sun Chips, strawberries and sea salt seaweed!
Afternoon class: Thank you, Scarlet for the chocolate rocks that we called “stones” today to go with our sweet animal crackers and apple sauce.
Conversation Starter: Story Time
Why did the little girl put her hand up?
She wanted someone to stop doing something. Some people call hugs “squeezes.” We used Story Time as a time to talk about body safety and a child’s right to say no to a hug or any other touch. I’m guessing they can show you the stop hand and voice we practiced today, including the serious face and strong voice, “I said STOP.”
Let’s all help keep these children safe and to know their bodies are their own.
Conversation Starter: Project Time
How did you get the paint on your paper?
By squeezing it! We had paint in tiny tubes that had to be squeezed very hard to get the paint out before rolling it smooth with our brayer rollers. Children could also add strings (we called them snakes) before making a print. What great muscle work resulting in beautiful prints.
Conversation Starter: Circle Time
What did people do to their Show and Tell things?
Squeezed them…we were curious what would happen. Some things were soft enough that they’d be changed when squeezed and some things were too hard to be moved or manipulated at all. A few items had parts that were both squishy and hard. We also talked about being careful when squeezing things (or people) because even a preschooler is strong enough to break things! If someone didn’t bring an item from home, they picked something from the classroom to show us what happens when it got squeezed!
newcreationpreschool.com 
As a former pre-K teacher of some 30 years I wanna say your’re awsome … <3
As a former pre-K teacher of some 30 years I wanna say your’re awsome … <3