Tuesday: Z is for Zig Zag

Here are some questions you can ask your preschooler about our day:

What new scissors did we have?

Who did you help get dressed at Circle Time? Who did you work with?

When did the baby stop crying in our book?

Tuesday: Z is for Zig Zag

SURPRISE WORK: With Mother’s Day coming, there is a surprise table that children will be working at this week…no photos or stories about this! Some of these will be in backpacks and some will be presented to you at graduation on Sunday.

NOTE ON SECRETS AND SURPRISES: I will never ask your child to keep a secret from you. In fact, I didn’t even ask them to keep this a surprise from you. They can tell you all they want about this project and you will still be surprised when you get it. I encourage you to remind your children regularly that no one should ask them to keep a secret from their parents and if they do, they can tell you that too!

ZIG ZAG THINGS: For our project this week we’ll work on cutting along zig zag lines and using new zig zag scissors. We also have a journal prompt inviting us to draw zig zag lines.

ZIPPER WORK: At Circle Time Ms Kristin brought out 6 baby dolls who all have zippers on their pajamas. Children paired up with a classmate to get them all dressed. A lot of fine motor work and problem solving took place! It was a very sweet experience watching all the children work so carefully together. (Click on the photos to scroll through them full size)

Remember: the simple act of zippering a coat requires bilateral coordination, finger isolation, open thumb web space, separation of the two sides of the hand (on BOTH hands), motor planning, pinch strength, eye-hand coordination, pincer grasp, and tripod grasp (most often of the non-dominant hand). No wonder it takes a while!

STORY TIME: We read Hello Baby by Lizzy Rockwell. A family welcomes a new baby into their home and we watch an older brother navigate all the noises and changes the baby brings. We also found the letter Z in the baby’s name and two letter Zs in the author and illustrator’s name. Plus our afternoon class finally celebrated Zander’s Golden Letter Day! He waited all year!

COPING SKILL OF THE WEEK: Zip it up. We bring in a little movement and stillness with this week’s Coping Skill: we start by wiggling our bodies then pretend to zip it up from our toes to our neck…just like a onesie or footie pajamas!

HERE ARE MORE PICTURES OF OUR DAY:

We had a spontaneous lesson on cursive this morning and repeated it in the afternoon: