Preschool, 2nd time around

I have been so lucky to be a part of a preschool co-op with two other great women in my ward. I teach three adorable little boys and it is so fun to be able to witness their creativity, wonder, and joy of learning. I taught during the month of November, but this time around it has been so much more fun, and less stressful, maybe because of the boys, maybe me, maybe the topic, whatever, it's been great fun. Here are some of the things we've been working on:

Tying Shoes
We're working on the cheap here, so I made cardboard cutouts of sneakers and laces out of yarn with tape at each end. I found some great word plays, or language prompts, whatever you'd like to call them, to help teach:

"Once there was a rabbit that was very sad because his ears were so long and narrow that he stepped on them all the time. One day a fairy landed on the bunny's head. She lifted up the bunny's ears and crossed them over like an x. Then she put one ear through the bottom of the x and pulled. Next, she made each long ear into a loop and made another x like before. She put an ear under that x and pulled again. From then on the bunny remembered how to tie his ears into a bow, and he lived happily every after."

OR

"Build a tee pee
Come inside
Close it tight so we can hide
Over the mountain
And around we go
Here's my arrow
And here's my bow!"

Fine Motor Skills

We've come up with a few different acitivities to help with fine motor skills, muscle control, and concentration.

Pouring:
I don't have a fancy child-sized pitcher like this, so I went to the dollar store and bought a plastic 2 cup liquid measuring cup like this:

The boys get to fill it up and pour their own water during snack time.

Snacks: I try and choose snacks that require them to work for it: hard boiled eggs, for instance, easy for me, great fine motor practice for them.

Sand Trays

I've used sand, rice, salt, and corn meal. I originally put it in a cookie sheet, until I found scratches ALL over my table caused by sliding the sheets around. :( Sad. Anyway, those same cookie sheets had come with plastic covers (you know, in case you wanted to take the entire sheet with you to a dinner party instead of moving them to a plate). So, I switched to those. They do sell real trays, but I'm working with what I have here.

Transfering:

As of yet, we haven't done this in preschool, just at home with the kids. we've done liquid transfer with droppers, and small object transfer with spoons. both have worked well as long as expectations are set up from the beginning (no eating or drinking, etc) Again, no specially purchased equipment, those are baby food jars, and the dropper from an empty baby tylenol.

We also did a great activity with hickory dickory dock. I used masking tape to make a giant clock on my living room floor. We used bean bags to throw and pick a time then we pretended to do whatever we normally did at that time of day. (we fell down and went to sleep at 8, we pretended to eat lunch at 12... I just decided whether we were acting out am or pm.. I'll need a better way to do that).

Thats it for now. More later!