Preschool

October 28, 2007

Dear Parents,

Last week and this coming week we will be reading the story “The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything” by Linda Williams. The story is about an old lady who sets out to gather herbs, spices, seeds and nuts from the forest.  It is dark when she starts home and she soon discovers that she is being followed by a pair of shoes that go, “CLOMP, CLOMP!”  She is not afraid but hurries on.  Subsequently she is followed by a pair of pants, a shirt, two gloves, a hat, and a pumpkin head, all of which make scary noises.  They chase her home and try to scare her, but she is not to be frightened.  Instead, she suggests they stay in her garden and scare the crows away. 

We have been acting out this story, with each child taking on a different role each time.  Ask your child to tell you about the story!  This is a story about confronting your fears, and we will use it to let the children talk about things that frighten them and how they can be brave, too.  We also talk about the sequence of the story and help the children predict what comes next. 

Many folks have been asking if we’ll be doing anything special to celebrate Halloween in our classroom.  We will be carving a pumpkin and roasting the seeds, as well as reading a Halloween story or two.  We will not, however, be wearing our costumes at school. 

          Last week we also read “The Lonely Scarecrow” by Tim Preston and Maggie Kneen which is a story about a scarecrow that is lonely because the animals around him find him frightening-that is until a late fall snowstorm transforms him into a friendly snowman.  After reading this story we used teamwork to build a friendly scarecrow.  Both “Funny Girl George” (from the morning class) and “Hip Hip” (afternoon class) are sitting outside our classroom door waiting to greet us each day. 

You might have heard the terms small motor skills, fine motor skills, manual dexterity, manipulative skills, or perceptual motor skills. These terms are referring to the way in which a child uses the small muscles in his or her fingers and hands.  These muscles need a great deal of practice and exercise in the preschool years.  Many activities that children do in our preschool classroom have been planned specifically to encourage the development of these muscles and promote eye-hand coordination.  Small muscles activities can also increase a child’s attention span, foster problem solving and thinking skills, as well as encourage independence and persistence in a task.  Small muscle development occurs when children are given daily opportunities to use these muscles. Some activities that foster this development are drawing, painting, cutting with scissors, completing puzzles, stringing beads, play dough, sewing, hammering, twisting and turning lids, hole punching, constructing with blocks and other manipulatives, pinching, lacing, using tongs and tweezers, pouring and spooning, using basters and eye droppers, using stencils, washing and scrubbing.  Typically you encourage younger children to begin with simpler tasks that involve larger objects such as large puzzles pieces or bigger markers or paint brushes and move to more involved activities with smaller parts and pieces.  A few of the activities planned for fine motor development last week were encouraging children to pick up small plastic people and place them into a container using tweezers, painting with water colors, using play dough and stretchy dough and completing puzzles.  Most young children enjoy these activities and will engage in them for an extended length of time. 

(Feldman, Jean.   A Survival Guide for the Preschool Teacher.  The Center for Applied Research in Education, 1991.)

          I hope you have been enjoying the clever creations your child has been bringing home using materials from our collage table.  Last week many children worked diligently to create a "house" for a stuffed animal friend using cereal sized boxes.  

Hope your enjoying the weekend,

Pam