What is the Purpose of Preschool?

Everything you need to know you learned in Preschool!!

What you might not know is that everything we do at preschool we do for a reason,  from our morning papers to free time. 

Sunshine Preschool is open Monday's, Wednesday's and Friday's For just two and half short hours.  Since that is all we do and all the time we have there is a ton to get done in those short hours.

Let me explain, there is a lot to learn when you are a preschooler, most of it is stuff you do every day and you have no idea how or where you learned it.  Take for example this simple request.  

"Ok everyone Line up"

Seems easy right?  Not so fast, most preschoolers have never even stood in a line, they have no idea what it is, why it exists or what they should do when they get in that line.  

Or how about this one.

"Please raise your hand if you have a question."

Why would they do that?  How do you do that? And if I did do it how long do I leave my hand in the air before I just start talking?  

And this one keeps us busy.

"Make sure to shut the door of the bathroom when you have to go."

Um why would they want to do that? Mommy always tells me to leave it open, and if they shut it they cannot see what is going on out in the classroom.  

And those are just the social things and a very few of them that you learn in preschool.  

Educationally is just as important did you know that you developed your fine motor skills when you were little?  Making your fingers obey you is really hard and is mostly due to developing those finger muscles.  So we spend a lot of time on fine motor skills, coloring, sorting, gluing and cutting. We talk to them constantly about making their fingers obey them and this is when the mental to physical connection is made.  The fact that they could control those fingers and have them do something that they are asking them to do is amazing. 

We don't think about it, but if our fingers didn't obey us on a daily basis how much would we get done?

They also have the things you normally thing of to learn at preschool.  recognizing their letters and numbers, learning about shapes and colors and why, when you mix yellow and red you can get orange.  We work on positional words, like over, under, around, or first, second and last.  They learn AB patterns a beginning math concept and even delve into some beginning addition.  Things like sequencing, how to tell what came first is important for writing and telling stories lots of problem solving gets done with sequencing, bet you didn't realize you learned your problem solving ability in Preschool?  

 These are just a few of the many things that preschool teaches kids and mostly they have no idea they learned them.  Until you read this I bet you thought you always knew how to stand in a line and that you should close the door when you go to the bathroom.  Really everything we do is to teach something, ask us sometime and we would love to tell you all about it.  

M is for Marshmallows

Today at school we made a Marshmallow Wreath, this is the first time we have ever made this particular project and I definitely have some things I would change for next time. (see notes below)  One thing to remember about the crafts or activities we do at our preschool is that these are things that the kids can actually do by themselves.  We do the prep work and then the kids do the project.  I will walk you through the prep, and then through the step by step instructions to make it.  

What you will need, Blue construction paper or tag board, Mini Marshmallows, little picture of a Snowman, blue flare, (we used little blue gems and blue shapes), YES! glue or another sticky glue.

For Prep, you need to cut your Blue paper into a circle shape, we used a bucket turned upside down and traced around it, then you need to trace another smaller circle in the middle of that.  You are trying to achieve a wreath shape.  

Then you need to figure out how you will hang it when you are done.  We decided to hole punch it, put a reinforcement circle on the back and then threaded a white ribbon through it.  

Cut out your Snowman, put a bunch of Marshmallows in a container and also put a small amount of blue flare in a another container. You will need a container of each for each child.  

We used YES glue because it is super sticky and thick and while it worked I do have some notes for you to make it work better.   I put a "blob" of glue in a disposable container with a big wood stick for spreading for each child doing the activity.    

Because we knew they were gonna get sticky we started with the coloring of the Snowman, I gave them some ideas on how to color it and then off they went to give our Snowman some life.  I wrote names on the back of each Snowman so I could figure out which one went with each wreath when we were done.  These were collected when they were done coloring so they could be Hot Glued on later.

Then they fun really started, we had the kids spread the YES glue on a quarter part of their blue wreath, and then they could start adding flare and Marshlallows.  

Some of them just plop and mush them on and some are so meticulous about it, I always love to see their different personalities come out doing a craft. 

And some are just having a lot of fun with it.

We would frequently pick them up and figure out what was not sticking so that they knew where to add more glue.  And when they were done I went back over them using Hot Glue to glue the Snowman on the front of the wreath.  The finished product was very cute, we did not send these home today as they did need extra time to dry.  We will send them home with the kids on Friday.  

Notes: It turns out that Marshmallows are covered in Corn Starch so if the glue was not thick and  pretty wet the glue absorb the Corn Starch and they would not stick.  I am on the look out for a better glue for this project.  Also although the Construction paper we used worked I think next time we will use Tag board or glue the wreaths onto cut out paper plates to give it more strength.  

I want you to meet someone, this is Kim.  Kim works with me at the Preschool and is what makes Sunshine Preschool go round.  She prepares our lesson plans and keeps us moving.  We work our lesson plans on a two year rotating basis and each year review what we are doing to make sure that it is still current with what the Kindergarten teachers in our area want preschoolers to know when they get to Kindergarten.  

Kim might be posting on here too and she really is the brains behind it all so I can't wait for you to get to know her.

Tomorrow is our first day back to school after the MLK holiday, our letter for this week is the letter M and with that we have a theme of Marshmallows.  Wait until you see what fun we are doing with those tasty little things.  

Welcome to Preschool in a Blog. My name is Tracy and I own a Preschool (not one in a blog) I thought it would be fun to showcase what we do at Preschool  and how you can do it too.  Not everyone can afford to send their child to Preschool so hopefully this will be a place you can go to and recreate a preschool at home with your very own little preschooler.  

If you want to visit our Preschool Website you may do so and see what we are all about.  You can find us here.  Sunshine Preschool