Apple Sorting

Today we sorted red and green apples. The preschoolers picked apples from the pile and decided which tree they belonged on. We counted along the way to see which tree had more or less.

Apple Week Continues

We are celebrating Johnny Appleseed this week. We have lots of great activities but one that I thought I'd share is pictured below. We are using spoons to scoop apples out of the container and dump them on the tree. The kids use hand-eye coordination and hand skills to get the apples on the tree.

If you don't already have your child serve themselves at dinner, consider having them at least scoop their vegetable. Scooping and dumping builds key fine motor skills needed to become great writers!

It is Apple Week :)

This week is the start of apple week! Check out this week's sensory bin. It is oats, cinnamon and cinnamon sticks, plastic apples and cooking utensils. Everything you need to make a delicious (non-edible) apple pie!

 

I will be doing sensory bins often. While exploring the sensory bin, students are using their hand-eye coordination, hand skills, sensory input skills and using their imagination. Typically, they will be things that are easy for you to recreate at home - I LOVE the Dollar Tree ;)

Fun with Shaving Cream

Last week (and this week) my friends and I had a little bit of shaving cream fun!

We used our fine motor skills to trace letters and shapes in shaving cream.

Bonus: shaving cream is excellent at cleaning table tops! :)

Colander Picture!

I just wanted to post a picture of the colander activity. As you can see, it is super easy.
All you need is a colander (with holes, not slits), pipe cleaners and beads :)

What a great first week!

Whew! That first week went by so fast!
I am even more excited now, there are some pretty fantastic kids. :)

I will send out more information on Monday/Tuesday but picture retake day is scheduled for October 22 at 8:30am. The Tuesday/Thursday kids will have their pictures taken then.

You will notice, as the year progresses, that I incorporate Fine Motor Skills building activities frequently. I have spent quite a bit of time researching and developing activities that will strengthen the my students fine motor skills so that when it is time to be a writer, they have been given the tools and practice they need to be successful. This is really important to me since the expectations of Kindergarten writers is so high. Much higher than when we were in school!

Today, my 4Ks made a "spaceship" using pipe cleaners, beads and a colander. They took pipe cleaners, threaded on beads, and then stuck the pipe cleaners into the holes of the overturned colander. The pipe cleaners "ballooned" over the colander. The put close to 50 pipe cleaners all over this colander. It was pretty awesome! This activity strengthened their hand-eye coordination and improved their finger and hand control. I wanted to post a picture before today's blog but I wasn't able to pull it together quick enough. From now on, our super fun activities, I will post pictures. (I won't post anything that you can tell who the students are, they will typically just be the project) Part of what I have developed with these fine motor activities is that they are all done with materials that are cheap and easy to find. So you could easily reproduce them at home if you wanted.

This was such a great week. I want to leave you with my favorite quote of the week.

We are sitting down for group time. We are learning the different parts of group time. I introduce the weather chart. I ask the students, "How can we tell what the weather is doing right now?" I expected to hear look out the window or when we were outside it was sunny. Instead, one friend says, "We could ask Siri. That is how my sister finds out the weather." HAHA!! Made my day ;)

Have a great weekend!
Abby

Welcome!

Welcome to Mrs. Linwood's 3 & 4 K blog! I am so excited to start the new year. :)

On this blog you will find lots of important information. I'll post exciting activities from the week, funny quotes that need to be shared (don't worry, I won't post your deepest secrets ;) ) or helpful tips to tie into our daily activities. Please check-in often.