We recently began the Dinoland theme from the Experience Preschool curriculum, and my students are diggin' it! Here are the highlights from week one. Watch for future blog posts, too, as this is sure to be a lively few weeks! My students used the tweezers, links, and number mats, which were included in this month's curriculum subscription box from Experience Preschool. They pretended they were at an excavation site and had to carefully remove the bones (links) with their tools (tweezers) and lay them on the number mat. I have children ages 3 years-old to 5 years-old and they were all able to do this activity. Many of them wanted to continue long after they counted their "bones" for me. I was able to assess through play if they could identify the number, use the tweezers to lift links, and demonstrate one-to-one correspondence skills while counting the links on their mat. This activity stayed out for a few days so children could practice their skills during free-choice time and quiet time. Have you ever heard of a Zachasaurus or a Connorasaurus? One of the activities in our Teacher's Guide was to create name tags for the children and adding -asaurus to the end of each name. We receive name tags for every student each month that are decorated to match the current theme. Also included are creative ways to use the name tags. After the children traced the dinosaur names on the name tags, we hid them under a brown towel. Children took turns feeling under the towel for a name card. We read the card retrieved and said, "Look, we found a bone belonging to a Frediasaurus!" There was lots of laughter and requests to play again, which we did. The Invitation to Create is one aspect of the Experience Preschool curriculum that I really love. I am also blessed with an assistant that carries out this activity in a very beautiful way. Mrs. P. invites small groups of children over to the art table where the materials were set-up the night before. Children may decline if they are deeply involved in another project or activity elsewhere in the room. Mrs. P. engages the children in meaningful discussions as they observe the inspiration photo. Many new vocabulary words are introduced through natural conversation also. She then asks a series of open-ended questions regarding which tools and materials they might use to create their own project. Here, children created skeletons from an excavation site.
As I said in the beginning, these are just a few of the activities we did during the first week of Dinoland. Come back soon to see what else we did!
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AuthorSheila Anderson has over 25 years experience in the Early Childhood Field and still loves going to "school" everyday. Archives
January 2022
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