Thank you!

Hello and good-bye.  This will be my last post for this school year.  This year certainly did not end the way I expected or wanted it to.   I have enjoyed each and every child in both classes.  I saw a lot of growth and maturity in all of the children.  They were challenged at times, but grew as they worked hard to be successful.  I also enjoyed working with so many wonderful parents this year.  Thank you for all of your support throughout the year and thank you for sharing your child with me.  I have to say goodbye to a few families that have shared their last child with me.  Thank you for the many years of support.

Now, what should you do with your child until school starts again?  Here's a few guidelines.

Language:  I think the greatest thing that we can give to children in the early ages is language and an increasing vocabulary.  Engage with your children as you go about your daily activities.  Read books to them that are fiction and non-fiction.  Ask them lots of "I wonder..." questions and use new words that they can repeat.  Talk about things that you see and include them in your conversations at the dinner table.

Science:  I had many parents tell me that their children loved the science activities from my blog.  Young children learn best from exploration of things that they can hold in their hands.  They can manipulate and experiment with those things.  Science is also great because it carries over into so many other areas of learning.  They can extend learning by reading and writing/drawing about what they see.  Math can easily be brought into science as you measure and analyse things.  Fine motor skills are used as they touch and explore.

Math:  Keep counting, making sets of things, measuring and making patterns.   These things are all around us.  It just takes a few minutes to point these things out for children.

Letter Learning:  Point out to your child that letters and words are all around us.  Keep working on letter identification and sounds, but make it fun.  See if they can find letters on signs as you are driving.  Have them look for letters in books that you are reading.  Write letters to friends and relatives.

Gross and fine motor:  Keep them moving!  If the weather allows, go outside and move with them.  Play soccer, catch, jump rope.  Do scavenger hunts. If the weather is rainy, find a movement activity inside.   I love the Koo Koo Kangaroo videos (most of them, anyway), the Learning Station, and Jack Hartmann.  Sure, some of them are a little silly, but the kids love them.  Gross motor activity stimulates the brain and helps it function.  That's why we do a movement activities at school at least twice a day.

What about worksheets?  Worksheets aren't bad, if the children enjoy doing them.  However, research shows that children learn more when they are able to hold and manipulate something.  For example, printing the letter L on a line is helping them to learn to print that letter which is great, but also include something like making the letter L in sand, with play dough or in shaving cream.  Counting pictures of buttons and printing the numeral is fine, but if they can count and move real buttons they also learn to make sets, sort, add and subtract.

Have a wonderful summer.  I will be at the preschool throughout the summer on Monday mornings.  If there is anything I can help you with, please reach out to me.
Thank you all!