During the month of May we enjoyed celebrating some more “special days” as the preschoolers call them. Our favourite seemed to be McHappy Day, when our dramatic play centre was turned into a McDonalds. The Essex McDonalds kindly donated cups, french fry cartons, hamburger boxes and more for our McDonalds to be as authentic as possible. To support The Ronald McDonald House each child got their own child’s french fry for afternoon snack paired with some delicious fruit. The preschoolers had so much fun taking orders and serving their friends. During this process they are increasing their social and communication skills as well as early math concepts such as money when purchasing and exchanging money at the cash register.
Before the dramatic play centre was turned into McDonalds it was a science lab. This interest formed when a science kit was donated to our classroom and the children were curious what each item was. The class learned about beakers, test tubes, microscope and more. This also connected to the children’s interest in bugs. During outdoor play, they discovered lots of little creatures such as beetles, ladybugs, snails, bees, caterpillars and more. We dove into these observations and learned about the caterpillar life cycle, the honey that bees make, and other insect facts.
As well as the caterpillar life cycle we also learned about the flower life cycle. For Mother’s Day each child painted a flower pot, filled it with dirt, and planted a seed to watch it grow. The preschoolers were so excited to give this gift to their moms to say thank you for how awesome they all are. They were just as excited to see the process of how a flower grows. We learned what a flower needs to grow to be able to help our moms grow their flowers.
As we move into June, we are getting closer to September and our first day of Kindergarten. We have been working on preparing for that big day, this month we have started letter of the day to individually focus on each letter. This includes learning about what the capital and lower case letter looks like, the sound it makes, and some words that start with that letter. After rest time some creative actives are provided about the letter we learned at circle. The preschoolers love this activity so much that each day they ask what letter we are learning about and are so proud when it’s the letter their name starts with. With our daily practice of jolly phonics, the majority of the class can identify a letter by just using the sound it makes and vice versa. Along with letter of the day and jolly phonics we have also been practicing writing and spelling our names, our cutting skills, shapes, numbers, and other kindergarten readiness skills.
We can’t wait to see what we learn in June!
Just a reminder Story Book ELC will be closed on Monday July 1st for Canada Day!