Blog: PreK

Happy Friday! It looks like the rain might ease off today, just in time for the long weekend.

Several of these invitations relate to patterns which are an important exploration for the language of mathematics.

Math/Cooking Invitation: Pattern Pie

This very simple cooking project was inspired by a recipe from a Kiwi Crate.

Ingredients

• Premade pie crust (pre-baked regular crust or graham cracker or whatever you have)
• 2 cups plain Greek yogurt
• ¼ cup honey (to taste)
• 1 cup fruit (berries, banana, pitted cherries, dried fruit)

In a large bowl, mix the yogurt and honey until smooth. Scoop into the crust and smooth the top with a spatula or butter knife. Invite your child to make a pattern or design on top of the yogurt using the fruit. Serve immediately.

Math/Fine Motor Invitation: Making patterns with natural materials

If your child does not have a collection of rocks, sticks, pinecones, maple seed helicopters, etc., you can invite them to gather some things, or use blocks or other materials. Challenge your child to create an A, B, A, B pattern using the materials. Perhaps they can create a more complex pattern as well.

Pattern recognition and the ability to create and replicate patterns are important for math and literacy.

Art/Sensory Invitation: Finger paint

Finger paint is a wonderfully sensory art material. It is very immersive for young children and is a different way to explore painting that they may not have done since they were toddlers. If you do not have any finger paints, you can use other washable paint, or try the recipe from this toddler post.

We were really delighted to find this short video about Iris Scott who is a finger painting artist. We love the texture in her work and the dog paintings made us laugh. What might her work inspire in your preschooler? 

 

Good morning! It’s going to be another rainy day today. Memorial Day is coming up on Monday and this blog will be taking the day off.

Nature/Large Motor Invitation: Flower hunt adventure

Today looks like it will be very wet. If you are not able to go outside to look for flowers, where might your child find some in the house? Are there flowers in some of the books you have? In art or photographs? Magazines, newspapers or catalogues? What kind of flowers can they see from a window?

Art/Design Invitation: Making flowers 

What materials can your child use to make a flower? Blocks? Tissue Paper? Markers and paper?

This invitation asks children to think about what a flower looks like and bring that vision to life using a language of their choosing. 

Fine Motor/Science Invitation: Observational flower drawing

Using a real flower or a flower your child found on their flower hunt, paper and a sharp pencil, pen, or artist’s marker, invite your child to look closely at the flower and draw what they see. This kind of scientific examination helps children see the way things are put together, how complex things are often made of simple shapes, and asks them to draw what they see. This builds observational skills and fine motor skills.

Good morning! The wet weather continues today. Is it making your week feel longer or shorter? Here are three invitations for preschoolers today.

Language/Literacy Invitation: Storyteller’s workshop

Storyteller’s workshop is an opportunity to process events and thoughts through storytelling. You can record your child telling a story, or write down their words on the pages of a homemade book (several pieces of paper stapled together). Invite your child to illustrate their story.

Storytelling and illustration not only engages children with language and literacy, but are avenues for creative expression and fine-motor skill development.

Large Motor Invitation: Tell a yoga story

If you have been doing yoga at home for awhile, with yoga cards or some of the children’s yoga videos, your child will be familiar with the idea of telling a story that incorporates yoga. Today, invite them to be the yoga leader and storyteller.

This invitation gives children an opportunity to develop as leaders, storytellers, and creative thinkers.

Listening/Art Invitation: Julie’s Library with drawing prompt

We have been looking forward to Julie’s Library, a new podcast featuring Julie Andrews reading children’s books. In this episode she reads From the Stars in the Sky to the Fish in the Sea by Kai Cheng Thom. “A magical child is born with the ability to transform into many different things. But what happens when the other children don’t understand?” Invite your child to draw while they listen.

Good morning! It looks like the wet weather will continue today and possibly for several more days. It will be okay. Here are three invitations for preschoolers today.

Outdoor/Sensory Invitation: Mud kitchen

This week looks like it will be quite wet, so today might be a good day to set up a mud kitchen for your child. You can use clean recyclables like yogurt cups and milk cartons with the tops cut off, add a couple of spoons and some rain water and you have a much-loved preschool invitation. 

Exploring the world in the rain expands children’s sensory experiences, invites them to explore the changes that happen when it rains, and builds motor skills.

Building Invitation: Block building with lights

Cloudy days are perfect for exploring the power of light in block structures. You can offer your child LED candles or a small flashlight. Invite them to light their structure in different ways. What might change in their building as they add light?

This invitation expands the work on light and shadow as well as offering a new material to enrich block building.

 

Art Invitation: Crayons and paper

Complex things can come from simple materials. Children are often drawn to the bright colors and easy flow of markers, but crayons offer different properties and opportunities. Crayons can be used to create rubbings, to shade in large areas, or draw bold lines. Harold and the Purple Crayon by Crockett Johnson is a classic example of the power of imagination and a single crayon. Your child might also enjoy The Day the Crayons Came Home by Drew Daywalt.