Week 1: School Rules, Letter Ii, Number 1, Rectangle Shape, and the Color Yellow

Week one is in the books! For being the first week of school it went really well! Out of my two classes I only had one kiddo cry the entire time. Success! Most kiddos actually came in ready to take on the world and that was pretty awesome. I also had two potty accidents in the first week; but that's not a bad percentage for this age, or for first time preschoolers. It's going to take a while before we really get the routine of school.

We start our days by hanging up backpacks and signing in our our sign-in chart. This helps the littles to begin recognizing their names, practice holding a marker, and writing their own name. Everyone has done a really good job of getting this routine down in the first week.

Another exciting first week activity we did was measure ourselves! It was so fun to see where we were on the chart and where our new friends are. We are excited to grow over the year and see where we end up!

This week we learned the letter Ii and its sound. We colored an I and glued paper ice cream scoops onto it.

We also had our first painting session- So fun! We painted our number of the week: 1. We used water colors, and that has multiple steps: 1- water, 2- paint, 3- put paint to paper, 4- repeat. Using water colors is so basic for many of us, however this is a very complicated task and was new for many of the littles. We also talked about how we need to use one color at a time so we don't mix colors and end up with all brown; if we do that, we will only be painting things brown the rest of the year. Who knew water colors were so complicated? 😉

Then we all colored our shape of the week: rectangle, with our color of the week: yellow. For my 3-4 class I then went around and helped most of the class have a turn trying out scissors one on one. For my 4-5 class, about half the kiddos knew how to use scissors and the other half received a little help. In both classes we discussed what we are allowed to cut- not hair, not clothes, not ourselves, or our friends, yes we can cut paper. We also discussed the safe way to hold scissors when we are not using them. My older class caught on quickly and were allowed to walk the scissors to the class scissors tote when finished.

We also had our first fire drill of the year. The kids did great. The alarm was a bit loud and they covered their ears; but they got out and stuck together getting out of preschool and to our safe spot.

Though we did a lot of work this first week, I also made sure there was a lot of free play time. This first month of school is going to have the most free play time. Learning ABCs and 123s is important in preschool, but in order for any child to really be ready for Kindergarten, they have to have developed social and emotional skills to succeed. That's where play in preschool is actually learning. My older class already has many of these social and emotional skill foundations and so they are truly excelling in most everything we are doing both structured and not. My younger class however needs a lot of unstructured play where they are learning to share, take turns, and use their words to express their wants, needs, and feelings.

Finally, I've collected all the children's folders they brought for the school year. Some teachers like to use these as "take home folders." I do not. I believe that children should always be learning responsibility and in my experience preschoolers have a hard enough time unzipping their bags, shoving papers into the bag, and re-zipping. I run around helping them with this task. If I chose to use the take home folder system, I would be the only one putting all of their belongings into their folders and bags. Instead, I chose to keep all their provided folders and create a memory folder to be taken home at the end of the year. I've kept all their first day and week work and will collect more work throughout the year. It will be a sweet collection for families to have of their child's growth and progress through preschool.