1. Reading and Literacy Skills in August
In my class my literacy goals may look different than yours but playing with letters is one that fits into all preschool classrooms. The children’s specific abilities will take the general activities in slightly different directions but our invitations to learn can have the same base.
Writing in the preschool years is a lot like teaching beginning readers…there are stages! They start out with the scribbling stage and work their way up to writing their name and other alphabet letters. I want to emphasize that it’s ok if your child is not a great writer in preschool. If they struggle with writing, do more fine motor activities so that their hands build up strength.
The first stage is scribbling! Yes, it’s ok if your child starts out with scribbling! My advice is to make time during school for preschoolers to write/scribble. This helps them get used to holding a pencil and the movement of writing. . Oh and make sure you call it writing, not scribbling!
The next stage is pretend writing. For example, if you’re sending a letter to grandpa and your child wants to write his name, he may draw symbols that don’t look anything like his name, but to him it reads his name.
Courtesy: https://teachingmama.org/preschool-literacy/
Courtesy: https://teachingmama.org/preschool-literacy/
Videos
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2. Gross Motor Activities
Motor skills are divided up into two areas; fine motor skills and gross motor skills. Fine motor skills are what gives a child the ability to handle or manipulate small objects. Fine motor skills are required for things like drawing, writing painting, cutting and other more intricate tasks. Gross motor skills use more of the larger muscles along with balance and coordination. These skills give young children the ability to run, walk jump, roll, hop and other larger physical movements.
Line balance activity
Ideal for ages 3-4 years
What you’ll need:
How to do itUsing tape, lay down some straight lines, some squiggly ones, and some geometric ones. Have the children look at the lines, and think about how we use lines in our activities — like as a place to write our names.
Follow this with a game of follow-my-leader, with the leader hopping along the lines in a zig-zag. That means hopping this way and that way over the lines, never touching them. |
How it develops gross motor skills
Carefully manoeuvring the body over the lines is a delicate business. It requires well-developed gross motor skills to plan and execute each movement with accuracy, and these skills come with practice.
Source – Teach Preschool
Source – Teach Preschool
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3. Activities on Sensory skills
A sensory activity is an experience that involves the child’s senses: sight, sound, touch, taste, smell, movement, and balance. Some examples are building with play dough, sifting flour, squeezing wet paper, sorting beans, and pouring water.
Diamond & Triangle Sensory Tracing
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This activity is very simple, yet gives your child some great pre-writing stroke practice.
The first thing you will want to do is choose your sensory medium. I used couscous for the pictures in this post. Since my daughter is still a little young for this activity I did not have her actually complete it yet. I would not do this activity for a child under 3 years old, simply for the fact that they will probably try to place the small pieces of rice or couscous in their mouth. Also since diamond and triangle shapes are not mastered until 4 years old, this activity would not be age-appropriate for under 3 years old as well. |
Items Needed
- Diamond & Triangle Shapes Printable (FREE download)
- Sensory medium for tracing – Can be one of the following: Rice, couscous, quinoa, or sand.
- Task tray
- Crayons or pencil
The first thing you will want to do is choose your sensory medium. I used couscous for the pictures in this post. Since my daughter is still a little young for this activity I did not have her actually complete it yet. I would not do this activity for a child under 3 years old, simply for the fact that they will probably try to place the small pieces of rice or couscous in their mouth. Also since diamond and triangle shapes are not mastered until 4 years old, this activity would not be age-appropriate for under 3 years old as well.
Next, you will want to print out the diamond and triangle shape printable that I included for you above! Feel free to laminate it if you wish to use it more than once to help the paper held up well. Place it on a task tray and cover it with your sensory medium.
Then have your child use their pointer finger or a paintbrush (using the paintbrush is a great time to practice age-appropriate pencil grasp) to trace the shape. You may need to move some of the sensory media yourself so that your child can see the start point of where to trace the lines.
After they trace the line, then have them scoop the rest of the sensory medium out of the middle while using their fingers.
The end result will look like this! After they have finished with the sensory tracing, have them pick out a crayon or pencil and trace each shape, then color each shape a color of their choice.
Courtesy: https://www.growinghandsonkids.com/
Activities on Cognitive skills
Cognitive development is characterized by the way a child learns, acquires knowledge and interacts with his surrounding environment. Different cognitive skills are acquired as a child meets certain developmental milestones, but a child of any ability will benefit from activities that promote active learning.