K4 Newsletter
Published by: Sharon Dyer
January / February 2003
“The ages between birth and age 5 are the foundation upon which
successful lives are built.”
—Laura Bush
Seasonal Activity
Around The County
Chain of Hearts
Cut out several dozen hearts and print a letter of the alphabet on each one. Students
can use the hearts to demonstrate letter
recognition, understanding of the order of the
letters in the alphabet, or to spell words they
know.
A
B
C
Submitted by; Anita Davis
Lashmeet / Matoaka School
Shape Up And Sort Out
This shape-sorting activity will further
clarify the meanings of alike and different. In advance prepare a set of construction-paper shapes. Cut five red circles, as
well as a red square, a red heart, a red
star, and a red triangle. Make all these
shapes similar in size. Then label two
sheets of tagboard —– one with the word
“Alike” and one with the word “Different.”
Gather a small group of youngsters around
a table. Present the set of shapes; then
ask the children to find the shapes that
are alike. Have them place those shapes
on the sheet of tagboard labeled “Alike.”
Have the children place the remaining
shapes on the tagboard sheet labeled
“Different.” Ask the children to verbalize
their reasoning as they work. Some youngsters may reason that all the shapes are
alike because they are made of paper and
they are red. Acknowledge these similarities before directing the children’s attention to the shape differences.
Submitted by; Anita Davis
Lashmeet / Matoaka School
You will receive, through PEDS, a bag containing the
following items: twenty three copies of “Helping Your
Preschool Child, 23 bookmarks (“7 Super
Things Parents & Caregivers Can Do”),
and a teacher’s guide titled “Teaching
Our Youngest”. These items were sent
to me free of charge for distribution to
your parents. You can choose how you
want to use them. They would be great for a parent involvement workshop or you may just want to send them
home by your students. I had hoped they would arrive
earlier, but were on backorder. If you are interested in
obtaining more for fall, call 1-877-4-EDPUBS or
through the website at www.ed.gov/about/ordering.isp.
http://english.unitecnology.ac.nz/
resources/units/years103.html
Check out this website for the following units (and more):
Oral Language Units
Bring on the Clowns—This unit is designed to encourage
students to create, interpret and retell stories through
oral story telling and mime.
Visual Language Units
Teddybears—In this unit students learn about different
writing genres (narrative, poetry, recount) and the use of
illustrations, making use of a range of teddybear resources, both print and computer-based.
Written Language Units
Whales—Through the study of cetaceans, students will
develop and use the skills of comparing, grouping and
identifying. Students will write about whales, expressing
their ideas in poetic and transactional writing.
K4 Newsletter
Teaching Strategies
Pre-kindergarten programs often have the reputation that their students just “play all day”. However, as Martha
Stewart says, “This is a good thing”. The following article is a wonderful explanation to parents why play should be
and is included in our pre-k curriculum. Please feel free to share it with your parents.
Children Learn by Playing
Young Children do not separate play, learning, and work. When young children are playing, they are learning. And they are enjoying every minute of it.
Young children’s play is spontaneous. They are so eager to learn, it seems that their curiosity can’t be satisfied. All too soon that curiosity and spontaneity seem to disappear. Children don’t seem so eager and enthusiastic about school. We begin to hear questions about how to motivate them to learn.
How does this very sad thing happen? We make such comments as: “Quit playing around and get to work.”
“You can’t play until you finish your work.” With these comments, we teach children that learning isn’t enjoyable. From a child’s point of view, play is something you don’t have to do well. It is just fun. Until they
are seven or eight years old, children are more interested in what they are doing than how it turns out.
They play at something until they become skilled. Then they make the activity more challenging. That
way, they get to experience success and build their feelings of competence.
Adults are likely to see play as a means to an end. We insist that children do a thing the correct way before they have time to explore and enjoy the means. For example, we give children coloring books and
teach them to stay in the lines. Better to give them paper and crayons and let them discover the possibilities.
When you do activities, encourage imagination
and creativity. Don’t insist on pursuing something that isn’t fun for your child. Children
naturally love learning. They will continue to
love it if we don’t teach them that work and
learning are not meant to be enjoyed.
—–Family Connections, at AEL
Encourage Children to Create Their Own Stories
“One thing my daughter loved when she was about three or four
years-old was to take a book and make up her own stories to go
with the pictures,” says Colorado mom Lisa Lakel. This creative
activity helped her child grow to love books. It also started her
“reading” long before she understood words on the page.
—–Building Readers
If you would like to contribute to our March / April
2003 issue of this Newsletter, please submit
information to Sharon Dyer.