In Parparim we like to focus a lot on small motor skills to help prepare our friends for writing both in our class, and future classes. The great thing about this is that we can work on these skills in a variety (and probably many unconventional) of ways far beyond tracing and drawing. Some of the activities we have been incorporating are things like eye dropper painting and using eye droppers to squirt vinegar onto baking soda. During activities like these, the children don’t even know they are working on these skills, they just know they are having a great time which is a win/win situation! One of the more ‘out there’ activities we did to work those small muscle skills was udder painting.
We may get a lot of strange looks about this one, but the kids loved it! The way it happened was while gathering paint and supplies in the office, the gloves happened to be by the paint and that is when it registered… fill the gloves with paint! They were hung from a pvc pipe structure built for a previous project, cut some small holes in the tips of the fingers of the gloves and viola! Udder painting!
Thinking outside of the box is crucial in Preschool, and sharing activities such as this is a great way to keep the children interested. Learning does not have to be tranditional to be effective. The children had some fun with an old overhead projector….
Also exciting this month was our trip to the fire station for Purim! Though the walk down there only got us a view of the fire truck racing off to an emergency, Station 34 didn’t disappoint as the showed up at our school and gave a whole presentation!
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