Preschool 1 Room
Welcome to Magic Pencils' Preschool 1 Room. This room is licensed for 16 children, with an E.C.E. Teacher and an Assistant.
Our Goals for the room are to have the children be able to start recognizing their own name, as well as the rest of the uppercase and lowercase letters of the alphabet. We would also like to have the children count up to 10+ alone, and to recognize at least numbers 1 - 5 or higher. We are focusing on Early Learning in an effort to prepare the children for Kindergarten. We are also working on building the children's confidence and independence which will be reflected in both themselves and the work they complete.
In the Preschool 1 room, we have a number of different centres to choose from. The children will be encouraged to participate in each centre in order to develop their skills. The Preschool children are encouraged to participate in different activities. Our centres board give some opportunity to choose the centres alone, by interest. This teaches the children to be more independent and learn how to follow rules.
The Puzzle Centre helps to improve fine motor (hand) skills. We are providing puzzles that range from 6 - 24 pieces.
The Printing Centre is an everyday learning activity. They begin with lines, curves and shapes.
The Fine Motor Activity Centre helps eye and hand coordination. Some of the activities are stringing beads, lacing, ABC magnetic boards, cutting, stamps, sorting and tracing, play dough, and many fun and educational toys.
The Art Centre is available to the children at all times. This centre helps to enhance creativity, self-expression, and self pride. During any daily programming, we complete a craft that relates to our weekly theme. We send all of the craftwork home for you to see.
The Dramatic Play Centre enhances creativity, role playing, and self-expression, and encourages children to use their imagination. The setup of this area is rotated to correspond to the weekly theme.
The Reading Centre is a relaxing, quiet place that allows children to get away and have some alone time, if they wish. This area is set up to encourage children to enjoy reading. There are many different books to choose from and they get changed periodically.
The Learning Centre is also a quiet, relaxing place. The toys in this centre are all educational. The main focus of this centre is the alphabet, numbers, and shapes. There is a flannel board with alphabet letters, matching games and counting games.
The Science/Sensory Centre is fun and full of interesting objects to explore. During the year, we will bring in lots of nature materials pertaining to the different seasons. The sensory centre consists of something different everyday. Water play and rotated materials are available, these to include rocks, magnets, oatmeal, flour, rice, buttons, etc., or any number of different fun materials to play with. During sensory play, we encourage the children to learn to pour, measure, and compare.
Outdoor Time is mainly for gross motor activities. At that time, we play special games, sports, and ball games. This time is also planned and posted.
A daily schedule is posted and followed. We eat our snack then have our outdoor time. Then we have our morning circle, at which time we talk about the special theme for the week. We update the calendar, the weather calendar, and we learn a new song. We only do one new song per week so the children have a chance to learn it, while still practicing already known songs. We also read theme related stories, play games, and learn new words. Practicing the alphabet and numbers is a main part of the circle time as well. Centres opened for free play or learning activities done with the teacher, after circle time until story time.
We then have story time until lunch time. After lunch, sleep time is from 12:30 and 2:30. When we wake up, we go outside, then have snack. At the end of the day, the children engage in educational activities after which they enjoy free play until closing.
Our classroom behaviour management technique is to encourage the children in a positive way to behave appropriately. We redirect the child toward a different activity, if required, or ask the child to take a break and relax in the book centre, away from the other children. We are teaching the children to solve their own problems with their friends.
By the end of the year, the preschool students will have basic cognitive, social, reading and writing skills.
