Utopia Preschool

During outside time, the children were practicing so many different skills. They showed a lot of perseverance as they tried to stay balanced while walking on stilts as well as when manuevering themselves on the tricylces. They’ve also been learning to develop friendships, sharing with each other in the sandbox and creating superhero capes for one another.

During outside time, we’ve been busy using funnels and tubes in the water table. Today the water was blue in both water tables. The children took turns pouring water into the funnels and tubes. This supports sharing space and materials as well as cause and effect. Water play is lots of fun!

Transitions are the busiest parts of our day! Children and teachers must stop what they are doing, clean up, and move on to the next activity within a few minutes. To ease these transitions, the Special Helper goes around the room and shows the green “5 More Minutes” sign to let their peers know it is almost time to clean up. This gives the children a visual and verbal reminder to wrap up their play and get ready for what comes next. Kazu reminds his peers in the Panda Group that they have 5 more minutes to play

Happy Monday! For group time, the children played an animal movement game! Teacher Andrea held up a photograph of a certain animal or movement, and everyone had to move their bodies the way that specific animal moves! Other cards had the children give themselves a big, tight hug! This was a fun way to encourage the children to be active while in a group setting! 

Happy Friday! We’ve made it through our first full week of school! The children are continuing to make friendships and have been especially engaged as they play together in the sandbox. Today they particularly enjoyed playing with different forms of transportation such as firetrucks and trains to create tracks in the sand.

The children have shown so much interest with the toys and materials in our classroom. There has been lots of exploration individually and with friends at the table and in other areas. We had children building unique dinosaur cages with magnetic tiles, painting "Rainbow Waterfall" and playing with blue moon sand.

All about safety! The children have been getting into the habit of wearing helmets when they ride bikes. They have also been practicing riding bikes at a safe speed and going the same direction as their peers.

Learning to share space and materials is one of the hardest skills to master, and we use every part of our day to work on it! Today at the Manipulative Table, the children practiced asking for a turn with the mobilos with the help of a teacher. The teachers model how to ask a friend if they can use it when they are done, and also offer them one of the visual timers. The children are able to independently check the timer to see when they can share with their peer! 

Happy 2nd week of school! This afternoon, Bo the puppet played a guessing game with the children! She showed them pictures of the classroom teachers and asked if they knew their names! She then asked them, “What do teachers do?” Ellie: “They help the kids be safe” Grayson: “They put bandaids on us if we get hurt” Elliott: “They help wash hands!”

Welcome back to another school year at Utopia Preschool! All of our students are familiarizing themselves with the schedule, busy transitions, and the exciting materials in the classroom. Today, some of the children enjoyed themselves at the Sensory Table, experimenting with sand and salt! They explored using the funnels and scoops, pouring the sand down into the bin. What a great way to learn about texture, volume, and preciction!