Social Development

Ice play in preschool

January 14, 2011

Today, we enjoyed a little ice play. Sometimes the simplest of ideas can be the most enjoyable for young children. The teacher in this class set out a bowl of ice with some cups, smaller bowls, and spoons… The children scooped the ice from one container to the other… And some children used their hands [...]

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Making game mats for preschool

October 13, 2010

Many preschool teachers and stay at home moms spend hours on making games and activities for preschoolers. When I make a game mat, I like to make it colorful, simple, self explanatory, and as open-ended as possible.. I like to laminate most of my game mats so they can be used over and over again. Sometimes, [...]

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Tools to promote fine motor skills in preschool

August 18, 2010

This may just look like an empty blue ice tray but if you stop and think about how it can be used to promote fine motor skills or sorting skills, the ideas are limitless. By adding a basket of small, plastic objects – this ice tray becomes a tool for both play and developing new [...]

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The block center came tumbling down

July 20, 2010

When I came into observe clean-up time, I happen to notice that the block center looked like this.. Oh my! But when I pulled out my camera to take a picture of the tumbling blocks, one little boy decided he wanted in on the action. So he began to stack the blocks. And then this [...]

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A brief look at developmental domains in early childhood education

July 10, 2010

The early childhood years are filled with staggering growth and development. There are four main areas of development that occur all at the same time: Physical development: In the first years of growth young children are physically developing at a rapid pace. There is both large motor (crawling, walking, running) and fine motor development (eye-hand [...]

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Centers in the preschool classroom

April 30, 2010

When children enter this classroom, they will discover plenty of things to do and the freedom to explore because each center in this classroom was designed just for them.  At this table the children are creating paintings with the dot painters. At the block center, a couple of boys have decided to pull out the [...]

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Pro-social sharing and negotiation skills in preschool

April 19, 2010

I was asked by Noah of The People Garden to drum up some activities that promote pro-social sharing and negotiation skills for young children. I wanted to share this article so you could see the ideas as well. You will have to scroll down just a bit (past the very nice comments about me:) to [...]

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Preschoolers can serve their own snack

April 15, 2010

Building independent doers and thinkers is one of the goals of early childhood education. Snack time is a terrific time to let children learn to do things all by themselves. We always start off by washing our hands! Have the children get into the practice of washing hands first and while they are washing hands, [...]

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Using puppets in the preschool classroom

February 8, 2010

Puppets are a wonderful tool to use in the preschool classroom for all ages.  It doesn’t really matter what kind of puppet you use – in fact you can just talk with your hand and kids find it funny and they pay attention. Have you ever watched a live puppet show? There is just something [...]

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Preschoolers love hearing “You’ve Got Mail!”

January 17, 2010

This is a really cool red, pocket quilt made and given to me by one of my assistant teachers back in 1990. When I am teaching, I like to do a week on The Post Office in my classroom and I hang the quilt down low so the children can reach it. I also place [...]

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Recognizing what children are learning through their play

October 23, 2009

Discovering what children learn through their play is not always as easy as one might think. Perhaps it is because teachers or parents get distracted by the mess or noise. Perhaps it is because one can get in the mindset that learning is supposed to be a ‘sit down and focus’ time. To discover what [...]

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Play is a Child’s Work

May 30, 2009

In preschool, play is more than just kids having fun. Play is also a child’s work. Through play, young children develop many important skills. It is important as an early childhood educator to recognize the role play has in educating young children. Play is an opportunity for young children to develop socially and emotionally. Play [...]

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