The Little People of Tomorrow Preschool

1. The Little People of Tomorrow Preschool Ashley Covington, Cassandra Fredrick, David Gould, Shannon Kline, & April Underwood

2. Preschool Age • Preschool boys and girls are between the ages of 2 to five years old. They are very active and curious.

3. The Preschool Classroom • A preschool classroom needs to be organized, and the materials need to be accessible to all children, • Safety is the number one priority when it comes to preschoolers. • The furniture needs to be oversized and cushy. • The classroom should be divided into centers that are labeled so the children will associate the word with the activity. • All centers need to be visually accessible

4. Preschool Centers Preschools need a classroom that is inviting and safe for the children to explore. It need to be spacious and provides a lot of room for them to explore.

5. Diverse Population • Read books that contain diverse characters • Look at magazines and photos that contain different cultures • Play games and use dolls that are of different diversities • Watch shows or videos that feature diverse population • Allow guest speakers to come in and share with the students • Talk and introduce about other languages • Teach about Geography • Make different foods for them to try • Play dress up to different customs • Decorate your room to incorporate diversity

6. Language Development • We as teachers and most of all parents, must never assume that a child is a certain age is just like everyone else. If you are a parent and are concerned about your child’s development, speak to the teacher and also consult with your child’s primary care provider.

7. Developmental Activities for Preschoolers • Make a scrapbook of favorite or familiar things by cutting out pictures. Group them into categories, such as things to ride on, things to eat, things for dessert, fruits, things to play with. Create silly pictures by mixing and matching pictures. Glue a picture of a dog behind the wheel of a car. Talk about what is wrong with the picture and ways to "fix" it. Count items pictured in the book. • Read to the child. Sometimes "reading" is simply describing the pictures in a book without following the written words. Choose books that are sturdy and have large colorful pictures that are not too detailed. Ask your child, "What's this?" and encourage naming and pointing to familiar objects in the book. Sing simple songs and recite nursery rhymes to show the rhythm and pattern of speech. The American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) is the professional, scientific, and credentialing association for more than 150,000 members and affiliates who are audiologists, speech-language pathologists and speech, language, and hearing scientist.

8. Social Development • Social development refers the development of social skills and emotional maturity that are needed to forge relationships and relate to others. Often developing empathy and understanding the needs of others is also included in the area of social development. • In order to develop socially, children need to interact with their peers and adults in a socially acceptable way. Developing good social skills is necessary for them to be abler to eventually form healthy relationships and fit into various social scenarios comfortably

9. Social Development Dolls Play Time • Goal: To increase social development and increase language and communication skills. Also increase motor skills. • Materials: Multiethnic dolls • Procedures: To help encourage exploration of dolls. They feel the dolls hair, eyes, and clothing, and move the body parts. Toddlers can imitate skills that are more difficult for kids their age. Helping children to develop adoptive skills by practicing undressing and dressing themselves only and dolls.

10. Touching Songs • Goals: To increase creative development; to increase social awareness; to increase sensory motor skills • Materials: None • Procedure: Sing or chant songs or rhymes where you touch the infant such as “This little piggy went to market,” “I’m • going to get your nose,” and “Hickory Dickory Dock.” Sing or hum a song while you hold the infant and move him to • the rhythm of the song such as “Rock-A-Bye Baby.” Help him do.

11. Cognitive Development • Cognitive development is the construction of thought processes, including remembering, problem solving, and decision-making, from childhood through adolescence to adulthood. • Cognitive development refers to how a person perceives, thinks, and gains understanding of his or her world through the interaction of genetic and learned factors. Among the areas of cognitive development are information processing, intelligence , reasoning, language development , and memory.

12. Cognitive Development: Take a Toy Apart • Goals: Increase cognitive development, to increase language and communication skills; to increase sensory motor skills. • Material: Toy animals that come apart. • Procedures: Present the toy to the toddler to explore. Show them how to take it apart talk about the toys body parts. • Assessment: Toddler will take the toy apart, identify the body parts, and put it back together.

13. Moving Like the Animals • Goals: To increase sensory motor skills; to increase language and communication skills • Materials: Pictures of familiar animals • Procedure: See if toddlers can identify the animals in the picture. Help them decide if the animals are large or small and how they move. Have the children move as they think the animal would move. As toddlers become more proficient, choose less familiar animals with obvious movement patterns. Talk about animals and where they live. • Assessment: The child will move like the designated animal. • Integration: This activity helps children learn more about the world in which they live and even think about it differently. • Sensory Motor Development: Individual or Small Group, 16 to 36 months

14. Physical Development • My no longer need a nap • Runs, jumps, hops, and catches • Uses scissors, and draws first pictures of a person • Pedals and steers a tricycle • Distinguishes writing from non-writing • Uses a fork • Gallops and does one-foot skipping(Berk, 2012, pg. 408)

15. Physical Development Activities • Freeze Dancing • Supplies • CD player or radio, fun music • Activity Detail • Turn on the radio or CD Player and start to dance with the kiddies. Then turn the music off randomly and surprise the kids by saying 'Freeze.' If they don't freeze, they can be out or you can just continue to play without doing the elimination. With more kids the elimination works well and they have fun with it. Loads of laughs for a rainy day! Make sure all tables and chairs are moved first so no one gets hurt!

16. Physical Development Activities (Hopscotch) • Supplies • Chalk • Activity Detail • This is a twist on the traditional hopscotch for little ones learning their ABC's and 123's. First start by making squares or rectangles with letters and numbers on them Have the child start at one end of the sidewalk and see if they can cross to the other side of the sidewalk jumping from square to square. They must identify the letter or number they are going to jump to next. You can also call out the number or letter for them and tell them to find it and jump on it next. The kids can also call out letters and numbers for you to jump on. This helps the younger kids to learn their letters and numbers, and gives everyone some outdoor exercise. This activity can also be done with shapes, colors, animals, etc.

17. Emotional Development • Shows pleasure when familiar adults are nearby. Has developed close attachments with parents and other frequent caregivers; uses these relationships as a secure base to explore (e.g., digs in the sandbox but runs back to dad for a cuddle from time to time). • Knows own name. Uses "my" and "me" often, and with pride (e.g., says, "MY mama!"). Shows beginning signs of self-consciousness (e.g., hides behind a chair and looks ashamed after breaking an ornament). • Is keenly observant of others' emotional reactions. Checks parent's facial expressions (e.g., considers climbing up a ladder at the playground, but first looks back at mother's face for encouragement or warning). • Experiences a wide range of emotions (e.g., affection, frustration, fear, anger, sadness). Tends to express and act on impulses; has tantrums when tired or frustrated. With adult help, begins to use strategies to control emotional expression (e.g., goes to get teddy bear or another comfort object when upset so he or she can calm down). (PBSparents.org, 2012)

18. Emotional Development Activity • Create Collages • Supplies: Old magazines, child-safe scissors, construction paper, and glue • Activity Detail: Gather a stack of old magazines. Choose a them with the class and look for picture relating to the theme (food, animals, family, sea creature, etc..) Cut out any pictures that relate to that theme fro example, Thanksgiving.. You can then spend time classifying and sorting the pictures (for example, for food, sort by food groups or by veggies and meats or by meals); counting the pictures; and talking about what pictures you didn't find. Once you've finished sorting, glue all pictures down on a piece of construction paper to create a collage and great poster for the classroom.

19. Emotional Development Activity(The Letter Learning Game) • Supplies: Safety scissors, markers or crayons, colored tag board, printed images or pictures from magazines, magnetic sheets. • Activity Detail: Begin by cutting out each letter fro the alphabet from the colored tag board. Trim a piece of magnetic sheet and apply it to the back of each letter. Assign a picture or image to the correct sound of each letter. • Once the child has decided on what image he/she associates with a particular letter, cut out a small rectangle from the tag board and let the child draw each figure or paste a picture that was cut out from a magazine. • Aid the child in sticking a small strip from the magnetic sheets to the backs of each image. • Gather all the picture magnets and letter magnets and head to a magnetic surface. Laying out the letters on one side and the pictures on the opposite, ask the child to match the letters with their corresponding images. As he/she correctly matches each set, set these aside and progress through the entire alphabet(Education.com, 2012)

20. The Letter Learning Game Children will be able to learn their letters by associating them with different types of animals.

21. Technology and it’s Individualized and Supported Learning • Appropriate use of technology in the classroom is to expand, enrich, implement, individualize, differentiate, and extend the overall curriculum(ESN). • It allows students to also encourage social interaction within groups, solve problems on their own and help mature their listening and speaking skills. • It helps make teaching more interesting and sometimes even easier. • Technology is our future and though it is an adaptable, multipurpose, and helpful tool within the teaching profession it has became a way of life and we need to familiarize ourselves and our students to learn along sides us.

22. References • Berk, L. E. (2012). Infants, children, and adolescents (7th ed.). Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon • Bruen, F. (2011). What Are Some Physical Development Activities for Preschool Children?. Retrieved September 5, 2012 from http://www.livestrong.com/article/245802-what-are-some-physical-development-activities-for-preschool-children/ • www.delmarlearning.com/comparisons • Education.com. (2012). The Letter Learning Game. Retrieved September 9, 2012 from http://www.education.com/activity/article/letter-sound-magnets/ • Google Images. (2012). Google Images. Retrieved September 7, 2012 from http://www.google.com • www.intechopen.com/books/fabrics

23. References (Cont’d) • Jenni. (ND). Setting Up Your Classroom. Retrieved September 9, 2012 from http://preschoolresource.tripod.com/classroom.html • Moss, T. (2012). Class Begins At Schools. Retrieved September 8, 2012 from http://www.nwaonline.com/news/2012/aug/02/classes-begin-schools/ • Moving Smart. (2012). Why Hopscotch Matters. Retrieved September 8, 2012 from http://movingsmartblog.blogspot.com/2012/06/why-hopscotch-matters.html • PBSparents. (2012). Preschoolers: Ages 2 to 5. Retrieved September 7, 2012 from http://www.pbs.org • PBSparents. (2012). Emotional Development. Retrieved September 9, 2012 from http://www.pbs.org/parents/childdevelopmenttracker/one/socialandemotionalgrowth.html

24. References (cont’d) • Noffke, D. (2012). How to Teach Diversity to Preschoolers. Retrieved September 5, 2012 from http://www.ehow.com/how_5110350_teach-diversity-preschoolers.html • Shuttercock. (2012) Shuttercock. Retrieved September 5, 2012 from http://www.shutterstock.com/ • Wardle, F.,(2008). The Role of Technology in Early Childhood Programs .Retrieved September 6, 2012 from http://www.earlychildhoodnews.com/earlychildhood/article_view.aspx?ArticleID=302 • Yahoo Images. (2012). Yahoo Images.com. Retrieved September 5, 2012 from http://www.yahoo.images.com/ • Zazzle. (2012). Animal Alphabet Poster. Retrieved September 9, 2012 from http://www.zazzle.com/animal_alphabet_poster_small-228227764085089625