Edgemont Preschool

Our Preschool Classroom and What We Learn:

AT CIRCLE TIME

· To listen, sit still and understand spoken language
· To add my ideas to the discussion and that my ideas have value
· To wait when others are talking
· New vocabulary connected with the topic of discussion
· To remember the words of songs and poems
· To remember the names of others in the group
· To cooperate and be considerate of the needs of others

IN THE DRAMATIC PLAY AREA

· To be flexible in my thinking
· To express myself in sentences
· To try on different adult roles
· To solve problems, especially socially, through negotiation with friends
· To sort and organize play things
· To make decisions
· To improvise and use things in a symbolic way to represent something else: a form of abstract thinking
· To carry out my ideas with the cooperation of others
· To exercise my imagination and creativity

PLAYING WITH BLOCKS CARS AND TRUCKS

· MATH AND READING – Concepts of shape, size, length and location
· MATH – Creation and repetition of patterns
· How to exercise my imagination
· How to express my ideas
· How to co-operate with others
· How to problem solve.

PLAYING WITH WATER, SAND, RICE AND

· MATH – Concepts of empty, full, volume and weight
· SCIENCE – Some things sink while others float
· SCIENCE – Concepts of wet and dry
· Building and reshaping the water and sand in buckets and other containers
· Hand eye coordination as I learn to pour

PAINTING AT THE EASEL

· MATH – Size and space relationships
· PRINTING – hand-eye coordination
· How to distinguish between and make new colours
· How to distinguish shapes and purposely create new ones
· How to express my feelings and ideas

READING IN THE LIBRARY AREA OR LISTENING CENTRE

· READING – to begin recognizing shapes and sounds
· To associate spoken and written word
· To develop my imagination and creativity
· To concentrate and sit still
· to understand that the pictures in a book tell us what the words say
· to understand that the words on the page go from left to right
· to see that the letters together make words and sentences
· that reading a book over and over helps me to learn the words and gain confidence as a “reader”

AT THE CREATIVE CENTER (CRAFT TABLE)

· How to express myself creatively
· Success at making something myself that I can be proud of
· Hand eye coordination
· Hand dexterity
· How to follow instructions

PLAYING WITH PLAY-DOH

· READING – to see shapes against the background of the table
· MATH – concepts of shape, relative size, bigger and smaller, length and height
· How to see negative space when cutters are taken away
· How to express feelings by squeezing and pounding
· How to exercise my imagination and creativity

AT THE SORTING TABLE

· MATH – to notice the details of same and different and form categories
· MATH – The numerical concepts of more than and less than
· The concepts of colour, size and shape
· Logical reasoning