August is here and the cooling has begun for fall. After a sunny and hot summer, we are turning our thoughts to the new school year. As I prepare the space, learning materials, and curriculum needs for this Play and Learn School year, I think longingly of the little ones that just last fall came into our rooms for their first experience of “real” school. Alone and in many cases having ridden the bus to this big place, our kids were anxious and excited to be here. It’s a good thing that we have such wonderful staff to make the day fun and orderly. Within a few minutes kids are having a wonderful time exploring the toys and materials in the room. One of the best parts of working with preschoolers is the need to “meet them where they are”. By this I mean using developmentally appropriate practice to encourage them to make sense of their world, learn academics and learn to get along and make good choices socially. Our goal is to engage each child through their own interests which makes them want to spend more time at activities that build the skills we desire. Play and Learn School days begin with time to arrive and take care of business. Each child is responsible for their coat, folder, milk money, and check in. Before they even get ready to play with friends they have begun to learn processes of entering a classroom, name recognition, and communication from home. Social time follows with children encouraged to play interactively in the classroom which is often transformed to a restaurant, pet hospital, camping site, grocery store, or other imaginary location. Our goal here is to encourage children who are not interacting together to do so, and to introduce a motivation for things like writing, categorizing, and counting. Circle time begins with good morning songs for name learning, time (day of the week, month, etc.), weather, story time and introduction of the learning stations. Each station is designed for a “next step” in the academic learning of a preschooler. Children can select the station they want to work at, but the play areas of the room are typically closed during station time for the afternoon Readiness students. It is during this time that the staff will assess what the children actually can do consistently and select or make stations to encourage next steps. For instance, if the children recognize basic colors but have a hard time with brown, white and green, they might bring into this time a color game where these are used often. Our staff then spends station time interacting verbally with each child so the learning is oral, kinesthetic (physically moving) and visual. This allows a child processes information in all ways. Clean up and snack is followed by music and literature time. Children select reading material for the story of the day, and a good dance and stretch time helps to boost energy after this challenging day. Our class winds up with a gross motor play time. Stearns County Special Education Collaborative manager, Jill Haack has let us know that in the preschool years, children are not getting enough gross motor play. We see children more and more referred for occupational therapy because of underdeveloped hands and physical therapy because of cross body coordination skills being poor. Not enough movement and physical play and too much screen time is the cause of this delay. We include a motor time every school day. With concerns about obesity and children’s sedentary life styles we feel that this is as important a learning time as the center time. Today is the day to sign your child up for Play and Learn School this year. Call for this fun and challenging year of preparation for kindergarten – Maggie at (320) 398-7700, ext. 229. Maggie Lundorff ECFE director
