Grace Garden Preschool

Hello Caterpillar Families,

This week, we continued talking about love and friendship. We celebrated Valentineʼs Day on Tuesday with an awesome Red Lunch and a Valentine exchange. I was really proud of the Caterpillars for trying some new foods. There wasnʼt a single, “Ewwwww, I hate tomatoes,” to be heard; rather, it was, “I tried, but I donʼt care for it.” Weʼve really been working on our table manners in here! After lunch, the kiddos delighted in delivering their special valentines to their friends. I especially loved seeing all the hard work that each Caterpillar put into writing his/her friends names on the Valentines. I’ve been seeing a real increase in fine motor skills in the classroom, and it was certainly on display with the Valentine cards.

As part of our love and friendship unit, I brought back the Buddy System for Centers this week. Usually, Centers are completely free-choice, and the kids can choose which center to go to whenever the mood strikes (unless itʼs already at capacity). With the Buddy System, I “randomly” select teams of two kids each to be buddies. They play together as they rotate through the Centers. Each day, I chose new teams with the idea that everyone would have had the chance to play with someone they donʼt usually play with very much. I think the Buddy System really helps to break up cliques (not that we have a huge problem with that in our room) and encourages the children to find things in common with all of their friends. Itʼs kind of amazing to watch a group of two, who might have felt kind of awkward playing together at first, playing cooperatively and imaginatively by the end of Centers.

I also introduced the Caterpillars to a new game this week and they are hooked! I found two, huge, foam hammers at Target and had to have them, though I didnʼt know at the time what they would be for. Inspiration hit me, and now we have the awesome new game, Hammer Time!  After dividing the class into two teams, I hold up two cards with either popcorn words or color words, and the Caterpillars face off to see who can “hammer” the word I speak the quickest. A little bit of competitive energy is really putting a twist on learning the popcorn and color words. And, as a bonus, I get to chuckle to myself when I yell out, “Stop: Itʼs Hammer Time!”

Have a fantastic weekend,
Ms. Katie