Magicalms.com ~ Magical Moments

There are endless opportunities to teach and have children practice math skills each and every day.  Regardless of theme, educators must infuse opportunities for the boys and girls to count, compare, contrast, graph, sort, pattern, graph, weigh, and identify numbers and shapes each and every day. Our world is filled with math and so, the mini world of the preschool classroom must be filled with it as well.

Like math, the opportunities to attain language goals in the classroom are endless.  The teacher may start by having objects labeled with sentences instead of single words.  Before reading a book, the teacher may ask the children to look at its cover so that they can hypothesize about its content.   The teacher should introduce the book’s author and illustrator.  The teacher may ask boys and girls to reflect and remember details after the story is completed or the educator may ask the children how they would prefer the story to end.  The class may make connections between stories and between real life occurrences.  The teacher may use the story to create open ended games, art experiences, or block constructions.  You may want to discuss beginning/ending sounds of particular words or play rhyming/opposite games with story words. For older children, the teacher may ask the children to dictate their own stories whereas for younger boys and girls, the teacher may ask the children to point to or to verbalize story related objects.  Talking, listening, singing, tapping beats (syllables), and reading helps to foster language goals as they improve speech clarity, build vocabulary, help children to follow directions, recognize sounds, and ultimately learn to read.

Magical Educating!

Donna Mavrides
Magical Moments
www.magicalms.com