Friends & Feelings

Getting ready for a new month is always fun. It is especially fun when September rolls around because that is when our foundational curriculum starts their new year. This is year four with Experience Early Learning Curriculum and we couldn't be happier with it. They have curriculum for babies and toddlers but we use their preschool curriculum. We have found that is works perfectly for all ages in our school. We can simplify an activity for a younger student or we can make it more challenging for an older one. 

Every month we get a new calendar. There are little pieces with the numbers on them that we add to the calendar each day. I decided I wanted the children to be able to see all of the numbers and match the one needed, for the younger students. I love the fact that Spanish words are added throughout the curriculum. We will be adding even more on our own as the year progresses.

Last year, Experience Curriculum gave us this wonderful weather board set and we are going to continue to use it. The kids love to choose what sticks to put each day. Sometimes they use more than one. Sometimes they change it out if it stops or starts raining. Under it we put our monthly poster. This month its all about feelings! The kids get to tell us how they are feeling each day. 

As you can see, our I Can Read book, magnets, monthly book and puzzle all go along with the feelings theme. I love how we get new ones each month. We may put away our other material each month so we can put up a new theme but we always keep these resources available for the children to use over and over any time off the year. The monthly puzzle is the perfect size for a three year old to learn with. We have 37 of them! We keep our magnets in ziplock bags and use them on small trays when we need something quiet to do in between activities. 

If you have seen our school library, you know we have a huge amount of books for all subject and levels. Experience Curriculum gives us two books a month to add to our library. We always put it on this special book rack and add the other books that go with our different daily topics. We have our two Spanish words books, our Sign Language book, books about friends and about the different feelings we are talking about. We try to read two or three books throughout the day. 

We hung our Sign Language ABC chart above our book rack and put the word cards that came in September's box around it. As we go through the school year, we will add new word into our daily routine in a natural way. Just like explaining any word we teach the children to speak, we will add how to sign it. So fun!

I hope you will check back in September to see the fun things we are doing.