Education is a big job, and more and more preschools are cranking up their lesson plans to ensure that their kids are ready to start a lifetime of learning. And while it is important to foster a positive attitude toward learning, how much is too much? We have noticed a rise in articles that point to increased pressure for preschool students to get ahead of the learning curve. From the scholarly sources, like New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development to industry sources like Education.com, researchers are looking at preschool learning and placing pressure on young minds. This is an issue we take quite seriously, which is why we spend so much time incorporating fun and learning into the daycare programs at ALC.
The Cat In The Cat Knows A Lot About Learning!
Last week’s lesson plans offer a great example of how we carefully craft our weekly daycare programs to include lots of creative activities along with the traditional reading and writing. We celebrated Dr. Seuss’s birthday throughout the school and each class had age appropriate lesson plans to help incorporate some of our favorite books into some really fun learning experiences.
Balancing The Art and Science of Learning
At the pre-K level we devoted the week to various activities surrounding Dr. Seuss and some of his most popular works. One day we wore hats reminiscent of everyone’s favorite cat as we read the classic, Cat in the Hat. We also made some delicious snacks that looked just like the hats we were wearing. With just a touch of frosting, graham crackers, licorice and a little imagination we were able to to learn a valuable lesson in spacial reasoning and creating common shapes with uncommon materials. The kiddos didn’t realize they were learning such fine motor skills, they just had fun eating their yummy snack.
We also read One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish and used this book to foster conversations about color and sorting by color. Who wore red? Who wore blue? What color did you wear? The kids had fun sorting each other into color categories based on the shirt that they wore. Of course, at the heart of these plans were books, books and more books. All written by Dr. Seuss, and everyone had their favorite.
Combined with our regular classroom activities, like charting the weather and practicing our social skills in group play, this week was a ton of fun. Every child in Pre-K also pulled together their best drawing of the cat in the hat and practiced writing out these sight words. Check out the video of our fun week!