Thanksgiving Playdough Mats

This week we introduced themed number playdough mats. These mats help the children practice the math skills of number recognition, counting and cardinality and one-to-one correspondence. The materials work their fingers and hands to strengthen their fine motor skills as they mold the pieces of playdough into a ball. Together we read Thanksgiving books that involved counting and counting backwards with 1-5 and 1-10. We then passed the number mats out and the children worked together to lay them out in sequential order and then match the two similar mats (both have the number and one has indicators for the total amount of playdough balls to put in the boxes while one does not). The children counted up and then backwards, and then went to the tables with one number mat to work with the playdough. 

While playdough is a very common material in preschool classrooms, it is a key material in fine motor skill practice. Molding the playdough into different forms works the finger and hand muscles and strengthens them. 

For this experience, the children had to mold small balls and then place them on the 10-frame to correspond with the number on the board (one-to-one correspondence). They were shown how to move the playdough in their hands to make just the right size ball to fit in the frame. The children then counted their balls and checked to see if the total amount they counted matched the number on the board (cardinality). When the children were finished they could roll their balls into "snakes" to build the actual number on the mat, which further practiced their number recognition.

Creating our own Fall Trees

The trees on our campus have been gradually turning fall-like over the past few weeks and the children have noticed! We have discussed what changes have occurred and what the trees look like now, and have read books to learn more about the process. This week we created our own fall trees using art materials and leaf foam stickers. This activity brought out the children's creativity while also practicing visual-spatial awareness and fine motor skills. 

After taking a brief walk outside to view some trees, discuss what we saw and discuss what parts of the tree we had to build (trunk, branches, leaves), we returned to the classroom and the children got to work. We laid out different sized popsicle sticks, skewers and toothpicks and let the children get up and choose what they wanted to work with. They had to glue each piece to the paper which required hand-eye coordination (aiming the glue on the stick or placing the stick on the line of glue). It also gave us the first chance in the activity to observe their visual-spatial awareness. This skill is essential to successful participation in activities in school - the children need to be able to focus on and work with specific parts of a material in a learning experience. Their placement of the sticks (and later the leaves) and how smooth that process is for them gives us an idea of where they are in the building of that skill. For the children that need practice in this skill set, activities like this are a fun and creative way to do it.

The next day we had to add our leaves. But...we had to organize the leaves first. The children were tasked with sorting the leaves by color in separate trays, and turning them over on the trays so we could see the color. Sorting and classifying by color is a common preschool math skill and one we try to practice whenever we can. Luckily all of our materials come in a big bag and not organized, so we have the children do it! Once the leaves were sorted the children chose whichever ones they wanted to add to their fall tree. The leaves were foam stickers which we use often to practice fine motor skills - separating the back from the sticker takes coordination and use of their fingers which is great strength work. We also observed visual-spatial awareness once again as they placed the leaves (aiming for a branch or around the branches). The children also began to describe their placement of the leaves in relation to the changing of the trees in fall. Those that were not on the branches had "already fallen off the tree" versus the ones that were still on the branches and had yet to fall. This connection to our discussions about the changing and falling of leaves in the fall season was fantastic and enhanced the experiences by adding oral conversation and description.