The children in Miss Sweet’s class recently spent time exploring magnetic lines on cookie sheets to build the letters in their names. Miss Sweet has been teaching children about big lines, little lines, big curves and little curves, and how children can use these kinds of lines to build the letters in their names!
Readers see letters as different from one another but to young children, they look pretty much alike – a lot of black sticks and curves. Children learn to notice the distinctive features of letters: what makes it different from every other letter when they construct letters this way. Systematic instruction in letter learning means planning a series of short lessons that show children how to look at letters, learn their names, and, over time, connect letters to the sounds in words. The children in Miss Sweet’s classes will have exposure to many engaging lessons around their names and their classmate’s names.
Another small group of children practiced rolling dice and moving beads one by one to count. This is one-to-one correspondence, assigning only one number name for each item that they count. Touching and moving items as they count helps to develop this skill.
Miss Sweet began using small group work today to make sure that all of her students had exposure to these important activities in the classroom. These children enjoyed water animals in the sensory table!
Today’s FWSU STORY was contributed by Brittany Sweet (GEMS Preschool Teacher) and was originally published here.
The FWSU Story 