Thursday, July 17, 2008

Preparing for Preschool

Before preschool begins, your child should:
  • Be completely potty trained and able to take care of his/her own bathroom needs
  • Be able to listen to a short story
  • Be able to follow directions
  • Be able to verbalize needs

You can help your child be additionally prepared by:

  • READING to them
  • Encouraging them to hold a pencil with the tips of their fingers and form letters correctly. Remind them that letters start at the top. As they learn to write their name please help them use an upper case letter for the first letter and lower case letters for the rest. Encouraging good habits from the beginning is much easier that trying to re-teach later. Praise them for their efforts and know it is normal for children to write letters backwards, upside down, and in random orders as they are learning.
  • READING to them
  • Practice using the bathroom without assistance
  • READING to them

During the year we will learn to:

  • enjoy the learning process as we explore many different themes
  • follow school rules (Be Nice, Be Clean, Be Safe)
  • interact cooperatively with others
  • sing and move to music
  • hold a pencil and copy letters and basic shapes
  • recognize many of the alphabet letters and the sounds they make
  • recognize numbers 0-10 and count objects
  • use scissors
  • use glue
  • identify basic shapes and colors

and much, much more

Miss Pam's Preschool

Miss Pam's Preschool is owned and operated by Pamela Hyer. This will be my 9th year of business in Tooele, and 13th year teaching preschoolers. Children at this age have a natural curiosity and learn best when they are having fun. Play is the work of children. I use a theme based curriculum, supplemented by learning the alphabet, numbers, colors, shapes, pre-writing skills, and other essential kindergarten readiness skills. Children are generally most successful in a predictable structured environment, that allows some flexibility for individual needs. We have story/circle time, table activities, and learning centers. We incorporate music, creative movement, dramatic play, and opportunities for social interaction and guided play. I maintain a small class size of only 8 children per session so there is ample time for one on one teaching.

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

ABC Snack Ideas

Snack time is an opportunity to experience new foods, learn table manners, extend our learning of the alphabet, practice counting and sorting, etc. Please bring commercially prepared food products in unopened packages (leftovers will be returned to you) Try to include foods from two different food groups (if one of the items is a goodie/desert item, be sure to include a healthy food as well).
A - apples, Alpahbits Cereal, animal crackers
B - bananas, bread, berries, bagels, blueberry muffins
C - carrots, cheese, crackers, cookies, Cheerios, Cocopuffs, corndogs
D - donuts, Ding Dongs, dinosaur shaped fun fruits or crackers
E - eggs, English muffins, eggrolls, Eggo waffles
F - fruit, fish crackers, fries, fortune cookies, fish sticks
G - grapes, granola bars, Go-gurt, graham crackers, green food
H - ham, honey, hot dogs, Honey Nut Cheerios, Ho-Ho's, hot chocolate
I - ice cream, Italian Ice
J - Jell-O, juice, jam, jelly, jerky, julius, jelly beans
K - kiwi, Kix Cereal, kabobs (fruit)
L - lemonade, lettuce, Life Cereal, licorice
M - macaroni and cheese, melon, milk, muffins, marshmallows, M&M's, milk shakes
N - nuts, noodles, noodle soup, nachos, nectarines, nuggets(chicken)
O - oranges, Oreos, Spaghetti-O's, oatmeal, octopus (a fun snack made with hotdogs)
P - pancakes, pizza, popcorn, potato chips, pineapple, pudding, peaches, pretzels, popsicles
Q - NesQuik, quesadillas, Quaker granola bars
R - raisins, Rice Krispie Treats, Ramen noodles, Ritz crackers, ravioli, rice cakes
S - sandwiches, strawberries, string cheese, soup, saltine crackers
T - tacos, tater tots, toast, turkey, tortilla chips, Tricuit crackers
U - upsidedown cake, 7-Up
V - vegetables, vanilla wafers, vanilla pudding
W - watermellon, whipped cream, Wheat Thins crackers, waffles
X - KiX cereal, x-shaped pretzels, squirt cheese "x" on crackers
Y - yogurt, yellow foods
Z - zoo animal crackers, ziti pasta