Pre-School Power

I am overwhelmed with the blogoshpere and all of its GREAT ideas when it comes to early education. :) i use ideas from blogs all over the country and sometimes those ideas supplement my own. :) HOWEVER i am not a TOTAL mooch, i do have a few ideas of my own. i don't think it would be fair for me to use all of these ingenious ideas without contributing some of my own at the same time. :) it may be a molasses on a winter day kind of process actually adding things...my blonde may be slightly fake, but it does sometimes slow down my thought process. ;)

i work at a pre-school in Pleasant Grove, Ut. it is called Stepping Stones and is a pre-school for the arts. i have never enjoyed working so much in my life! we have three different classes that we teach. Letters and numbers; this prepares the kids for kindergarten and is taught by Ms. Valorie. She's an all star and the kids love her. she has so many great different ways to make letters and numbers entertaining. next we teach an art class. most of you are probably thinking...."art...big whoop. kids paint in pre-school all the time." well, i guarantee kids haven't painted like this. Ms. Jeri, the art teacher, doesn't just paint. she teaches about VanGogh, art in literature, picaso, and much more! these kids are learning things that most kids don't learn about until junior high, but the way Jeri teaches it make it fun and interesting. and lastly, the performing arts class, which is what i teach. :) this includes singing, acting, dancing puppets, musical theory, stage presentation etc. this is different than anything i have ever done when it has come to teaching...but it has been great. :) i have a vast background in performing arts between dance, a few school plays, drama classes, and such...but teaching it is totally different. 

because pre-school is to prep kids for elementary school, i wanted to reiterate what Ms. Valorie teaches in her class while still sticking to a fun, musical back ground. so, without further ado, i creates this music game. 

Musical Alphabet: all this game is, is home made flash cards. there's an upper case on one side and a lower case on the other side. i laminated them and put them VERY scattered on the floor. i turned on the kids favorite songs and let them dance.

when the music stopped, they had to find a letter quickly. i then picked a FEW kids (they lost attention when i tried to ask all of them) what their letter was, which one was capital and which one was lowercase, what color the letter was printed on and what sound it made. i started with just the letter and the sound and when they caught on better, i added all of the others. this kept them entertained for a VERY long tine. i was well pleased that such a little thing made them so happy. :) 

more "little things" to come. :) 

happy teaching!!