This was the first week in Kindergarten so I wanted to drop in and welcome the new group.

Of course, most of the children I already know but it was fun to see how much they have grown and quite amazing to see that they will be the new big kids on the block. During my visit, I had the chance to see how many skills they are already quite good at as they made their family apple trees.

The children were learning how to select their own supplies they needed for the project from the project table.

They gathered each item they needed for the project all by themselves. The teacher was able to observe their skills in following directions and organization.

Then they went to the tables to create their trees. They traced and cut out the tree top and trunk then glued them to their paper. The teacher was able to observe their fine motor skills and their ability to manipulate the materials.

Once they had their trees cut out and glued on, they printed the names of their family members on the apples. The teacher was able to observe their skills in cutting, gluing, and tracing.

Then they glued the apples to their tree tops.  The teacher was able to assess their knowledge of their own family and family relationships and observe their writing skills.

The children did an excellent job printing the name of their mom, dad, and sibling names on their apples. Most of the children already knew how to spell the name of each member of their immediate family. Those who needed assistance with the spelling of the names could look up on the dry erase board and copy the names from there.

All the children had excellent beginning writing skills. I did notice that some of the children were writing in all capital letters – they will work on writing their name and other words with lower case letters throughout the school year.

This is truly a lovely group of children. I hope to visit with them often this school year but not because they will need me – their teacher is outstanding. I just don’t want to miss anything:)

On a side note, while the children were working on their activity, they were quiet and focused. Not because they were told to be but because they were very relaxed and there was soft music playing in the background. I was delighted to realize that it was my own CD. I had given the teacher a copy of my CD last week.

The teacher later told me that when she played the CD for the first time that day, she asked the children if they could guess who was singing? One of the boys guessed it exactly right! How cool is that? They know me well as I sing with them every chance I get. I just love these kids and these schools – I am so blessed.

After you have been around the field of early childhood education for a time you will start to hear the words print rich environment.

A print rich environment can be simply defined as a classroom where by young children are given many different opportunities to interact with many different forms of print. One way, among many, to introduce preschoolers to the reading and writing process is by giving them many opportunities to view print at home or at school in ways that are meaningful to them.

In this classroom, the teacher has created simple labels to identify furniture and other items that the children use in their daily routine.

You will notice that each of the words are in lower case letters. Since the words stand alone and are not a part of a sentence, we want to present the word in lower case form.

As children interact with the materials, furniture, and each other in the classroom, they will see the printed words often. By having the words placed strategically next to or on an item that the word represents, children will be given greater opportunity to associate the words to the objects.

Another important part of creating the print rich environment, is to display the names of each child. Notice that because a name is a formal word, the first letter is now capitalized and all other letters are in lower case.

Placing words on bulletin boards is another excellent way to build a print rich environment. Words that are used as titles, names, days of the week, months of the year, and so forth should start with a capital letter followed by lower case letters.

Where possible, try to place the words on objects that children use and interact with frequently and keep the words at the child’s eye level. But don’t over label, a label on every chair, toy, book, or corner in your classroom is not necessary.

Posters are another way to add to your print rich environment.

The print rich environment has many components and can be built a little at a time. To learn more about what else you can do to promote literacy in your classroom, you may enjoy reading this article!

Each school year, I like to create a name book for my preschool students to use.

I put them together with all kinds of materials but to simplify things for my readers, I created this little name book template.

In advance I create a book for each child. The number of letters each child has in his or her name will determine the number of middle pages each book will have.  I also put in a few extra pages for practice pages.

You will notice that there is a little empty space at the top of each page. This is so the children can practice writing other letters and numbers or add a drawing if they wish. This space is also used to place their name card for easy viewing.

I pull the name book out one day each week as a regular part of our routine. This is not the only time the children practice writing their name but it is a time that I will sit with them and help them where they need a little extra direction.

Each name book always comes with a printed and laminated name card. When the children sit with their name book, they will place the name card on the table or in the empty space at the top of their page for an easy reference.

When the child is finished with the name book for that session, the child will place the name card back into the little sleeve on the inside cover of the back page of the book for safe keeping.

The little sleeve is a sticky back pocket I got from the school supply store but you can also cut out a pocket and staple it on.

I keep the name books at the school throughout the school year and then give them to the parents at the end of the year parent-teacher conferences to take home. As needed, I add more pages or create a second book. The book in this post is just to give you the idea of what I like to do!

See a sample of other name activities the children participate on throughout the year by clicking here….

A dry erase board and dry erase markers lend themselves to some great guided learning activities as well as the opportunity to color and create…

Gather your materials…

I like these dry erase markers because the eraser is on one end and the marker is at the other end…

This is a dry erase sentence strip…

This is a dry erase pad of paper….

This is a dry erase easel…

These are small dry erase lap-sized boards…

And this is a dry erase board on my wall…

Print, Trace, and Erase!

You can begin by printing a color-word, or a name, letter, number, or a shape on your dry-erase canvas. For older preschoolers, you can invite them to do their own printing.

Now invite a child to participate….

Can you find and erase the letter T?

Try to trace the word Red!

Can you draw a red circle?

Can you erase the orange circle?

How many circles do you see? What colors are they?

Close your eyes and I will erase one... Now tell me, which circle is missing?

Can you find and erase the letter C?

Make sure you place your dry erase boards in a place where children can easily reach them and use them.

Remember that nice, large dry erase board above that I have on my wall?  Well it is actually on a wall up high in my office with the dry erase markers sitting on a shelf below it.  Wy (my toddler-aged nephew) decided to have a go at the dry erase markers and here is what he wrote…

Wy's Toddler Printing

But unfortunately it is not on the dry erase board – this lovely art is on the wall just below it!

Did you know that there are Dry Erase Crayons available now too?

I would love to hear your comments:)

Let your preschoolers make their own lines to color inside!

Start by giving a child a piece of paper and some crayons….

Then invite the child to draw some lines….

And some shapes…..

And then invite the child to color inside the shapes!

How important are those lines anyway?

The process of creating their own lines and coloring in the shapes will lead to an improvement in fine motor skills, eye-hand coordination, creative inspiration, and it can be simply fun!

View this article on Structured and Unstructured writing opportunities!