Gross motor control refers to the large muscles of the body. The development of these skills are important for school readiness.

Children acquire gross motor skills by practicing a new movement until they have it mastered, and then moving on to a new one.

For this activity, we practiced the gross motor skill of throwing and spatial orientation.

Using colored beanbags with pictures of sea creatures on them, we tossed them onto a hopscotch grid, and then hopped to the number it landed on.

Because we are always integrating our domains into one another, we also included a math component to this activity.

Your little ones were learning about numbers 10-16 throughout the month of our Under the Sea theme, so we used some of those numbers on our grid!

As their beanbag landed on the correct number, students were encouraged to shout out the number before they hopped to it.

Using yarn and clothespins (with pictures of sea creatures on them), we created our very own ocean garland!

This was a collaborative group project, and your little one enjoyed making our front yard a little more festive by attaching clothespins onto blue yarn that represented the ocean! This activity incorporated several developmental domains.

When attaching the clothespins to the yarn, your little one was practicing fine motor control and hand eye coordination.

Simple hand-eye coordination techniques, such as weaving, beading, and manipulating small objects, are a great way to help your little one learn how to control their mind and their hands.

These skills are transferable to literacy, and when your little student is then exposed to holding a pencil, crayon or pair of scissors, the coordination will be in place.

Literacy can be fostered in many different ways within the preschool curriculum. In our classroom, we read, write, draw, and sing about letters. Each week, your little one is introduced to one letter relating to the monthly theme.

During the course of the week, students participate in a variety of activities surrounding that particular letter. For the week of the fish, we talked about the letter F.

To encourage their understanding of this exciting letter, we wrote large Fs (with Miss Carrie’s help) on the sidewalk with chalk. Students then “filled” these letter Fs in with toy fish.

Using seashells, play dough, and toy sharks, we created an ocean habitat for one of our favorite sea creatures: the shark!

We began this activity with a discussion of the shark, where they live, what they eat, and how they survive within their slippery environments!

This kind of play involves all of the senses. It is called sensory play, and we use it in our classroom all of the time! Why do we love this kind of play? For many reasons! For one, sensory play allows children to form mental images about what they are seeing.

Adults already do this naturally, but in young children, it is still developing.

Sensory play also involves the combining of different materials. These combinations are very important for the scientific exploration of cause and effect.

Sensory play can also foster language and cognitive reasoning, as students create various dialogues for the characters in their sensory environments. For example, your little ones discovered that predatory sharks could be hidden by creating “hiding spots” with rocks. They communicated this to one another, and had to manipulate the rocks to hold their sharks down, as many of them floated and were unable to sink.

Lastly, are the prosocial interactions that are fostered as a result of sensory play. These interactions develop as students discuss and share their experiences with one another.