We love block play at preschool because it fulfills so many developmental domains!

As students stack blocks, they are learning essential mathematical skills, such as matching, counting, and sorting!

As students organize them by shape and color, they are practicing early literacy skills (fulfilling the Language and Literacy Domain) such as symbolization and representation.

We can’t even begin to mention the fine and gross motor skills (Physical Domain), observation and divergent thinking (required for the Science Domain), and a host of other pertinent areas of development. For this activity, students created different structures with three-dimensional paper triangles.

Because these triangles were lightweight and flimsy, students had to concentrate on creating their structures without the triangles deteriorating or their “towers” falling!

At our preschool, we like to help our students learn number quantities and associate those number quantities with the written symbol for the number.

In general, young children can understand quantities sooner than they can understand the number symbol associated with that quantity.

For example, scientific experiments have shown that even very little babies can differentiate between a quantity of one and a quantity of two.

What takes longer to develop is the understanding that ‘2’ is a written symbol representing the quantity of two.

Many young students struggle with this connection.

This Counting Triangle Quantities activity helps your little ones make the connection between number symbols, number names, and quantities.

Tracing the numbers with their fingers also supports the preschooler’s knowledge of number symbols in addition to their emerging writing skills.

As parents, you play a critical role in your child’s fine motor development.

The most important thing you can do is to provide opportunities that are fun and interactive for your child.

Developing fine motor skills in early childhood education helps build the foundation for important future skills like writing and self-care.

To hone your little ones’ fine motor skills, we created pipe-cleaner triangles with pipe cleaners and beads!

Using their tiny fingers, students slid each bead onto their pipe cleaner until they completed a triangle!

Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics workers play a key role in the sustained growth and stability of the U.S. economy, and are a critical component to helping your little ones’ thinking minds!

STEM activities also increase science literacy and enables the next generation of innovators!

For this activity, students used straws and pipe cleaners to create pyramids!

Our younger learners created triangles, while our older students created more complex structures.