Classifying and sorting activities help children to develop a range of thinking skills and build the foundations for later problem-solving.

The visual memory and discernment involved, and the ability to identify patterns, relationships, similarities and differences, assists children in learning about early number representation and problem-solving.

For this activity, students practiced counting and sorting circles by number.

They learned that each symbol represents and quantity and had fun placing the different colored circles onto each large circle!

Gross motor skills involve movements of the large muscles of the arms, legs, and torso.

Young children rely on motor skills for everyday activities at school, at home, and in the community.

As a developmental domain, we enjoy applying gross motor skills throughout our week.

From dancing to tossing, our little ones are always on the move! For this activity specifally, students learned how to jump into a pool! To apply this to our circle theme, they were told that three-dimensional circles are called balls.

They jumped and enjoyed manipulating the objects with their arms and legs!

We love writing at our school!

From coloring with crayons to handwriting with a pencil, students gain many developmental milestones when given access to the written word.

This activity was modified for our older learners, but whether two years old or ten years old, who doesn’t love chalk?

Dexterity refers to the ability to manipulate objects efficiently using our hand and finger muscles.

Activities involving the application of dexterity include manipulating stickers, using pencils, construction with Legos, doing up buttons, and of course, handwriting!

For this activity, students removed stickers from a pack and attached them to construction paper squares.

It was fun watching them place them on different areas of the shape!

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.