Daily Growing Steps

Dear Parents,

We’ve had a fun and busy week in Early Preschool, full of learning and excitement! The children enjoyed exploring new activities, singing songs, reading stories, and practicing their movement skills. Each activity helped them grow, learn, and build confidence while having lots of fun together!

Large Group

We started our large group by greeting each other and singing our “Good Morning” song to set a warm and welcoming tone for the day. After that, we took attendance together and talked about different body parts, connecting our discussion with the action song “This Is My Face”, which the whole class loved.

The children then practiced counting numbers as a group, building their early math skills. To finish, we read the book “All About Me,” which helped the children learn more about themselves and relate to the theme of the day.

Art

Our art session this week was truly vibrant and full of joyful learning. Each child was given a white sheet of paper with simple oval outlines representing a face. Alongside this, we provided cut-out eyes, ears, noses, and mouths for the children to explore. Before beginning the activity, we invited them to identify each facial feature and joined together in a lively body parts song to build excitement and reinforce vocabulary.

With glue in hand, the children eagerly began assembling their own faces. This process encouraged creativity, fine-motor development, problem-solving, and careful concentration. It was wonderful to see how confidently many children selected and placed the features, expressing their own ideas and imagination. A few children explored by placing features upside down or in unexpected shapes—beautiful examples of early artistic thinking and experimentation. We gently guided them when needed, while still celebrating their unique approaches.

The classroom was filled with laughter, curiosity, and proud smiles as the children completed their face creations. Overall, it was a highly engaging session that supported early learning in art, language, and self-expression.

Literacy

Our literacy session this week continued to strengthen the children’s listening, talking, and sound-matching skills, which are important foundations for early language development. To enrich the learning experience, we added new picture cards such as a train, airplane, boat, and police car, expanding the children’s vocabulary and exposing them to a wider range of environmental sounds.

We arranged all the picture cards in the middle of our circle time area. One by one, the children came forward to pick a picture card. The teacher then played an audio clip of a sound, such as the chugging of a train or the siren of a police car. The children listened closely, observed their friends’ reactions, and excitedly identified the sound. If the sound matched their picture, they proudly named it and held up their card for everyone to see.

This activity encouraged active listening, clear communication, focus, and cooperative learning. The children helped one another, shared ideas, and participated with wonderful enthusiasm. Their excitement grew each time they successfully matched a sound, celebrating each other’s achievements.

A standout moment came when Lukas heard the sound of a drum and immediately said, “Sara has a drum!”. This showed not only his strong listening skills but also his ability to connect sounds with objects and recognize what his classmates had chosen.

Overall, the session was highly engaging and meaningful. It supported the children’s language development, strengthened their confidence in speaking, and nurtured a joyful learning environment where they listened, identified, talked, and worked together.

Gymnastics

This week’s gymnastics session was full of energy, excitement, and learning. The children began by practicing safe climbing on soft mats, showing how independently and confidently they could navigate the steps. Some took on the rope climbing area for an added challenge, exploring different ways to reach the top. To make the activity even more thrilling, we ended with sliding down, which brought huge smiles and laughter.

The climb-and-slide routine was more than just fun. It supported cognitive skills, such as planning their movements and understanding cause and effect, as well as gross motor development, strengthening arms, legs, and improving balance and coordination. Most importantly, the children felt a strong sense of pride and accomplishment after successfully reaching the top.

This session perfectly combined physical development, problem-solving, and joyful play, leaving the children energized, confident, and ready for their next adventure.

Science

Our science activity was truly amazing, filled with excitement and delight! We began by gathering everyone together and clearly explaining the activity, helping them understand that they would be exploring nature and collecting different materials. After the instructions, we all went out to the grassy area, where the children were full of curiosity and enthusiasm. Each child received a paper plate, and they happily spread out, observing their surroundings and picking up natural items such as leaves, small sticks, flowers, and stones. It was wonderful to see how engaged they were. Many of them worked together, helped each other notice new things, and shared what they found, showing great teamwork and cooperation.

Once they collected enough materials, we moved to the art room. The children sat together and used glue to attach their natural treasures onto their plates, creating beautiful nature collages. They talked, laughed, and compared their collections, showing how proud and excited they were about their work. After finishing their creations, we placed the plates aside to dry. Overall, the activity supported their observation skills, encouraged teamwork, and gave them the joy of exploring the environment in a hands-on and creative way. The children were truly happy throughout the whole process.

Math

Our most recent math session focused on counting numbers, and it was both fun and productive for the children. We used colorful pom poms as hands-on learning materials. First, we wrote the numbers from one to five, with matching circles drawn underneath each number. The children were then encouraged to count carefully and place the correct number of pompoms inside each circle. This simple activity helped them connect written numbers with quantities, while also strengthening their fine motor skills.

The students were very engaged, and many of them showed clear improvement in their counting abilities. They worked with focus and excitement, and it was wonderful to see how confidently they matched the pompoms to the numbers. Lutanda, in particular, did an excellent job, but most of our students also performed really well. Overall, it was a successful math session that supported number recognition, counting, and hands-on learning in a fun and interactive way.

Next Week’s Schedule:

     Small Group

Monday Gymnastics

Tuesday Literacy

Wednesday Music

Thursday Math

Friday Science

     Work Time

Tuesday -Art

Thursday -Library

Friday- Ethiopian Center once in two week

Reminders:

• Every Wednesday is art day, so please send your child with art appropriate clothing.

• Every Monday is library day,  so we will be sending a book that your child picked from our library, which will be returned after a week on library day.

Have a nice weekend!