Through a wide variety of activities this term, the Early Years children have thoroughly enjoyed learning about how we travel by land, air or sea, and even into space!

The Preschool children were fortunate to have a field trip and picnic that involved sitting on a horse, experiencing how people long ago traveled from one part of the island to the other.  On their return, the children enjoyed sharing their experiences with the other early years classes.

Families also created cardboard box models of different types of transport together.  It was lovely to see everyone enjoying these on the stage.  Well done – we were delighted to see that every family participated!

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‘Play’ is the work of a child.  Over my many years of teaching and working with young children, I know it to be a given fact that play supports learning and is a very important to a child’s development stages. Play helps children learn and develop their cognitive, physical, communication, emotional, social, and creative skills.  When children play, it helps to build self-worth because it’s fun and they can become very much more engaged when the choice is theirs, rather than when chosen by an adult.

You may ask how play supports learning…

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When I look in the mirror,

Who do I see?

Only my face smiling back at me.

By: Myrna Pereira (2019)

Our topic focused on the children learning all about themselves. Using ‘Mat Man’ as a springboard, they linked body parts to their purpose, before moving on to connect them to their senses.  For example, we learned that we use our nose to smell and our eyes to see. Using stories, the children discovered how incredible they all are in their own different and unique way.

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The children had lovely week during the Thanksgiving holiday period.  They listened to stories of the Pilgrims and how they travelled to a new world.  In best way they could, the children described what they were thankful for.  The children were all excited to feel, smell, and taste some of the food the Pilgrims ate.

The children made the hats that the pilgrims wore.  They wore black and white clothes.  They children gathered around the table and enjoyed a feast of vegetables.  The majority of the children enjoyed the corn as a favourite vegetable. After all the activities, the children were able to colour the fruits and vegetables the realistic colours after exploring the real ones.

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The parent is often referred to in such terms as “the child’s first teacher” (Educate America Act of 1994)  or “the one continuous force in the education of … children from birth to adulthood” (Berger, 2000, p. 152),  

Over the year in school, the parents of the Preschool class have had many opportunities to connect with their children directly or indirect to support the growth development of their children.   

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The preschoolers are on an adventure exploring their ‘true self-identity’ in our ‘Amazing Me’ topic.

The children are loving learning about themselves and their peers.  This theme promotes children’s self-esteem and self-identity.  The topic helps to bring out more awareness of how people are different in many ways, but all need the basic things to live, can have the same feelings and in many ways, are similar.

At the start of the topic, the preschoolers were excited to share concepts they knew already.  To encourage children’s skills and abilities, many activities were introduced, with some emerging from their ideas too. They enjoyed learning the importance of taking care of their body, (giving the dolls a bath) how to get dressed, (talking about getting themselves dressed for school), identifying their body parts (through the Mat Man song), measuring themselves (with the big links) and talking about the roles of the family members, etc.

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The Preschoolers have been learning about colours and how they see them in their everyday environment. We initially focused on the colours of autumn leading up to the Thanksgiving Holiday and our own holiday here in the Turks and Caicos, “A Day of Thanks”.

The children have enjoyed experimenting with colour mixing and were amazed when they saw the magical results (like discovering that red and yellow makes orange).  The children enjoyed looking at some photographs of trees with autumn colours projected onto the big whiteboard.  They also enjoyed making their very own fall trees using tissue paper.

On our Day of Thanks, the children celebrated colours again, wearing black and white like the pilgrims of long ago.  They also wore hats they had made themselves.

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Here are some photos of our Preschool children enjoying World Book Day. See them dressed up as nursery rhyme characters, choosing books at our Book Swap and enjoying reading them in different places – like our garden area and playground – you read anywhere!  Our activities are a super example of how home and school are working together to develop a love of reading.  Thank you everyone for making our Preschool World Book Day such fun!

Read on to see more photos and read an interesting article from ELTLearning.com on 5 Reasons Why Reading Habits Are Important.

The home is the first learning environment for young children and parents are their first teachers. It is the best place to begin the cultivation of reading habits.  Here is a great booklet with ways to promote reading at home.

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Learning about the story of ‘The Three Little Pigs’, has lead the Preschoolers into an array of activities involving retelling the story; exploring buildings and building materials; and sorting and naming shapes.

The children have been excited to take on lead roles in acting out the story.  The highlight has been listening to the children change their voices for the different characters (especially the Big Bad Wolf) and seeing them taking turns in conversation and with taking on the different roles.

Everyone has joined in with building the pig’s house with brick… using the pebbles; the house of sticks… using popsicle sticks; and the house of straw… using spaghetti. We even set up an experiment to see if we could blow down our brick house with the strong force of air from a hair dryer – it didn’t blow down!

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At the start of our Early Years National Heritage Week celebrations, the preschoolers faces’ lit up as they entered the door seeing rays of colourful scarves hanging up in their classroom. Some said, “I see a rainbow,” some called out their favourite colour,   while others simply enjoyed the feeling of wrapping themselves up in the soft hanging cloth.

Each colour is special to the Turks and Caicos.  The colours are on our National Costume.  Each colour represents one or more of the islands that make up our country and identifies what makes them special.  Do you know your Island colours?

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Parents remember learning Nursery Rhymes when they were young with their mums and dads and now they find themselves doing the same with their children…

The Preschoolers have had a marvellous week exploring the theme of nursery rhymes, showing what a young child can learn when the environment is set and geared to independent and guided learning.

During the week, it was very interesting to watch the facial expressions and actions of the children as they recited, chanted, sung or acted out each rhyme.   The children were able to recognise each nursery rhyme with a corresponding picture card.  They quickly took possession of their favourite cards and enjoyed singing or chanting them – even choosing to do so during their free play.

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