On Monday we celebrated the feast of St. Francis with the Blessing of the Animals!
Rev. Tung led the blessing for all our HCA pets.
Sensorial Material
Our sensorial area of the classroom focuses on lessons and activities that help to develop the five senses: seeing, hearing, touching, tasting, and smelling. The lessons and activities provide and isolate concrete examples of abstract concepts that are perceived through the senses such as dimension, form, color, texture, sound and scent.
The Cylinder Blocks promote the pincer grasp, the coordination of the thumb and two primary fingers. This is a strength needed for a child to begin to write.
The knobless cylinders consist of four sets, ten cylinders in each set, varying in height and/or diameter. Each set is in its own wood box with a lid painted the same color as the cylinders: red, green, yellow and blue.
- Yellow cylinders vary in height and diameter.
- Green cylinders vary in height and diameter.
- Red cylinders vary in diameter only; height remains the same.
- Blue cylinders vary in height only; thickness/diameter remains the same.
The purpose of these lessons is to develop a child's fine motor skills, concentration, hand-eye coordination, and visual perception of dimension. The material also provides experience in seriation and basic math vocabulary.
Da'Vina and Lucas are working with the knobless cylinder box.
The Brown Stair is meant to develop child's awareness of size difference. All of the blocks are the same length, but they vary in depth. The material trains both the eye and the hand to discriminate and compare between wide and narrow.
This week was fire prevention week. We talked about how to get out of our home or school safely if we were ever in a fire. We got to hear the loud fire bell in school and practice a drill with the UD fire Department.
With the help of our (pretend) fire fighters, we practiced spatial awareness. Spatial awareness is knowing where your body is in relation to objects or other people. To have good awareness, you also need to understand and respond to a change in position from these people/objects. This is a complex skill that children develop at an early age.
As a class, we built a building using magna tiles. I then asked the children, one at a time, to place their fire fighter inside, next to, in back of or in front of our building.
The children were given some time to build their own structures and share where they place their firefighter. (inside, next to, behind, in front of)
Monday, October 11th is a faculty in-service day. There is NO SCHOOL for students.
On Friday, October 15th, Active Image will take individual student photos. Please look in your email for a link to purchase the photos in advance. Students may wear free dress, but everyone should still wear sneakers. They will not be seen in the picture.
EC parent/teacher conferences will be held via Zoom on the evenings of Wednesday, October 20, and Thursday, October 21. Please sign up for a time if you have not already done so: https://www.signupgenius.com/go/60b0c4bada62ca6fd0-preschool
On Friday, October 29, we will have our annual HCA Mission Party. More information will be sent home in the coming weeks. Dismissal will be at 12:00 noon on that day and there will be no HCA Plus.
