Animal Color Matching

Play-dough Power!

Squishing, rolling, sculpting, molding...young children love to play with playdough. Add some props from around the home and playdough play becomes a powerful way to support your child’s learning. This simple preschool staple lets children use their imaginations and strengthen the small muscles in their fingers—the same muscles they will one day use to hold a pencil and write. Using playdough with you, a friend, or siblings supports your child’s social skills such as sharing, taking turns, and enjoying being with other people. Playdough also encourages children’s language and literacy, science, and math skills—all at the same time!---NAEYC

Using a stacking cup on his play-dough

Fitness Fanatics--Winter Olympics!

Every January at The Academy we focus on health and fitness. Fitness Fanatics is in full swing at Seaboard Lane. One of our main events has been the Winter Olympics. Take a look below!

Dramatic Play!

Dramatic play is an extremely important part of our curriculum. Outside of social skills, language development, the use of symbols, and the relief from emotional tension dramatic play yield, it also allows children to differentiate between real and pretend. This is readily apparent when observing children using exaggerated voices to signal that they are playing their roles or in the child that announces, "It's just pretend." It may seem as though a child who has spent several hours engaged in dramatic play has just been "playing around" and has nothing concrete to show for it. On the contrary, the kind of play where a child takes on a role, and learns to interact from within that role, is very valuable to his/her development.

Happy New Year!

Some of Academy friends came to say....HAPPY NEW YEAR'S DAY! 

NYE!

Although preschoolers are a wee bit too young for most New Year's Eve activities, they love festivities as much as older kids and adults. Many young kids won’t make it to midnight and many New Year’s activities are reserved for the much older, but they don’t have to miss out on the fun! Our friends in Toddler 4 had a blast making New Year's fireworks!

Show and Tell!

Show and Tell has numerous benefits for young children. The early language experiences show and tell entails helps build effective communication and listening skills that are essential for preschoolers. It also encourages emotional development in a child, as he or she shares their interests, home lives, and joys and struggles with peers. This socially rewarding experience also helps solidify important home-school connections, particularly when Show and Tell is aligned with our curriculum.
Our Pre K 1 friends absolutely love Show and Tell Fridays!

YELLOW SLIME!

Slime is a gelatinous and mushy substance that is a non-toxic toy for children and perfect for growing preschoolers. It is nourishing to play with slime as it involves sensory amusement, and allows preschoolers to explore the world of inventiveness in them. Slime is also science and introduces kids to the scientific concepts of polymers, non-Newtonian fluids, viscosity and more. Slime is a problem solving exercise that illustrates math and ratios. It is messy, tactile, and a great sensory play item for older and younger kids.

Matching!

Matching is an important early childhood math skill that helps in classification of objects. Matching is identification of same or similar objects based on their common properties. And this skill keeps recurring through out schooling life in different  forms. Important early matching skills that a young child needs to develop are matching by shape, size, and color.