A simple recipe for amazing preschool success with your little ones

What does it take to make an outstanding recipe - whether the traditional kind for food, or a recipe for something much less tangible, like success?

I would argue that all recipes need ingredients, and better ingredients will usually yield better results. Of course, there has to be a method for putting those ingredients together, and surely almost every recipe needs to be carefully seasoned. 

 

My ingredients for preschool - beside the obvious preschoolers and adult carer - would have to start with books and music!  So it was this last week, when we focused on learning the letter J.

One of the wonderful things about children is their energy, and rather than fight it, I figured we'd expend some of it by dancing and singing. We exercised to 100 with Jack Hartman's Count to 100, and did the Tooty Ta with Dr. Jean - because no kid can resist sticking out their tongue and bottom while they dance (who can)?! We sang Hello My Name Is Joe, adding actions until we could barely stand, and worked on vocal modulation sang loudly and quietly with John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt while jingling our bells. Were the kids worn out? NO! Were the teachers? Yes, yes we were, but it was only 9:30 am so we kept going.

Do you see the huge pile of jewelry in the box shown above? We put it ALL on and JUMPED JOYFULLY in jewelry.  By the time we were done the kiddos were ready to sit down for a few books (and my exercise ring was closed for the day)! 

Jump Frog, Jump is a great book for an energetic group - the pages alternate between story line and exclaiming "Jump Frog, Jump!" We held our bodies still on the story pages, just waiting to explode our arms up into the air as we shouted at the frog to JUMP! (Little ones can't still for very long, but by alternating still and moving we're working on self control.)

After our stories were done we worked our fine motor muscles gluing jewels onto a letter j.  I had fine plans for making a jack-o-lantern uppercase J another day, but... some days you follow the recipe, and other days you improvise. It's all good!

This week we'll be focusing on letter K.  My music playlist includes Katalina Matalina, Old King Cole, Kookaburra, and Polly Put the Kettle On.  We'll be reading about kangaroos and koalas, making a letter K craft with a kangaroo and song, and crafting adorable koala headbands.

K is also for kittens, kisses and Kente Cloth, and we'll read about them all. We'll reach into my letter K box to find a king, keys, koala, KitKat and chocolate kisses. I have a karate outfit that the kiddos will take turns wearing, and we'll look for chocolate kisses hidden in the toy kitchen. In case that isn't enough, I'm super excited to have downloaded all the alphabet songs from HeidiSongs, so we'll be singing and dancing lots of letters!

If we go back to the recipe metaphor, I'll finish by adding a helping dollop of outside time and free play, and seasoning liberally with joy and love.  I'm pretty sure our recipe is going to be amazing!