March Guidelines for Preschool Learning Experiences

English Language Arts
Communicate personal experiences or interests. Share information about underwater creatures, remember what they liked best. Listen to and use formal and informal language. Use new vocabulary learned through exploring underwater books and literature. Develop familiarity with the forms of alphabet letters, awareness of print and letter forms. Relate themes and information in books to personal experiences. Explore themes that grow out of children’s interests (Underwater Creatures). Use emergent writing skills to make letters in many settings and purposes. Engage in sensory experiences such as making letters in sand, with finger paint or tracing over sandpaper letter.
Mathematics
Connect many kinds/quantities of concrete objects and actions to numbers. Participate in finger plays “Five Little Sea Urchins”. Use positional language and ordinal numbers (first, second, third) Line up to go outside/inside or wash hands. Sort, categorize or classify objects by more than one attribute. (sorting sea animal manipulative by size, color) Use estimation in meaningful ways and follow up by verifying accuracy of estimations. (Seashell estimation) Organize and draw conclusions from facts they have collected (graphs, charts with facts they have collected about underwater creatures).
Science/Technology Engineering
Ask and seek answers to questions about objects and events with the assistance of interested adults. (investigate seaweed, seashells ect.) Identify and use simple tools appropriately to extend observations. Use hand lenses of varying power to examine shells, rocks, creatures. Compare and contrast natural materials such as water, rocks, soil, and living organisms using descriptive language. Observe and identify the characteristics and needs of human things: humans, animals and plants. Use their senses of sight, hearing, touch, smell and taste to explore their environment using sensory vocabulary.
History and Social Science
Discuss and identify the order of daily routine-describe what comes first, next and last. Engage in activities that build understanding of words for location and direction. (nature walks, Heritage trip, library) Discuss classroom responsibilities in daily activities. Taking responsibility for cleaning up after themselves and their activities. Discuss roles and responsibilities of people in our community (family night-puppeteer) Observe some U.S. national holidays and discuss why and how we celebrate them.
Health Education
Build awareness of directionality and position in space-maneuver through obstacle courses created by children. Build upper body strength and stability to gain controlled movement of shoulders-pouring water/sand in and out of pitchers and buckets. Discuss nutritious meals and snacks and the difference between healthy and junk food. Practice independence and self help skills-serve themselves snack and clean up after each other. Talk about some basic ways they can keep their environment clean and take care of it-talk about ways to keep the ocean clean.
Arts
Participate in simple sequences of movements and dance to various kinds of music-alphabet march. Act out ways that movement and dance can show feeling or convey meaning. Sing expressively-songs to share with our friends at the Heritage. Listen to storytellers and watch puppet shows-make puppets for the puppet theater-underwater finger puppets. Observe the safe and appropriate use and care of art materials-cleaning up properly, care for all art media respectfully. Experiment with the use of texture in artwork-art with sand, seaweed, starfish prints ect.