Author: Chalimar Rios

FunShine Tells: Why Use Curriculum?

| Chalimar Rios

Nursery children playing with teacher in the classroom

Running a preschool or childcare center can bring excitement, gratification, and joy as well as uncertainty and challenges. Starting from the moment that first idea sparks until you finally see it come true, one of the best tools to have on hand is the support of an educational curriculum. The strategies, structure, and interactions between adults and peers provided by the use of an educational curriculum in a child’s first years of learning is proven to form a student who not only will enjoy the learning process in the preschool years, but also in school years to come. Continue reading →

Charlie’s Cues: Using the Alphabet Word Cards

| Chalimar Rios

The sounds, words, songs, rhymes, and illustrations children are exposed to influence the ways they speak and communicate. This is why an environment rich in writing, letters, and vocabulary offers them the opportunity to develop strong language skills.

The Fireflies curriculum, for ages 3-5, becomes part of building a writing-rich classroom by including Alphabet Word Cards as part of your monthly kit. The cards show the letters that will be taught that month, accompanied by illustrations. Each month the letters taught are different but the purpose behind the cards is the same: to help children acquire vocabulary, learn new letters and their sounds, encourage repetition, and familiarize children with and help them become comfortable with using new words.

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Charlie’s Cues: Using the All About Me Cards

| Chalimar Rios

Independence, perseverance, attention to detail, and taking interest in a variety of tasks are some of the lessons that we want to teach children from an early age. We can do this through modeling behaviors, reading books, observing images, and last but not least, through experience.

FunShine Express makes this process easier for you by including All About Me Cards as part of the bimonthly toddler curriculum kit, Buttercups. The All About Me Cards is a series of cards featuring real images included in the Teacher Pack. Through these images, children observe peers performing daily tasks and activities that relate to the monthly themes. The cards usually focus on tasks children can help with, feelings they experience, wonderful things their bodies can do, and exploring the world with their bodies and senses.

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Charlie’s Cues: Using the Counting Cards

| Chalimar Rios

We are exposed to math concepts from the time we are born and this continues as we grow. We learn how and when to communicate when we are “all done,” and how to ask for more when there is a little bit of food left. Through transitions, we begin to learn the concept of time, and then we continue to learn math concepts through stories, rhymes, and songs. As teachers and caregivers, we also make math part of the children’s day by counting toys when cleaning up, counting the days of the week on the calendar, or when we celebrate birthdays together. Math is everywhere!

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Charlie’s Cues: Using the Search and Find

| Chalimar Rios

To keep the attention of infants and toddlers, interactions usually have to be entertaining, engaging, and include items of interest. Young children enjoy searching for hidden things, following lights and sounds, and looking at images with bright colors and patterns. These types of activities prompt children to explore and grow curiosity in them. This is why we are including a new component in our bimonthly Buttercups kit, the Search and Find Piece. As always, I am writing to help you understand our featured component’s use, benefit, and how to adapt it in different areas of your classroom and routine.

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