Today, let’s celebrate families, their commitment, and the way they integrate into their children’s school environment. Family Friday is all about honoring families, finding ways to engage with them, and including them in educational activities.
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FunShine Tells: Strengthening Storytime
Storytime has always been one of my favorites, both as a mom and as a teacher. I have always been passionate about seeing the children’s faces as they prepare and calm down to listen to the story. I wonder what children are thinking. Are they wondering what the story is about? Are they curious to learn about the characters? I have always thought that there are many hidden emotions in storytime. While one might think that more active activities might be children’s favorites, story time has its own special charm.
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Charlie’s Cues: Using Your Word Wall
The words children are exposed to regularly become a part of their everyday vocabulary. Creating a space where children can refer to, observe, listen to, and repeat familiar, new, or theme-related words is the basis of good auditory, linguistic, and communication development. One way to do this is to create a word wall in your preschool classroom.
The Fireflies curriculum helps you build your own word wall by offering four Word Wall Words in each monthly kit. July’s first theme, America the Beautiful, includes the words America and map. Both cards offer children an early exposure to geography, social studies, and patriotism. Children will learn the words fish and hook in Fishing Fun, July’s second theme. Fishing Fun is a summer-inspired theme, during which children will learn about fish, caring for fish as pets, other sea animals, and the sport of fishing.
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Little Bookworms: Encouraging Young Readers
A baby mouthing a book.
Small tears in the pages of a paperback.
A caregiver reading to a child in a rocking chair before nap.
Each snippet described here tells us something about early literacy. Babies first explore texts with their senses, young children learn book handling and how to turn pages through practice, and caregivers read to children at various times of day to promote attention, rest, interest, and imagination. Each snippet also exemplifies one of the many ways children become earnest readers. Continue reading
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FunShine Books and Reading Tips
As I enter my third year as curriculum manager for FunShine Express, I can safely say that reviewing books for our curriculum is my favorite part of the job. Each fall, I work with our writers to finalize themes for the next year. Once those are in place, I can begin working with vendors and publishers to secure samples of books that explore the subject matter and concepts conveyed in each theme. My background is in writing for children and early childhood education, so I feel especially compelled to find books that are both imaginative and educational. Our offerings over the past few years have covered everything from concept and nonfiction books to retellings of nursery rhymes and books in song. We offered our first bilingual book in the September/October 2020 Buttercups Kit and strive to offer more in the future. This is just one highlight of many.
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