Busy at Preschool

In one of our four-year-old classes the children were discussing shapes.  As you can see it was "Circle Day."  The project for the morning was to make a caterpillar out of different color circles.  The children could either use a hole punch and brads to attach the circles or they could use staplers.  Both require a different skill and muscle strength.  With the hole punch the child needs to squeeze and with the stapler they need to push all while deciding where to attach the next circle.  Eye-hand coordination is used to line up the two circles and either staple or insert a brad.  With the brad the child then needs to turn both pieces over without losing the brand and use very fine motor skills to seperate the legs of the brad.  The child repeats the process until they have a caterpillar as long as they like.

Children also were attaching pipe cleaners for antennas  and legs with a third option of masking tape.  Stickers and markers were provided to add facial features as desired.

What skills are involved in this project?

• Shape and Color Recognition
• Counting
• Fine Motor Skills
• Eye/Hand Coordination
• Concentration
• Following Multi-Step Directions
• Cooperation and Sharing

The children are working on this project while many other activities are going on in the classroom.  Therefore, they needed to be able to concentrate on the task at hand while not being distracted by the surrounding noise and fun.

All these skills are used in just one project!