One of the biggest things that is on the Standards of Preschool is the knowledge of Community Helpers and the understanding of what they do for our life. To state it exactly….
“Social Studies: 23. Community: 1. Recognizes there are many people in the Community. 2. Recognizes individuals in their community and world differ in cultural practices and language. 3. Understands what it means to be a part of a community. 4. Developing a sense of direction and location. ” Standards of PrekprintableFun
So lets back track a bit. When I started this whole process of doing preschool and prek from home, i wanted my kids to be ready for Kinder. With that I have been printing off just the themes from the curriculum that I have been using and nothing else since September. I have used other resourses yes, but mostly in math.
I have been so stupid as of late, and forgot there were other subjects that were just as important as language and math. Social Studies, Science, physical education and development, and social emotions, etc. So looking at the standards, I have felt really inadequate lately. LOL. Which always brings me back to my fears that I was never really meant to be a TEACHER, just a great MOM and a person who is amazing with KIDS ( in the fun and afterschool sense).
Then after reading the standards a little more, I took a deep breath and just felt so much better. That is what the standards are for. A menu tool to help teachers with what the kids are supposed to be learning and the goals for their future.
So I relaxed and just started rewriting all my lesson plans for the rest of the year. I am NOT redoing the themes, just the extra learning around them.
Starting with Post Office.
Community Helpers as I said is a huge subject with Preschool. We learn about Fire Fighters, Police Officers, Postal Workers, etc. Each having a week to study the theme. However sometimes we do them all in one giant week because in February Postal workers are celebrated for all they do for us during the holidays ( especially Valentines day) and unlike other places of business, they are closed on Presidents day, a National Holiday to celebrate the presidents that have come before and are current. Whats funny is I remember in grade school back in the 80’s and 90’s we had both Washington’s Birthday and Lincolns Birthday off of school. Must have been too much for teachers, so they combined them into one day.
Back to Post Office.
Its important for the kids to get a sense of how hard the post officers work each and ever day. Lucky for me, we have a Post Office right across the street. Pre Covid I would have done a walking field trip to it and shown the kids inside. Course now we can’t. So I have to do the next best thing, and watch a video on the post office.
There is a youtube channel that is called, “Can You Image That” Its for kids and they talk about different types of community helpers and their dream jobs. The mail carrier one is very cute. Plus the other site is “How Stuff Works” and their post office tour is very cool.
For Pretend Play I will turn the NEW Pretend Play Area into a Post Office.
Using the shelves I have, I will make something similar to this. Sometimes, a local post office will donate to classrooms, but I dont think I will get away with it for my home, so I might buy a couple of boxes, not expensive ones, but cheap and easy, and have the kids use them. I already have envelopes. Fake stamps are easy to print off, and also badges too. For shirts, my father and father in law, and my husband all have blue shirts they can loan us for this week. Plus for the delivery bags, they can barrow a couple of my purses. LOL.
For Math the kids are learning one to one correspondence. Which is matching something from one side of the page to the other. Whether its a picture or a number. They need to be able to do that fast. Make sense of a match and put them together.
For Social Studies the community helpers and what they do for us and our community. What community means in general as well.
For Physical Education: We are going to do types of movement and they have to tell me what it is and what part of the body it helps.
For Art: Cutting pictures out of Magazines. learning to use scissors the right way and gluing them down onto the a paper. They have to find people in the community and put together their own little story.
Now that I am back on track with their learning. I will be conducting the assessment on them in March. I didnt put a Spring Break on the Calendar becuase we have no plans to go anywhere, So I will do it when spring break technically is and that on my Theme Calendar is for St. Patrick’s day week. March 15th, 2021.
I hope that all my followers are doing well out there and I hope I am helping. Stay Safe out there.
The TAWL Mom 