Sacred Heart Preschool celebrates ‘Week of the Young Child’

     The Week of the Young Child™ is an annual celebration hosted by the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) celebrating early learning, young children, their teachers, and families. This year’s event was April 16-20.

     Sacred Heart Preschool teachers Trish Schmid (Monday/Wednesday) and Leslie Althoff (Tuesday/Thursday), and classroom associate Kelly McAtee, developed special activities to bring awareness to the impact of a well-rounded preschool program, and to celebrate the gift that young children are to the world.

     Music Monday: Students created musical instruments and played along with favorite songs. Music is infused throughout each day at preschool. They use songs to help transition to a new activity, sing thematic songs to practice new vocabulary and ideas, move to music and play instruments to express our feelings, and dance for exercise.

     Tasty Tuesday: Students worked together to mix up a tasty fruit dip on Tuesday and pizzas on Wednesday. Cooking is a fun and beneficial activity for preschool students. They worked on basic math and literacy skills, practiced taking turns, learned new vocabulary and motor skills, and are more likely to try new foods and understand healthy choices. Some other snacks they cooked this year include waffles, guacamole, applesauce and popcorn.

     Work Together Wednesday: Students work together, build together, and learn together. Their learning centers within the classroom always include building activities. This week they had a large train set, which took a lot of teamwork to coordinate. They also built with wooden blocks and cardboard blocks. They practice problem solving and communication when building together, and enjoy using a variety of materials and tools in the building center.

     Artsy Thursday: Families were invited to join students Thursday morning for breakfast and an art gallery walk. Students displayed pieces from their spring thematic unit. The Monday/Wednesday class rescheduled their art gallery walk for April 23 due to the weather cancellation. Students enjoy creating their own masterpieces with free choice of medium and tools and learn to express themselves and communicate through process art. They also enjoy learning new skills and developing fine motor control with teacher directed activities.

     Family Friday: Families are the first and most important teachers of the children. Sacred Heart Preschool is thankful for the families that choose Sacred Heart and support their students beyond the classroom. In addition to the immediate family of the children who attend preschool and prekindergarten at Sacred Heart, there are many groups and organizations that also support the students. Family Friday is an opportunity to recognize the many services that help them develop and build the program at Sacred Heart. The program could not be successful without our volunteers, county and state resources, and national organizations.

     Sacred Heart School provides programming for preschool, prekindergarten, and K-6^th grades. The preschool program is licensed under DHS, and the prekindergarten program participates in the Statewide Voluntary Preschool Program. Wrap-around care is available for both programs in the 2018-19 school year. E-mail Trish@shmonticello.org or call 319-465-4605 for enrollment or other requests for information.