Atlanta School of Excellence

Our Wise Owls are learning about the season change and they are embracing Fall and what amazing things this season brings to us. They described how the leaves fall from the trees and the colors that represent fall. They used the fingerpainting method to create their vision of a fall tree with it‘s leaves.

There are several benefits of finger painting for preschoolers, just to name a few :
-Kids get to master hand-eye coordination.
-Finger painting allows small children to experiment and explore paint.
-When the children finger paint on a paper that is placed on the floor, there is improvement of large muscles control and balance.
-There is more concentration on the process, rather than on the end result.
-This activity enhances creativity, imagination and self-expression.
-Kids get to develop their language when there is talk of the creativity process, what they’re painting and the colors used.
-It is an opportunity for children to learn that they can change and control their environment.





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Our friends in this small group are practicing with the styrofoam blocks. This group of friends are so responsible with the styrofoam blocks they will be moving on to the large wooden blocks.

Blocks help children learn to take turns and share materials, develop new friendships, become self-reliant, increase attention span, cooperate with others, and develop self-esteem. — Kathleen Harris. Development in all areas. Block play requires fine and gross motor skills.

Why toy blocks rock: The benefits of construction play
motor skills and hand-eye coordination,
spatial reasoning,
cognitive flexibility,
language skills,
a capacity for creative, divergent thinking,
social competence, and.
engineering skills.

Emergent writing “means that children begin to understand that writing is a form of communication and their marks on paper convey a message” (Mayer, 2007, p. 35). Emergent writing progresses along a developmental continuum. Reading and writing develop simultaneously and are interrelated.

This week is Georgia Pre-K is learning about shoes. Some friends had to use the shopping list to find things you wear on your feet.

What are the stages of emergent writing?

Stages of Emergent Writing
-Drawing and Imitative Writing. The child writes a message with scribbling that imitates “grown-up” writing. ...
-Copying Words. The child copies words from handy resources like books, posters, and word walls. ...
-Drawing and Strings of Letters. ...
-Early Phonetic Writing. ...
-Phonetic Writing. ...
-Conventional/Some Phonetic Writing.

When toddlers are first introduced to blocks they may learn how to hold on to them, how they feel, how heavy they are, they explore the bright colors, and begin to carry them around. They will experiment with how blocks may sound when they fall, or when they bang them together. Soon toddlers are learning cause and effect as they are filling and dumping, stacking, knocking down and laying blocks side by side on the floor. Concepts such as learning sizes, comparing objects by making exact matches and the order of objects are also being learned. Socially, block play contributes to their developing self confidence, for example as they learn how to stack blocks they are proud of their success and feel a sense of accomplishment. Through block play a young child’s expressive and receptive language is being expanded by learning words such as “fill,” “dump,” “pick up,” “stack,” “balance,” “tall”, and “short.”

Jacob has discovered a new side of science and he is intrigued ! He didn’t understand why the magnets would repel from each other until he learned about the positive and negative factor of magnets and how the opposites attract.

Young kids learn by exploring, observing, and figuring out the way things work by experimenting. Exploring magnets encourages all of these. Magnetism is an attraction that two items have making them stick together! Even from a distance magnets can find each other because of their magnetic field. A magnetic field is an invisible area all around the magnet that attracts other magnetic material.

SIX things to know about magnets:

Almost everyone knows these six basic facts about how magnets behave:

1. A magnet has two ends called poles, one of which is called a north pole or north-seeking pole, while the other is called a south pole or south-seeking pole.

2. The north pole of one magnet attracts the south pole of a second magnet, while the north pole of one magnet repels the other magnet's north pole. So we have the common saying: like poles repel, unlike poles attract.

3. A magnet creates an invisible area of magnetism all around it called a magnetic field.

4. The north pole of a magnet points roughly toward Earth's north pole and vice-versa. That's because Earth itself contains magnetic materials and behaves like a gigantic magnet.

5. If you cut a bar magnet in half, you get two brand new, smaller magnets, each with its own north and south pole.

6. If you run a magnet a few times over an unmagnetized piece of a magnetic material (such as an iron nail), you can convert it into a magnet as well. This is called magnetization.

It's in our nature to be resistant to change. We may enjoy each season for its individuality, and though we might appreciate a change once it's taken place, there's an anxiety that comes with that build up to the actual change. Knowing change is coming tends to spark a bit of nervous energy within us, making us feel like we need to prepare ourselves or brace for impact , even when it's as simple as allowing the seasons to turn. Let's welcome Fall with open arms ASOE !

Happy National Cheeseburger Day !

This morning we had our first fire drill of the new school year.

Fire drills are an important safety practice, and legal requirement, within any commercial property, and educational facilities are no exception. However, when these environments contain young children, greater attention and care will need to be given to the process and its efficiency.

The nature of some childcare facilities means that not all children who may attend are in on the same day. This will necessitate carrying out drills on different days of the week in order to familiarise all children to the process, limiting stress and panic in the event of a real evacuation. Similarly, increasing the regularity of drills means more practice and increased familiarity.

Our students did amazing following directions and exiting the building to get to a safe place. Our preschool students were curious as to why we had to leave out right when breakfast was finished, they learned they fires can happen unexpectedly and who they need to call in case of a fire.