Worksampling
Today I purposefully set out several fine motor activities. In order to be a great ” cutter ” children need practice and lots of it. They need to feel successful ! Today we laid out magazines and scissors. Nathan found lots of animals and glued them on a piece of paper. We talked about that is called a collage.
Our chandelier is getting more beautiful as we add beads ( and get our small muscles ready to write in the process. )
Worksampling is an online assessment we do as we collect data from the children in the form of dictation ,pictures, videos and observations. ( And you thought we just took all those pictures for you… right ? ) Three times a year we finalize our findings so they can be aggregated for all funded preschool programs in Arkansas. They use this data to validate whether our work is beneficial . We can also use this data as teachers to see what we might be missing ” teaching ” or giving children the opportunity to learn. We have a finalization due in about two weeks and last night I was completing a preliminary checklist. What I determined was that even though I know there are things we do doesn’t mean that I know if every child is proficient at it. Today I played a game with the littles to listen for their ability to rhyme. As I suspected my older children that are going into kindergarten could rhyme simple words . None of my younger students can rhyme yet.
Rhyming is a pre-reading skill. There are fun easy games you can play with your child without materials . As you are driving say ” we are going to play the rhyming game. I will see something and name it. You find a word that rhymes with the word I use. SIGN ! The child could come up with words like dine, wine, fine. Using nonsense words is fine ! It means they are catching on. Another game you could play is I spy…. I spy something in this room that rhymes with stamp ( lamp ) or bug ( Rug) The possibilities are endless. Also, reading rhyming books is very important ! READ READ READ !