This week we started our Ocean Dive unit with our Experience Preschool curriculum! I love when the ocean unit comes around in the theme rotation from Experience Early Learning. The ocean is fascinating and this is a fun unit to teach. This week our focus has been on seascapes. We have learned about the three main layers of the ocean (the sunlight zone, twilight zone, and the midnight zone). We have talked about ocean water, ocean plants, the ocean floor, and ocean caves - learning how they are formed. We have also taken the time to talk about how we can save the ocean (reduce, reuse, recycle), something that we will continue to talk about throughout the month.
This post contains affiliate links.
Today I hung up our vocabulary words from our first week of Ocean Dive. I wrote the words on a card, handed them one, and then I sent them on a scavenger hunt to find the word! Each week we have eight words. This was a fun way for my preschoolers to practice their emergent literacy skills! Their facial expressions when they found the word that matched their cards were priceless. I will be leaving the cards up throughout the month, and each week we will be doing a scavenger hunt with the new set of vocabulary words from the week. It will get a little more challenging as each week passes because they will have more words to read as they try to find the word on their card. It will be a great way to review the words from each week!
I love finding fun ways to help my preschoolers with their emergent literacy skills. A scavenger hunt was exciting for them, and therefore they were really excited to read these words that they needed to find, they felt like they were on a mission. I love that the key vocabulary cards we get in our Experience Preschool box includes a picture because children can identify the picture instantly. It not only serves as a clue to what the word is but they start to make the connection to the word. Teaching vocabulary with pictures in preschool is beneficial - children love pictures. Pictures grab their attention, and when we talk about the picture while learning the word it helps them remember the connection between the image and the text.
I also really like that these words are written in lowercase letters, because we have been focusing on recognizing lowercase letters and when to use an uppercase letter, so I think it's great that they are getting more familiar with lowercase letters in words! We have a word wall in our literacy room which focuses on our three letters that we are learning during the month. My preschoolers have plenty of opportunities to see our current letter, or our sight words for the week, just having them where they can see them helps their emergent literacy skills.
I really like that there are endless possibilities on how to use these cards. They are already excited for their next scavenger hunt!
Join us next week, as we start learning about large sea creatures!
