Building confidence and skills is a motto of mine. I heard once years ago that children need to build confidence before they can build skills. The more I think about it the more it makes sense to me. I would be pretty hesitant and stand offish to do something if I didn't have the confidence that I could actually do it. Aren't kids the same?
At the first of each year most of what we do in preschool is brand new and scary. Writing a letter, cutting with scissors, using glue, even asking questions. As we learn each day, the confidence grows and so does their ability to build the skills they need to succeed.
Everything we do in preschool has a purpose. From show and tell and play time to tracing letters and cutting our shapes. One thing I've mentioned before and I'd like to talk about again is the importance of building fine motor skills.
This month as in every month we did many projects that helped develop this skill. We do tend to do more activities that work on fine motor over large motor in my class just due to time and space. I think that most kids get plenty of the gross motor skill practice at home.
So far this year i've been thrilled that each month my box of Mother Goose Time curriculum has had lace up type activities. Here they are developing their fine motor skills as the thread the noodles and train cars onto the pipe cleaner. At the beginning of the year some of the kids struggled with doing this type of thing. And now just 4 months in it's no big deal for them. 
My curriculum also includes great art projects that allow for the class to use different mediums to paint or use markers and crayons on. They get to use their brains to figure out the best way of going about painting or coloring something that isn't a flat piece of paper. Sometimes they are hesitant because it's new but once they give it a try, they always feel accomplished and good about themselves.
I just love this picture! It shows that his fine motor skill of steading the paint brush is still developing. So to keep it steady, using two hands to paint is going to have to do. 
One skill that requires a lot of practice and work is cutting. I like to give as much opportunity to cut as I can. This skill requires a very strong hand and understanding of how to manipulate paper instead of moving your wrist. I see all sorts of ways kids try to get those scissors to do what they want. I have to remind them to move and turn the paper, not the hand.
I love when our MGT art supplies come with a lot of small manipulative. On this particular craft we made elephant masks. I dumped a bunch of square tissue paper onto the tables and gave each child a paper plate and some glue.
From the looks of it it seems to be just a bunch of nonsense. But what you can't see is that a lot is going on here. They are using their fine motor skills to separate the papers and glue them onto the plate. They are taking pieces to make a whole. That is the great thing about art. It is teaching them that they can take a bunch of random things and create something from it. Just like giving them a bunch of random letters! Learning them and putting them together in a proper order creates words, then sentences, then, stories and information!
The crazier and more chaotic our craft is, the harder their brains have to work to figure it all out, and that is when they learn and grow the most!
The finished Product of a bunch of small pieces
Happy skill building friends!
xoxo- miss mandy
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