Ms. Cox's School Family

Our End-of-the-Year Celebration was a huge success! We sang songs, gave awards, and had a school family picnic! These lil babies are STRAIGHT OUTTA KINDERGARTEN! 🥹😭❤️

Our Author’s Party was so much fun! Families got to meet their favorite young authors as they shared their published work! Everyone enjoyed cookies and “real” punch! 📝❤️

Tonight our kindergarten engineers shared our Spring PBL projects with our families! Students applied what they had learned about forces and motion to design and create their very own games! They LOVED this project and they were super excited to teach others how to play their games!

It’s the collaboration for me! Our 4th grade friends came down to help us practice our presentations! After we practiced, they read to us! It was so fun to see some of my former kindergarten “babies” back in kindergarten! 🥰

Kindergarten shared their project-based learning projects at our first ever “Storybook Showcase” tonight! They worked hard on their projects and were so excited to share them with our families!

So many adorable book characters in kindergarten today! 📚🥰❤️

Our FIRST Grandparents Day Lunch in THREE YEARS! Loved seeing these proud grandparents and happy grandkids! 🥰

THIS! This is so important! This is why we do so many tear art activities in kindergarten! This is why we play with Legos, Play-Doh, Marble Track, cars, and other toys! This is why we use triangle grip crayons and pencils! Our little hands are still developing and we need strong hands if we want to be strong writers! 💪🏼🖐🏾🤚🏽❤️

Did you know that a 3-year old (top left image) and a 6-year old (top right image) have significantly different skeletal structure in their hands?! Notice the bones in the wrist of the 3-year old -- many of them are still mostly cartilage! Look at all the spaces in between the bones where muscles and tendons will change through the years. Even the difference between a 6-year old and a 14-year old (lower right) is huge!

Preschoolers have SO much development to do before they can write the way school-aged children or adults can!

Please do NOT stress if your preschooler does not want to write or draw. Some love it and some don't.

While they are growing, strengthen those little bones and muscles! Here are some great pre-writing, muscle-strengthening activities:

* painting, drawing, coloring
* playdough
* tearing and cutting
* gluing
* poking holes in things (try toothpicks and paper!)
* digging in dirt
* building with LEGOS, marble runs, or other blocks
* beading (try beads, cut straws, or even bobbins!)
* puzzles
* squeezing (try stress balls, squeezing water in a sponge, or using a pipette)
* picking up and throwing balls (use different sizes!)
* playing with toys (watch what their little fingers do when they pick up and move little cars, marbles, action figures, etc!)

These all strengthen and help develop little hands, muscles, and bones. When they are physically ready to write, it will be so much easier than if they were pushed when they didn't want to and weren't ready!

Congrats to all my former students who graduate this year! I’m so proud of you! Share those graduation pics in the comments!

I created these EDITABLE Meet the Teacher letter templates to give teachers a fun way to introduce themselves to students and families! The PowerPoint file is formatted to 8.5x11” to make printing easy! We sent our Meet the Teacher letters out last week and our students and families were so excited to receive them and not have to wonder all summer! You can find both products in my TPT Store!

I created this ink-friendly version of my rainbow-themed certificates help teachers with their end of the year (virtual) celebrations! It can be used in a slideshow and shared with students and families via your favorite online platform. It is also formatted to 8.5x11” to make printing easy! You can find this and other end of the year awards in my TPT store! Link in bio!