Activities

Provide the children with character and setting picture cards from familiar nursery rhymes. For example, a Humpty Dumpty card and a wall card, a Jack and Jill card and a hill card, an Itsy Bitsy Spider card and a web card.

Choose several nursery rhymes for the children to act out and divide the class into groups accordingly.  For example, to act out "Little Miss Muffett" you will need two actors or actresses, Miss Muffett and the Spider.

Provide posters of familiar chants and nursery rhymes for the children to use while in the reading center.

Inside the dramatic play area create simple prop boxes for the children to retell familiar nursery rhymes.

Read or recite nursery rhymes with the children.

Choose a nursery rhyme such as “Jack and Jill Went Up the Hill” and make vocabulary cards with words and pictures that children can use to retell the story. Examples include fetch, crown, boy, girl and trot.

Create prop boxes for the children to act out different nursery rhymes. For example, Little Miss Muffett's props include a dress, a small stool (tuffet), a plastic spider, cottage cheese (curds and whey) or just a bowl and spoon.

Provide a variety of different sizes of nuts and bolts. Encourage the children to screw the nuts on and off the bolts. Use a magnifying glass to examine the inside of the nut and the outside of the bolt.

Gather nuts and bolts in three or four sizes and place them on a tray. Ask the children to find the ones that go together. The children will need to match the largest bolt with the largest nut.

Provide an assortment of nuts and bolts, keys and locks. Encourage the children to screw the nuts onto the bolts and place the keys in the matching locks.

Trace the outlines of several classroom items(a book, a spoon, a block, a marker, a hammer,a large button) onto poster board and cover the poster board with clear contact paper.

Create a simple obstacle course on the playground. Demonstrate how to go down the slide, around the monkey bars and beside the sandbox. Support the children by leading them in chanting directions that guide them through the course.

Create an outdoor obstacle course using playground items such as hula-hoops, small traffic cones and balance beams. Provide opportunities for the children to maneuver through the course.

Set up an obstacle course in your room or on the playground. Have the children crawl through tunnels, up stairs, down slides, under tables and chairs or around shelves.

Design an obstacle course using items such as chairs, hula-hoops, carpet squares or a balance beam. Start with three to five sections. Give step-by-step directions using positional words and physical demonstrations.

Create a simple obstacle course on the playground during outdoor time. Ask children to walk through the obstacle course. Next, depending on the complexity, have them go through different ways, such as backwards, crawling or holding a friend's hand.

Add blue food coloring to vanilla yogurt or pudding, or use blueberry yogurt. Give the children a zip-top bag containing half a graham cracker that they crush.

Watch a short video about ocean life. Using sand, art supplies and blue plastic wrap, encourage the children to create an ocean scene.

After reading Officer Buckle and Gloria by Peggy Rathmann, encourage the children to think of alternate endings by asking questions such as, “What if Officer Buckle had not listened to Claire and did not begin teaching safety lessons again?”

Read the book Oh No, George! by Chris Haughton. Talk to the children about George and why it was so hard for George to be a good dog.