Activities

Provide play dough in the sensory center area and encourage the children to use it to create models of their family members. You might also include doll-sized clothing for the children to dress their models.

Give each child in the sensory center a ball of play dough to construct anything he/she wants. Have accessories available to enhance the child's play, such as pipe cleaners and wiggly eyes.

Provide play dough and laminated mats printed with uppercase and lowercase letters. Encourage the children in the writing center to roll the play dough into thin logs, and twist and manipulate the logs to cover the letters on the mats.

In small group, introduce play dough and play dough tools such as cutters, rollers, scissors, plastic knives and plates. Demonstrate how the tools can be used with the play dough. Then have the children experiment.

Provide play dough for the children and encourage them to create with it. Ask questions such as, "What kind of animal can you make?" and "What kind of tail does it have?" Give the children pipe cleaners and wiggly eyes to add to their creation.

Surprise the children with scented play dough in the sensory center. Add extracts, oils or dried coffee grounds inside balls of play dough. Additionally, pour a sample amount of each scent on cotton balls.

Provide laminated cards showing 2-D shapes and play dough. Encourage the children to roll the play dough out and manipulate it to match the shapes.

Show the children how to make play dough worms by modeling rolling out the dough on the table with the palms of your hands. Encourage the children to make their worms different lengths.

Set up play with multiple baby dolls, bottles, blankets and other accessories. Encourage the children to interact and talk to the dolls as if they were the adults. Say, "Tell your baby what you're doing;" then, "Ask the baby if he/she is hungry.

Add props, photographs, and a sign to turn the dramatic play area into a familiar local community business.

Play multicultural music and set out scarves for the infant to wave to the music. Model and talk about the concepts up and down, side to side, high and low, and fast and slow.

Create pretend snow by mixing 1/2 cup of child- safe white hair conditioner and 3 cups of baking soda.

Use two pretend telephones to have a back-and- forth conversation with the children. Encourage one child to pick up the phone. Begin by saying, “Hello,” and give the child time to respond.

During outdoor time, take yardsticks out for the children to use as sand-writing tools. See who can create humongous letters.

While on the playground discuss the sun, the clouds, the shadows and the wind. Provide the children with streamers made from lightweight, colorful fabric cut into strips and tied to an empty masking tape roll.

During outdoor time, complete a playground safety check daily with the children and consider selecting a child to be the “Playground Inspector.

Explain to the children that symbols are drawings of things in the real world. Show them a simple map that includes symbols. Allow them to tell you what the symbols mean.

Have one or two children dress up as police officers and issue “tickets” to children on tricycles who are not obeying rules, during outdoor time. You could set up a stop sign and speed limit sign. Let the children have fun and pretend.

Take photos of the children on the playground. Print some out or show children the photos on a phone or computer. Ask, “What are you doing in this picture? Tell us about it.

Encourage the children to explain the safety rules for playground equipment. For example, “You must go down the slide on your bottom,” or “Only one person on the slide at a time.