Activities

Read the book Red: A Crayon's Story by Michael Hall. Use different voice inflections and tones to read the story. Ask children to think about what makes them different from their friends. Ask the children to share what is unique about them.

Give each child a small, clear cup of Cheerios in the science center. Draw a red line where the Cheerios come to on the cup. Tell the children this is their tiny dump and it is filled with car tires. Tires take up lots of space.

During a read-aloud in large group, introduce the problem of holding a place in the book until you can resume reading.

During a read-aloud, introduce the problem of holding a place in the book until you can resume reading.

During outdoor time, play a game that encourages the children to remember a sequence of movements. For example, they first hop on one foot, turn around, touch their knees and cross their ankles. Do this in a large circle outside.

Throughout the year, display language experience charts dictated by the children in the reading area and encourage the children to “reread” them. Talk with the children about the specific experience when the chart was created.

Make a class book to help children understand past and present. Each day, take several pictures of the children doing activities. At the end of the day, have children look at pictures and choose one to represent their day.

You will need cereal boxes or other small food boxes and markers. Show the children a real remote and talk about all the things we use remote controls for in our daily lives. Talk to children about turning things on and off.

Use a remote control or make a large, pretend remote out of a shoe box. While playing music, have the children dance when you "turn the remote on" and stop when you "turn it off.

During outdoor time, encourage the children to play a familiar game using book characters instead of the regular names.

Read books to the infant with lots of simple words and repetition such as Moo, Baa La La La by Sandra Boynton.

Brainstorm gestures that the children can use when conflict arises among peers. Some gestures may include holding a hand out to indicate “stop” or shaking the head for “no.

Encourage the children to lie on their cots before rest time and "read" a book. This creates good habits as well as gives the children some wind- down time before naptime.

Collect menus and other restaurant-style props to create a restaurant in the dramatic play area. Be sure to include aprons, notepads for taking orders and serving trays.

Provide props in the dramatic play area to recreate a favorite restaurant. Along with menus and food items, include order pad with pictures of the available food items.

Create a “restaurant” prop box with menus, plates, ads, logos, food, a cash register and utensils. Encourage the children to create their own restaurant scene.

Tune: "Mary Had a Little Lamb"
Girls are in the restroom now,

restroom now,

restroom now

Girls are in the restroom now

Boys, please don't come in
Boys are in the rest room now…

Post charts into the reading center of previously taught finger plays, songs, and poems, along with props, for the children to retell and act out.

Create simple prop boxes that the children can use in the reading center for retelling familiar stories.

Using familiar nursery rhymes or poems as a starting point, encourage the children to tell the story of the nursery rhyme in their own words. For example, think about poor Peter Peter Pumpkin Eater's wife being locked up in a pumpkin shell.