Activities

As you dismiss the children to play on the playground, ask them to act out the activity they want to play and ask the other children to guess it.

Provide safe, found objects of various sizes, such as wooden and plastic spoons and spatulas, for the infants to explore, with close supervision.

Have the children take turns telling something they may or may not have done. The other children guess whether the statement is real or fantasy, for example, “I went to the beach yesterday.” Continue the activity until everyone has had a turn.

Put pictures in a bag including things that are real and things that cannot be real. Have the children choose a picture from the bag and glue it under the correct category: real or fantasy. Leave the poster in the room as a reference.

Using pictures, create simple recipes such as “Ants on a Log” which consists of celery, cream cheese and raisins. Encourage the children to create their own snack by following the recipe pictures.

After the children finish cleaning up in centers, ask them to recall some things they did. Be specific. For example, ask them to bring an item to group that they played with during centers.

Create simple recipes using pictures, such as “Ants on a Log,” which consist of celery, cream cheese and raisins. Encourage the children in the reading center to create their own snack by following the recipe pictures.

Record the children telling a story or singing a song and provide an opportunity for them to listen to themselves.

Record the children chanting or singing classroom songs and finger plays. Let them listen for and use during their reading center time.

Add books around the classroom that talk about recycling such as The Wartville Wizard by Don Madden. Bring in real and found materials for the children to create inventions and original creations from recycled materials.

Take a police vest and hat outside along with green, yellow and red traffic light signs. Have someone pretend to be the police officer in the tricycle area and direct traffic, during outdoor time.

In this game, one child plays the role of “stop light” and the rest try to touch him/her. During outdoor time, have the children form a line about 15 feet away from the “stop light.” The “stop light” faces away from them and says “green light.

Have two signs ready, one red and one green. Have the children hop, skip or walk across the carpet when you hold up the green “Go” sign and stop when you hold up the red “Stop” sign.

During outdoor time, have the children begin the chant, “Red Rover, Red Rover.” Call the children over to their side based on characteristics or clothing. For example, “Red Rover, Red Rover, send people with long hair right over.

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.