Activities

Choose one child to be the cat and “sleep” in a part of the room away from the group. The remaining children will be mice.

Create a pendulum in the block center by tucking a tennis ball inside the leg of panty hose and hang it from the ceiling. Give the children boxes, cardboard tubes, and small yogurt containers.

While children are in the dramatic play area, encourage them to discuss how they set the table or to give instructions on where to find items. For example, a child might say, “The pizza is inside the cabinet.

Try this version of "London Bridge."  Have the children work together to get all of their friends under the bridge.  Let them take turns being the bridge keeper.  Sing:
The Pre-K Bridge is falling down, falling down, falling down.

Tune: "Skip to My Lou" 
Hands on my hips and my lips are zipped

Hands on my hips and my lips are zipped

Hands on my hips and my lips are zipped

What a quiet friend I'll be

Read the book The Rainbow Pants by Kelly Brooks-Bay. After you have read the book, ask children to talk about diff erent emotions.

Encourage the children in the reading center to read books to their peers by designating a chair in the room as the Reader's Chair. During the center time,the children may choose to gather there and take turns reading familiar books to one another.

Place a variety of interesting items in math area to teach one-to-one correspondence such as an empty egg carton and plastic eggs or rocks and plastic insects. Real socks and real silverware with a silverware tray will encourage matching.

Give the children wordless books to us in the dramatic play area, such as The Red Book by Barbara Lehman. Encourage them to create their own story.

During large group read Balancing Act by Ellen Stoll Walsh. The story begins with two little mice that use a long stick balanced on a rock to create a teeter- totter for themselves.

Give directions to the children such as run to the big tree, run around it, then run back or run to the slide, slide down and then run back during outdoor time.

Give each child a short length of cardboard tube from a paper towel roll and a colorful scarf or piece of thin fabric. Show the children how to push his/ her scarf into the tube and then pull it back out again.

Provide a variety of shape manipulatives and review the name of each one. Give each child a shape and then hide a shape in your hand. Say, “I have a shape in my hand that is the same as Billy's shape.

Read The Snowman by Raymond Briggs.  Begin with a picture walk.  Encourage the children to talk about the pictures.

Sing “The Sounds in the Word” to the tune of “The Wheels on the Bus”:
The sounds in the word go

/b/-/u/-/s/, /b/-/u/-/s/, /b/-/u/-/s/

The sounds in the word go /b/-/u/-/s/.

Have the children plan a talent show, practice their acts and perform it with microphones and costumes. Create a stage area in dramatic play with chairs for the audience.

Make paper plate puppets to represent the three bears and Goldilocks. Help the children act out the story using different voices for the characters. Practice with them how to make Papa, Mama and Baby Bear voices.

inside the dramatic play are include materials such as straws, sticks and LEGO®s in the block area for the children to recreate the houses from “The Three Little Pigs.” Introduce some new vocabulary to describe the houses.

While reading “The Three Little Pigs,” ask the children questions such as, “What would you do?” or “What type of house would you want to live in?” Use props such as puppets or flannel board pieces to keep the children engaged.

During outdoor time, read a book such as The Tiny Seed by Eric Carle to the children who are interested. Provide clipboards and colored pencils for them to draw a picture of their favorite part of the story.