Activities

Help the children to use their bodies to build different shapes. Take pictures and create a classroom shape book. This could be done in large group.

Outdoors, encourage the children to trace the outline of a friend's body with chalk, and then have fun adding hair, eyes and clothes to each other's body outlines.

Choose a group of four to five children to come to the center of the large group area. Call out a letter and ask them to make the letter with their bodies.

Share with the children how we sometimes show emotion with our bodies. Demonstrate that crossing your arms means angry, putting your head in your hands shows frustration, a frown means sad and raising your hands in the air means happy.

Have the children sing songs related to animals as they perform whole body movement to act out how the animal moves. You might use, “Baby Beluga,” “Animal Boogie” or “Six Little Ducks.

Provide magazine pages for the children to tear out pictures of body parts. Have them glue the pictures to butcher paper to create a collage of body parts. Display the body parts at toddler eye level.

Play Body Part Freeze. Randomly place carpet squares on the floor, one for each child. Begin with each child standing on a square. Play music as the children move around the way you tell them to (crawling or walking backwards).

Read Where Is Baby's Belly Button? by Karen Katz. Have the children point to different parts of their bodies. Ask, “Where are Melanie's eyes?” or, “Where is Zachary's nose?” Take pictures and create a class book of them.

Read Heads, Hearts and Other Parts by Barbara Shagrin and Deborah Bradley. Have families bring in full-length photos of themselves. Place the pictures around the room. Have the children find and stand next to the picture of their family.

Use songs and chants that feature body parts, such as “Tony Chestnut Knows I Love You.” Point to the diff erent body parts as it lists them. 
 
To-ny Chest-nut knows I love you.

Talk about the importance of sleeping. Ask the children to pretend it's nap time and to sit on their cots with their pillows and blankets as you read the story, I Am Not Going To Get Up Today! by Dr. Seuss.

Have the children lie down on a piece of butcher paper and trace their outlines. Then lay the body tracings out in a large area and have the children compare them.

You will need a washcloth, reusable ice cube and some yarn. Fold the washcloth in half diagonally to form a triangle, then roll it from the open corner to the long side.

Gather a variety of books for the reading center on a topic or type of literature and place them in a basket.

Have the children select a book from a basket or shelf and sit independently or with a friend and read it.

Using a pretend microphone, provide an opportunity for the children to tell you what happened in their favorite books.

Have children choose from two or three books to be read in large group. Place the books at the top of the chart paper and encourage the children to sign their names under the book they want the teacher to read.

Have the children in the reading center help you make a “book hospital.” Place books that need mending in a bin labeled with a first-aid symbol. Encourage the children to help you repair books by taping pages or using rings to hold them together.

Bind together laminated book jackets from familiar stories and place in the writing center area. Encourage the children to draw and write about the characters and setting.

Encourage the children to cut out favorite pictures from magazines and glue them on paper. Ask the children to identify their pictures and write those words on their papers. Bind the papers together to form a book.