Activities

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.

After examining and discussing the kinetic sculptures and mobiles created by Alexander Calder, provide children with materials to create their own in the art center.

Take pictures of unique block structures. Post them next to the block center or in a class book. The children can use these pictures as a guide to create structures of their own.

Provide blocks and manipulatives in the math center such as tangrams, pipe cleaners, Tinker Toys and pattern blocks that will encourage the children to create new shapes. Talk with the children about their creations.

Provide black construction paper with animal or people body outline templates in the art center. Encourage children to use cotton swabs to create skeletons.

Encourage the children to make musical instruments by filling paper towel rolls, pie tins or plastic tubes with beans, rice or pebbles.  Use rubber bands with paper towel rolls to create guitars and banjos.

Have a variety of paper available for the children to sponge paint.  Use this homemade wrapping paper to wrap gifts.

Add people stencils and multicultural paper to the writing center for the children to draw families.

Provide pictures of storybook characters, animals, people, and objects, in the writing center and support the children in creating their own books.

Place a collection of greeting cards with envelopes in the writing center for children to write notes to each other or family members. Include cards for birthdays and get well soon occasions. Add humor as appropriate.

Create characters using magazine pictures of people and animals glued to popsicle sticks, laminated if possible. Use these characters to make up and act out stories in the art center.

Show the children pictures of different constellations and discuss how the stars create a picture. Provide star stickers and encourage the children to create and name their own constellation.This can be done in small group.

Use blocks and LEGO®s that include wheels and ramps. Encourage the children to create different vehicles in the block center.

Provide real and found items such as a plastic drink bottle, seashell, wooden spoon and belt.  Tell the children to imagine new ways these items can be used.  Have one child select an item and invent a new use for it.

Children are fascinated by animals such as bats and owls. Conduct a study of nocturnal animals by reading books such as Stellaluna by Janell Cannon; Owl Babies by Martin Waddell or The Kissing Hand by Audrey Penn.

Use two hollow blocks and a long plank to create an example of a bridge.

After reading Cross a Bridge by Ryan Ann Hunter, provide a variety of open-ended materials for children to explore creating different bridges. Use small cups, blocks, cardboard tubes, pipe cleaners and craft sticks.

During large group, place two jump ropes across the floor parallel to one another.

In a designated area, place multiple copies of several letters on the floor. Call out a letter and encourage the children to cross the river by stepping only on the letter that you named. These are their stepping stones.

Create an imaginary river, using yarn or tape to mark its boundaries. Divide the class into two groups and give each group a limited number of paper plates.