Activities

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.

Draw a crossword grid on a cookie sheet using paint or permanent markers. Be sure to color in a few spaces to make it look like a real crossword puzzle.

Provide a variety of items the children can use to make a crunchy snack such as cereal o's or squares or small crackers in different shapes. Make a recipe card for them to follow as they assemble their snacks.

Provide a variety of items the children can use to make a crunchy snack, such as cereal o's or squares, and small crackers in different shapes. Make a recipe card for children to follow as they assemble their snack.

Crunch tissue paper, newspaper or any other paper that makes good crunching sounds. Encourage the children to listen to the crunching sounds and then make some sounds of their own with the various paper types.

Give the children Unifix® cubes and have them measure the length of different objects in the classroom. Encourage the children to make observations about length using appropriate measurement terms such as long/short, longer/ shorter or tall/small.

Draw large shapes on the inside of a file folder with a permanent marker, two on each page. Place the folders in the math center with a bin of Unifix® cubes. Challenge the children to completely fill the shapes with cubes.

Set up cue cards for classroom routines. For example, have cue cards for the children to follow when they have finished snack.

Encourage children to bring clothing from their culture to school. Provide an opportunity for other children to ask questions about the clothing. Encourage the child to demonstrate how the clothing is worn and explain its significance.

Encourage the children to tell about a favorite food they help their family prepare at home. Write down the steps as they describe the process. Provide an opportunity for the children to draw pictures of the foods.

Provide several heavy-duty plastic drinking cups or clean, empty yogurt containers. Show the children how to stack the cups in a variety of ways.

Create a pizza stand with pizza crust and toppings made from fun foam or card stock. Give the children order pads with pictures of the different toppings.

Assign jobs to the children to complete throughout the day. Think of humorous names for typical classroom jobs, such as mess preventer (napkin helper), power controller (turn out the lights) or drum major (line leader).

At the end of the day during closing group, assign one child the job of “reporter.” He/she will dictate one sentence about something that happened that day. It can be something personal or something the group did.

Have the children count the number of words or a specific letter contained in the daily news.

Have the children count the number of words or a specific letter contained in the daily news. You may ask, “How many words are there in our morning message today?”  This could be done in large group.

Include books about dancing and movement in the reading center area.