Activities

Create your own dance stories. First, select several images from a song, poem or story that could spark movement ideas such as descriptions of a character or words and pictures that depict action.

Create a Zumba Studio in dramatic play. Provide the children with scarves and mats to encourage children to move and dance to the tempo of the music.

Play a steady beat with sticks, a tambourine or a drum and encourage the children to walk, jump or dance to the beat. Call out, "Now move fast!" and tap the drum quickly. Then call out, "Slowly," changing the beat to a very slow one.

Play music with a fast-paced beat, and encourage the children to dance along! Say, “You heard the music playing and it made you want to dance!” Play a song with a slower beat.

Make ankle bracelets for the infant using large jingle bells. Play lively music and encourage the infant to sway, dance and clap to the beat.

Show an old video of the dancing California Raisins. Ask the children if raisins can really dance. Of course they will say no, but set up this activity by sharing with them how they can make raisins bounce up and down as if they are dancing.

Place the same number of shapes as you have children in attendance around the outside of the class circle. Have the children stand inside the circle. Play music allowing the children to freely dance.

Play Greg & Steve's “Dance with Your Teddy Bear” in large group. Give the children stuffed bears or provide bear cutouts or counting bears. The children dance with their teddy bears “way up high, way down low” and in lots of other positions.

Read David Goes to School by David Shannon. Create a Venn diagram as the children compare their classroom rules in the story.  This can be done in small group.

Read David Smells! by David Shannon. Talk about all of the different things David experiences with his senses. Have the children share if they have experienced the same thing, such as petting a dog or banging on a drum.

Use a globe and a flashlight to show how the earth turns away and towards the sun. The children can rotate the globe while the flashlight is held still, demonstrating day and night. This could be done in large group.

Create picture cards of activities that occur in the daytime and nighttime. The children can sort activities into the appropriate category in the science center.

Name a variety of daytime and nighttime activities, such as eating breakfast, going to school, taking a bath and going to sleep. When you call out each of the activities, the children will indicate when each activity normally occurs.

Provide each child with an image of the sun and moon. Name a variety of daytime and nighttime activities such as eating breakfast, going to school, taking a bath and going to sleep.

Add a dry-erase wall calendar to the draatic play area so the children can mark off days and months.

Tune: "Oh, My Darling, Clementine" 
Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday

Thursday, Friday, Saturday (repeat)

Provide an opportunity each day for the children to Drop Everything And Read. Encourage them to choose a book or two from the classroom library, then find a partner and a comfortable place anywhere in the classroom to read their books.

Encourage the children to dictate a sentence about the work they created. You may prompt their thinking by asking questions such as, “Tell me about what you created.

Introduce the idea of absorption to the children by asking each child to guess how many cups of water a baby diaper will absorb. Allow the children to pour one cup of water at a time on a diaper.

Create cards using real and found materials, such as rocks, flowers and seeds to resemble dice patterns. Give the children number cards and have them match the number cards to the object card.