Activities

Provide a variety of plastic eggs in a basket. Demonstrate for the children how to put the eggs together and pull them apart. Encourage the children to continue to practice putting the eggs together and taking them apart.

Have an egg/spoon relay using plastic eggs during outdoor time. Make it more challenging by having the children walk backwards or close their eyes.

During small group time read the book Eleanor, Ellatony, Ellencake, and Me by Cathy Rubin. Graph the number of letters in Eleanor, Ellatony, Ellencake, and Me's names and then have the children graph the number of letters in their own names.

Sing “The Elephant Dance” to the tune of “Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush”:
This is the way the elephants dance,

Elephants dance, elephants dance.

Discuss with the children different situations when they may need to call 911. Provide phones for the children to practice calling 911.

Create two large dice from wooden blocks. One die is for animals and one die is for emotions. The child rolls both dice and acts out what they roll, for example, “Sad” and “Dog.

Include lots of books about emotions in the reading center: Percy Gets Upset by Stuart J. Murphy; Today I Feel Silly by Jamie Lee Curtis; My Many Colored Days by Dr.

Have mats with diff erent face shapes and hair styles printed on them. Give children play dough and let them create expressions. Ask what emotion their face represents. Take pictures of their creations and print them out for a feelings book.

Make up a song to the tune of "If You're Happy and You Know It" using various emotions. For example, "When your friend is sad, give a hug. When your friend is happy, give a high five.

Make a large cube with a different emotion drawn on each side. Make another cube with a variety of animals. Have the children roll both cubes and act out the animal with the feeling (such as a sad dog or a silly mouse).

Using tissue boxes, create two “die” cubes to roll. Label one cube with different animal names. Label the other with different feelings words. During circle, have the children roll the “dice” and act out what they see.

During outdoor time, use hula-hoops to make a feelings game. Place various emotion cards in each hula-hoop. Provide scenarios and have the children hop to the various hoops to illustrate how they would feel in each scenario.

During outdoor time, blow a whistle so the children will freeze and then tell them to show an emotion on their face. For example say, “Show me a confused face.

For this activity you will need a file folder for each child, markers, magazines, scissors and glue. Lay the file folder open flat on the table. Ask the children to take each end and fold toward the center seam to create a tri-panel book.

During large group, have an EMT visit the classroom and talk about caring for others.

Read Almost Gone: The World's Rarest Animals by Steve Jenkins. Talk about what the word endangered means. Give the children paper and colored pencils or crayons to draw their favorite endangered animal from the book.

Read The Enormous Potato by Aubrey Davis. Brainstorm other things that are enormous. Encourage children to think of other words that mean really large, such as gigantic or huge.

Invite the children to copy environmental print in the writing center.  Encourage them to continue to try if it gets difficult.

Take a walk around your school or center and point out environmental print related to safety. For example, point out exit signs, stop signs or caution signs. PDM1.4c. This could be done in large group.

Inside the dramatic play area provide a large variety of environmental print such as restaurant menus, food boxes, and coupons. Facilitate play to include letter awareness. Point out familiar letters.