Activities

For a spring theme, encourage children to dance making a garden: dig the holes, plant the seeds, water and weed, watch plants grow and harvest the vegetables or flowers.

During outdoor time, plant a garden with fruits and vegetables in it. Have the children monitor and care for it all year long. Discuss what to plant.

Fill a plastic bag with child-safe dish detergent or hair gel; add glitter if you want. Seal the bag securely with tape. Give the children small craft sticks to make shapes and draw with.

Provide GeoBoards with rubber bands in the math center for the children to make a stringed instrument similar to a guitar. Show the children how to stretch the rubber bands to different lengths to make different pitches.

Provide each child with a geoboard and geobands. Challenge the children to create various shapes and have the children use descriptive language to describe the characteristics of their shape. This can be done in small group.

Provide geoboards, rubber bands and shape cards in the math center. Encourage the children to use the geoboards and rubber bands to recreate shapes.

Work with a small group to write clues about where to find an object in the classroom. The next small group can follow the clues and find the object. Then write a set of clues for another group to follow.

Teach the children a song, such as “Get Funky” from The Learning Station, which has specific actions to complete. Encourage the children to participate in the movements.

Add a gear set to your manipulative toys and have the children experiment with arranging the gears and observe how they move.

Using pretend telephones or a curved piece of PVC pipe, engage the children in a phone conversation. Use frequent inflection. For example, ask questions where your pitch or tone goes up at the end. String many different sounds or words together.

Play the music video, “Wiggle It” by Koo Koo Kanga Roo. Let the children dance and interpret the music.  This could be done in large group.

Display dressing boards and shoe-tying boards in the math center, and encourage the children to practice these self-help skills.

During diaper change, use self-talk to describe what you are doing. Say things such as, “I am unsnapping your pants.” As the infant is able, have him/her assist you in removing clothes by raising his/her arms or bending his/her legs.

You will need a box large enough for one or two children to sit inside. Turn the box so the opening is facing out and can be easily supervised. Line the inside of the box with different textured fabrics such as burlap, carpet, velvet and silk.

Play some lively music, such as selections from Hap Palmer's CD Movin'. Show the children how to take "giant steps" as they move around the space. Demonstrate how to stretch your legs out as far as they will go.

Get some large diameter cardboard tubes such as those from rolls of laminating film or gift wrap. Place the tubes side by side at an angle. Propping them on the edge of an outdoor sensory tub works or on the rungs of a climbing structure.

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

Have the children help you make soft gingerbread cookies. Point out the head, arms, legs, chest and stomach. Use icing to separate the body parts and features such as eyes. Call out body parts and have the children eat one part at a time.

On the playground, give the children several pieces of PVC pipe. Encourage them to put the pipes together to make “telephones” so they can talk to each other from across the way.

While reading Glad Monster, Sad Monster by Ed Emberley, have the children differentiate their tone, pitch and facial expressions to represent the monster's feelings.