Activities

Read the book series See How They Grow by DK Publishing that features a variety of different animals. Create sequencing pictures from the books of how animals grow, and have the children put the pictures in order.

Read How Are You Peeling? by Saxton Freymann and Joost Elffers to the group and discuss the faces in the pictures. To extend this activity, show photos of children's faces to compare to those in the book.

Place an object slightly out of reach, such as in a tunnel or in a box. Encourage the children to figure out how to get the item.

While in the sensory center give the children a wide variety of containers from very small to large. Ask them questions to see if they can determine how many small containers of water it will take to fi ll up the large container.

Ask the children to recall the sequence of events for an activity just completed, such as a dance, an art activity or order of washing hands.

Read the book How Do Dinosaurs Stay Safe? by Jane Yolen. Discuss the situations presented in the book with the children and have them relate how they can stay safe.

Print and laminate a series of pictures of the children planting and caring for a plant. Have the children put the pictures in sequence to access prior knowledge.

Show and paraphrase the book, Learn About The Way Things Move by Robert K. Ullman. Take the children outdoors to compare how living and nonliving things move. For example, compare people to cars and buses.

Share photographs and pictures that reflect all the important ways we use water: for drinking, washing clothes, bathing, flushing a toilet or cleaning a house. People and animals use it for swimming too.

During large group, play a “How Do You Feel?” game. Sing this song to the tune of “The Farmer in the Dell”:
How do you feel today,
How do you feel today.

Create a chart titled, “How Do You Feel Today?” Make columns with different emotions such as sad, mad, happy, tired, excited, worried. Use picture cues with the words. The children can place their name cards under each column.

Read Soft and Smooth, Rough and Bumpy by Dana Meachen Rau. Gather materials with different textures such as cotton balls, plastic spoons, velvet, feathers, coins and sandpaper.

Put a pedometer on different children each day so everyone has a turn. Graph the distance or steps each child walks in the day. At the end of the week, graph the various distances and make comparisons.

Put a pedometer on different children each day so everyone has a turn. Graph the distance or steps each child walks in the day during outdoor time and inside. At the end of the week, graph the various distances and make comparisons.

Give the children a poster board, a paper towel tube, a yardstick and small cars in the block center. Encourage the children to hold the tube at an angle and roll the cars through the tube onto the poster board to see how far they go.

Play a game in large group where each child says his/her name in a funny voice, describing how he/ she feels about the day. Examples include excited, happy, tired, sad or silly. Have them think of other descriptive words.

Create several mats with a picture of a tree, using a die-cut machine or clip art. Provide each child with a number of red pom-poms. Say, “There are five apples in the tree. Use your pom-poms and count out five apples and put them in your tree.

This is a partner game that uses children's knowledge of number combinations. Write a target number on a card and place it on a tray.

Give the children a balance scale and a recording sheet with pictures of items, such as three crayons, a glue stick, scissors or five markers.

When working with a small group, help the children count how many boys and how many girls are in the group. Say, “We have five boys and three girls. That's eight children in all.” Then count other combinations.