Activities

Glue magnets onto colored craft sticks and foam or felt shapes. Encourage the children in the math center to build pictures using them on a cookie sheet, refrigerator or other magnetic surfaces.

Hot-glue a large metal washer inside a bath sponge. Place white paper in the bottom of a shallow cardboard box. Secure and prop up the box on blocks so that the children can guide the sponge with a hand magnet from underneath the box.

While the children are examining objects in the science center with magnifying glasses, encourage them to describe what they see. Ask open-ended questions to prompt for more details and descriptive words.

Have the children use a magnifying glass to look for print they can read in magazines.

Create a mailbox in the classroom and encourage the children to write and receive letters from teachers and parents. For example, the family can write a letter to their child and leave it in the mailbox for him/her.

Provide large boxes for the children to transform into a mail truck in the block center. Have them deliver mail to friends throughout the room.

Consider adding to or transforming your writing center into a mail room for a week. Add a mail box, a mail carrier uniform, envelopes, stamps, junk mail, postcards and a scale.

Provide large boxes in the block center for the children to transform into a mail truck. Have them deliver mail to friends throughout the room.

Consider adding to or transforming your writing center into a mail room for a week. Add a mail box, a mail carrier uniform, envelopes, stamps, junk mail, postcards and a scale.

Provide envelopes and stationary in the writing center. Encourage the children to write notes that can be mailed to a family member or set up Pre-K mailboxes so they can write notes or draw pictures for their classmates.

You will need a basket and a variety of squeeze stress balls. Have this basket with the stress balls located where the children can easily reach them.

After reading the book Maisy Goes on Vacation by Lucy Cousins, add a suitcase, sun hat, camera and other props to the dramatic play area. Have the children recreate the story using the props.

Place a collection of greeting cards with envelopes at the writing center table for children to write notes to each other or family members. Include cards for birthdays and get-well-soon occasions.

Add PVC pipe and connectors to the block center. The children can connect them in different ways and notice the effects.

Make play dough and give each child a ball of dough, some pipe cleaners, wiggly eyes, plastic knives, scissors and rollers. Ask each child what he/she plans to create. Encourage all the children to create special critters and give them names.

Have the children use sand, sticks, pinecones and other items to create a critter of any size or shape.  Encourage them to find whatever extra items are needed to create their creature.

Provide grocery ads and notepads in the writing center for the children to make their own grocery list to take home

Provide the ingredients for a healthy snack and picture cards showing how to put together the ingredients to make the snack. Encourage children in the sensory center to follow the picture directions and then enjoy their snack.

Have the children act out the following rhyme as they recite or sing it: Make a circle, make a circle, Draw it in the sky. Use your finger, use your finger, Make it round as a pie. Draw a square, draw a square, Make the lines so straight.

Hook together several different combinations of LEGO®s, so that parts stick up or out to the side. Cut matching holes from the lid of a shoebox. The children must turn the LEGO® creation in the correct orientation to slip it through the hole.