Activities

Play Peek-a-Boo with the infant, using a small cloth and mirror. Position the infant so he/she can see his/her image in the mirror.

Provide individual, unbreakable mirrors. Encourage the children to explore looking into the mirror. Use descriptive words to talk with them about what they see.

Give the children mirrors to practice creating facial expressions for the various characters they portray. In a small group, provide the children with a mirror and encourage them to observe themselves.

Add some small, unbreakable mirrors to the math center for the children to use with shape tiles or other manipulatives. Encourage them to create a design or structure and then place the mirror next to it on the table to see its reflection.

Use a full-length mirror and have a height chart next to it. Have the children stand in front of the mirror one at a time. Recite the chant:
Mirror, mirror on the wall,

look at Jackson.

Sit on the floor with the infant and place a mirror near him/her. Watch the infant observe him/herself in the mirror and narrate his/her expressions.

Seat the children at the table. Give them plastic mirrors and have them make different faces in the mirror.

Place the infant in front of a mirror. Encourage the infant to reach for his/her image in the reflection. Model reaching while saying, “Look, there's Ryan,” or “Where's Ryan? There he is.

Take handheld non-breakable mirrors outside, during outdoor time, and have the children look at themselves and talk to their friends about how they are the same and different.

During outdoor time, take handheld non-breakable mirrors outside and have the children look at themselves and talk to their friends about how they are the same and different.

Have the children create new words to use in familiar rhymes when jumping rope or playing hopscotch. For example, “Miss Mary Mack” can be “Miss Mary Red” who went to bed.

Select simple pictures from magazines such as animals, fruits, cars, houses or shapes. Cut them in half and laminate them. Place one set of half pictures throughout the classroom. Keep the other set of half pictures for the children.

O, Mister Sun, Mister Golden Sun

Please shine down on me
(repeat)
These little children are asking you

Please come out so they can play with you
O, Mister Sun, Mister Golden Sun

Please shine down,

P

Give children in the reading center flannel board pieces for The Mitten by Jan Brett to use when retelling.

Fill a bowl or tub with water and add a few drops of child-safe liquid soap. Give the children a variety of objects such as a wooden spoon, a whisk or a rotary beater (the old-fashioned kind with a handle you turn to make the beaters spin).

Provide two colors of paint. Show the children how to use the brush to mix the paints on the paper. Comment on what is happening. Say, “Look, the paints are mixing together on your paper. They are making different colors.

Take two jigsaw puzzles that are familiar to children and dump the pieces from both in a gallon size bag together.  Encourage children to try to pull out the pieces and match them to the appropriate puzzle.

Write a sentence from a big book on a sentence strip and then cut it apart into individual words. Pass out the words to the children.

Place a number of mixed manipulatives on a table. (Various styles of transportation in various colors, various animals of various types[zoo, farm], various colors and sizes of buttons.

Make copies of a few pictures from a book that you plan to read to the class. Before you read the book, encourage the children to predict the order in which the pictures will appear in the story. This could be done in large group.