Gardens and Plants Theme

In the spring when we talk about gardens and plants, we try to take a field trip to our local garden park and nature preserve. We talk about using our senses to explore the plants at the park and end our trip with some ice cream. Back in the classroom, we use flowers and veggies in our many centers. We sort the flowers by color. We set up a flower shop in our dramatic play center. I lay out paper shapes and the students use the shapes and their imagination to create a flower, making sure it has all of the parts that we discuss in our science lesson (leaves, petals, stem, roots). We plant seeds in pots for our moms and take them home as a surprise. There are many good gardening books we read. Here are a few of them:
*"Lola Plants a Garden"
*"The Surprise Garden"
*"Growing Vegetable Soup"
*"In the Tall, Tall Grass."
I also have a collection of seeds that the students can explore and sort and even guess what the seeds will grow in to.

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Daily Preschool Schedule

Our Preschool runs a half day program so we have a morning class and a completely seperate afternoon class. Here's the lesson plan form that I have tweeked and found to be helpful in fitting everything into our short day. Class Name_________ Week #____ Day #____ Theme_____________ 9:00-9:25 Arrival and Free Choice Play 9:25-9:30 Clean Up 9:30-9:45 Morning Meeting and Music 9:45-10:00 Gross Motor Play 10:00-10:15 Math Circle Time 10:15-10:20 Brain Break and Movement 10:20-10:35 Fine Motor Table Work 10:35-10:55 Snack and Quiet Time 10:55-11:10 Literacy/Science/Social Studies Read Aloud Read: Focus: 11:10-11:25 Centers 1)math center: 2) art center: 3) fine motor center: 4)language arts center: 11:25-11:30 Clean up and Dismissal

Bug Theme

When we study bugs, there are several activities I include in an effort to meet every student's ability and interests along with multiple curricular standards. I bought several bags of plastic bugs at my local Dollar Tree and also gathered a few other supplies and we are ready to look at bugs and investigate them-how many legs do they have? How many body parts do they have? What other characteristics do they have? Then we sort them-insects or not insects. Count how many are in each category. Take some time outdoors as well looking for insects and allowing the students to move in larger ways. Run through the grass but also get down and crawl. Take magnifying lenses out with you and see how many insects can be found. On another day we sort the bugs by color. We identify each color and again count how many bugs are in each category. We use tweezers to sort the bugs so that we are working on our fine motor skills as well. Write the color words where the children can easily see the...

Nutrition Theme

When we have our nutrition theme, there are many fun activities that I tie in. We create food with playdough in our Fine Motor/Sensory Center. I write numerals on paper plates and give each student a handful of pom poms. When I call a number, they cover it with a pom pom on their plate. We play until every plate is covered ith "berries." The students find and cut out pictures of food in magazines and then we sort the pictures. They can be sorted healthy vs. unhealthy or they can be sorted by color, by likes vs. dislikes, or by food group. In the Art Center , I lay out blue paint and clothespins attached to a cotton ball. Students dab "blueberries" around their paper. In the Science Center, students take a basket of play or felt food and sort it onto an oversized food group plate. The Dramatic Play Center and Block Center can both be used to create restaurants or grocery stores. The Math Center has a sorting pie where the students sort frui...

Engaged Early Learning

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