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.

Comments

Body and Senses Theme

I usually spend a day for each of the basic five senses and then further the theme by spending a few more days covering the basic parts and functions of the body such as heart, lungs, skin, and brain. For the sense of taste, I give each child something sour (lemon drop), something salty (pretzel), and something sweet (a piece of chocolate) to eat. We discuss the tastes and which they like the best. Then we discuss our tongues. Each student can be given a mirror to look into to see their tongue and the taste buds on it. We read "Jamberry" and try some different flavors of jam. For the sense of smell, I place items in film canisters and allow each child to smell each item and guess what it is. Then we graph which smells we like and do not like. A follow up activity is to ask students to determine which items will have a smell and then walk the items around and have students smell them and determine if their guesses were correct. I use things like mustard, a comb, or...

Nursery Rhyme Theme

A few years ago when I pulled out Nursery Rhymes to read to my class, I discovered many of them had never heard these stories before. I grew up on Nursery Rhymes so this was interesting to see. We dove into a unit of Nursery Rhymes and Fairy Tales and they loved it! This is also a great unit to really focus on rhyming with the children. Blocks, pool noodles, and cups can be used in STEAM challenges to build castles and towers. Straw, sticks, and rocks can also be added to use in building houses when you read "The Three Little Pigs." We create our own Nursery Rhyme book where the children illustrate the rhymes and then get to take their books home to share. The students love collecting the pigs and returning them to their pens. We use pink balloons and hula hoops. We also try to be as nimble and quick as Jack and jump over our own candlesticks. "The Three Little Kittens" lost their mittens but we play a matching game with ours. ...

All About Me/Feelings Themes

The first week of school, we spend practicing our routine and getting comfortable with coming to school. The next couple of weeks, we spend getting to know ourselves and each other. We do an All About Me Theme followed by a Feelings Theme. We create cutouts of ourselves and display them to show our differences and connectedness. I love how each cutout looks different. We talk a lot about how we are each special and unique. We compare eye colors and hair colors. We talk about our families and who is in each family. We draw pictures of ourselves and our families including any pets we have. We do name activities where we count how many letters are in our names and then we use letter tiles to make our names. We compare each child's name to the other names in the class and look at beginning letters and syllables. We also graph some of our favorites, such as colors, animals, foods, or sports. We draw pictures of our friends and copy our friends' names....

Engaged Early Learning

Search This Blog