Engaged Early Learning

The indoor snowballs are so fun and not cold. We divided into two teams and had an indoor snowball fight! This is good gross motor fun.  A couple of fine motor ideas for a Weather or Seasons Theme include leaf rubbings that are then painted with watercolor paint, painting with water colors and ice cubes, and  playing in shaving cream. We practice writing our names and many different letters and numerals in the shaving cream.  Mittens can be matched and rocks can be painted to look like snowmen parts and then put together in many different ways.  Rain clouds can be painted with sponges and then raindrops can be cut out and glued to the cloud. Drops of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple paint can be placed inside a sandwich bag and then sealed. Then students can mix the colors and trace letters on the rainbow in a bag.  Tissue paper rainbows are also a cute craft but time consuming for little hands.  In our Winter STEAM box...

Who doesn't love cookies? We have an entire theme based on cookies and it is one of my favorites! We incorporate a lot of counting into our cookie theme. We count chips onto cookies in our Math Center.  We count cookies and clip the correct numeral in our Fine Motor/Sensory Center.  We serve cookies at the bakery in the Dramatic Play Center.  We also practice numeral recognition and matching and fine motor skills using cookies and pom poms.  We have taken a field trip to a local bakery some years and other years made cookies together as a class but in both situations, we have decorated them and enjoyed eating them.  There are several cookie stories we read including: *"The Gingerbread Boy" *"The Gingerbread Girl" *"Whose Stole the Cookies from the Cookie Jar?" *"The Doorbell Rang" *"May I Please Have a Cookie?" *"The Duckling Gets a Cookie" *"If You Give a Mouse a Cookie" At our A...

 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. ...

There are so many Christmas ideas and activities to choose from and I have tried many but in this post, I will include many of the ones that have worked well in our classroom. This candy cane fishing game is challenging but the children enjoy it and it's great for teaching balance, fine motor skills and concentration. I tie a single candy cane to a dowel rod and then place the remaining candy canes in a jar so they are standing up. Students use the candy cane fishing rod and try to collect as many candy canes as they can.  A great STEAM activity is to lay out green Legos and green popsicle sticks and give the students a challenge to create a tree.  Another fine motor activity is to place Velcro dots both on a Christmas tree and also on the back of several buttons. Students place the buttons on the tree as ornaments and then take the buttons off. I make large green triangle trees and then divide them into eight strips, writing a numeral 1-8 on each strip.  St...

Community Helpers are something that students are often interested in so they are often one of the themes that we participate in during the school year. We usually take a field trip or two during this theme also and there are so many places to visit for a Community Helper theme. Think Fire Station, Police Station, local restaurant or grocery store, bakery, hair salon, library, Post Office or even a different classroom. There are so many activities that will interest students as they are introduced to their community and the many helpers in it. Place different uniforms in the Dramatic Play Center. Place tools or vehicles in the Block Center . I collect many different tools and then we sort the tools by which helper would use them.  We do this together at Circle Time and then it can also be used in the Science Center. I use Community Helper puzzles and games in the Math Center.   There are many fun books that can be read together as a class and also placed in the R...

There are often children in the class that are interested in trains or planes or boats. When that happens, we have a transportation theme at some point during the year. The Dramatic Play Center  can be turned into a ticket office where the children purchase tickets for the train, plane or boat. Vehicles can be added to the Block Center.  In the Science and Math Centers,  ramps can be set up for the cars to race down and the children can experiment to see which is faster and measure which goes the farthest. Cars can be marked with letters or numerals and a parking lot can be marked with matching letters or numerals. Students drive and park the cars in the correct parking spot.The Reading Center  can contain some of these books: *"Freight Train" *"The Blue Truck" *"Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus" *"My Truck is Stuck" *"I'm Fast" *"I'm Dirty" *"The Wheels on the Bus" *"The Little Engine that...

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...