Weather/Seasons Theme

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 that I place at our Science Center, I include pictures of snowflakes, mittens, cotton balls, and a sandwich bag full of either shaving cream or white paint. Styrofoam peanuts can also be used in the sensory table. Also at the Science Center, dirt and water can be mixed to create mud or take the students outside for some puddle jumping if you want to avoid the mess inside.
Some books that I use for our Weather/Seasons Theme are:
*"What's the Weather?"
*"Worm Weather"
*"Spring for Sophie"
*"A Tree for All Seasons"

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Friends

Social-Emotional Skills are such a large part of the Preschool curriculum. Most of our activities are group based and we spend a lot of time and instruction learning about how to be a good friend and how to treat the people around us. In February, I send home a handful of cutout hearts with each child. I ask parents to document each time they catch their child doing something kind and send it back to school. We then read them aloud to the class and hang them on our wall. The goal is to cover the entire wall with hearts. We also focus on one character trait each week. We discuss the trait and give examples of that trait and then watch for students exhibiting that character trait throughout the week. Some books that I use to reinforce our lessons are: *"Stick and Stone" *"A Sick Day for Amos McGee" *"How Do Dinosaurs Play with Their Friends?" *"Llama Llama and the Bully Goat" *"Rainbow Fish" *"Should I Share my Ice Cream?" ...

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

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...

Engaged Early Learning

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