Preschool Ideas and How-To's
Kids are like little sponges, ready to learn and eager to learn. The following are some preschool ideas for teaching young children using music, movement, games, and play. Kids can acquire many early academic skills if they are taught in the right way.
Fun and engaging preschool ideas
Music- Children love to sing.
They don’t care if you sing off tune, or how you sound. Children tend to learn
things much faster
when they learn them to music.
- Make up songs about what you are learning using a familiar tune.
- Make instruments out of recyclable material like pots and pans, paper towel rolls, etc. Play and sing together.
- Put the letters of your child’s name to music.
- Do a syllable chant. (link level one phonological awareness)
Movement-Young children learn best when they use their whole body.
- Act out science concepts such as weather or animals.
- Do an action such as jumping or marching while practicing letters or numbers.
- Help the children to make letter shapes with their bodies.
- Do a sentence walk with your kids. (link Experimental phonological awareness)
Games- Learning is fun when made into games.
- Play my pile your pile. (link)
- Play matching and sorting games with the alphabet.
- Play musical chairs. Children can learn about stopping and starting.
- Play a rhyming game. Rhyme the children’s names in silly ways.
Play- Teach concepts through pretending.
- Pretend that you have a store and work on counting and money recognition.
- Practice vocabulary through pretending.
- Build a city with blocks and talk about directions.
- Keep the activities short
- Change the activities frequently
- Move games and discovery learning outside
- Modify the games and activities to be age appropriate
- Make sure that what you are asking the children to learn is appropriate for their level. Go one very small step above what they already know.
Some people want to start early teaching academic skills, while others want to keep the preschool years free for discovery and play. In either case you can help your children gain a strong foundation for learning. Done in the right way, a structured preschool time, can be a fun and engaging way to teach new skills. New skills can also be modeled and practiced in a veryinformal way through play and discovery.
Coming
soon
Our level one curriculum has many preschool ideas, lesson plans and activities that work well for either a formal or informal preschool setting. It is research-based, fun and engaging, and requires very little preparation. Available spring of 2010.
Back to home page
