Preschool

I love browsing the web for ideas to use in our little mom-swap preschool and thought I'd share some of the things we do. Today was my first day to host and I thought it went really well! There are 5 kids all 3 years old, except one who will be 3 before long, and for the most part they all paid attention really well and I think they all had fun.

We started off with Question of the Day. Today was :"What color eyes do you have? I pulled each child aside individually and had them help me write their name on a paper under the appropriate color. While we did this, the other 4 kids had center play time. The centers for the day were: blocks, puzzles, and Little People.

I was actually surprised, but the play time didn't last long. They all wanted to get right into the preschool part, so that is what we did. I brought out the paper with the question of the day and had each child point to his/her name. Then we counted how many of each color there were and they all wanted to look at each other's eyes just to make sure. It was pretty cute. Then we talked about how we are all different: girls/boys, blond hair/brown hair, some have sisters/brothers, some have pets/others don't etc. Then after we pointed out how we are all different, we talked about how we are all the same. It was cute seeing what they came up with. Then we talked about how even though we are all different, we are all friends.


Next, we read The Rainbow Fish book. We talked about sharing and being nice to one another and then I brought out a sheet of fish stickers. I told them all how much I loved those stickers and wanted to keep them all to myself, just like the rainbow fish and his scales. Then we talked about how it would be better if I shared with everyone and then I gave each child a sticker and talked about how happy it made me feel to share.

Carrying on the fish theme, I brought out a bunch of fish I'd cut out of construction paper, in 3 different colors. Then I set a "pond" in each color (just a sheet of construction paper) on the coffee table. I told them that the fish got all mixed up and we needed to get them back into their correct ponds. I set up a blanket between to chairs and had them do the traditional carnival fishing game. Each time they pulled out a fish, they had to put it in the correct "pond". It was a huge hit and when we ran out of fish, they kept "catching" each other. Pretty cute! Anyways. We then looked at each pond and counted how many fish were in each working on that 1-1 counting skill. Then I had them notice that the fish were different sizes. They then sorted them by size: Daddies, Mommas and Babies. We then counted to see how many of each there were. They all did really great at counting along with me.

Then it was outside where they each painted their own rainbow fish cut out of freezer paper. It got pretty messy and there were moments of serious second thoughts especially when the enitre blue cup of paint spilled, but I put old t-shirts of mine on all the kids and even though our patio is covered in paint, not a single child got it on their clothes. I was pretty impressed. I used washable paint, though, just in case.

Then they had outside play time. The bubbles, as always, were a huge hit.

Then it was inside for a snack of Rainbow Fish Crackers and grapes followed by a little free play time.


We then read another book, What Makes a Rainbow? and talked about all the different colors there are. We headed for the kitchen and they had fun watching color magic as I mixed different combinations of colored water. I made these little sheets for them. I would ask ahead of time what color they thought it would make and then afterwards, they each pulled the correct colored square out and put it on their paper. Not sure that any of them will remember what 2 primaries make what secondaries, but they all were fascinated watching the water change color.

Lastly, we did a little creative movement. (I am a dance teacher after all! Gotta stick with what you know!) We talked about the different parts of a storm: clouds, rain, wind, thunder, lightning. I had a piece of music that corresponded to each part and we would listen to the music, decided what part it went with, and then make our bodies mimic that part. (ie., marching and jumping=thunder, spiky hands and kicks=lightning etc) After we went through each one, we had each child take a turn acting one out and we had to see if we could guess which element they were doing. They all picked wind and/or thunder. Lastly, we tried to see how many different ways we could make our bodies look like rainbows.

Overall, I think things went really well.