Tools for Your Morning Routine in the Early Childhood Classroom

Kids thrive with routine and, in truth, most teachers enjoy the sense of normalcy and order that schedules provide. If you’re wondering how to set up a great morning routine for your preschoolers and early childhood students, here are some great tips from various early education teachers!

Calendar

It’s great to review the day, date, and year at the beginning of the day. Provide a large, interactive classroom calendar where:

• Students can strengthen letter recognition and spelling as they review the relevant month of the year.
• Students will sharpen numeracy and counting skills as they review the date (e.g. if it’s the 10th of the month students count to ten).
• Students can learn the days of the week and the month of the year through fun songs repeated each day.

Read more

Improving Literacy & Writing With Name Practice

Imagine if you sat down with your morning cup of coffee, opened the newspaper to your favorite section, and realized that the courier had mistakenly delivered the paper in a foreign language. For preschoolers, trying to decipher written text is the same as a literate adult trying to decrypt a foreign language. A great way to reinforce letter recognition and show your preschoolers how letters work together to build words, is to practice with words they may (or may not) recognize – their names!

Anne, creator of the blog Teaching Two, suggests creating individual “name pages” where students can familiarize themselves with the letters that belong in their name, learn how these letters sound when strung together, and practice writing by tracing or copying their names.
Read more

Literature As Lesson Planning Inspiration

Even seasoned teachers need lesson planning inspiration every now and then. If you want to add some spice to the day’s activities and exercises, Deborah J. Steward recommends looking first to your bookshelf! Your stash of children’s literature can actually provide great math, art, science, and other connections!

Math

Choose a prevalent character or object from the book and create colorful cutouts for:

• Counting
• Sorting (by color or size)
• Patterning

Science

Look for sensory connections. If the setting of your students’ favorite book is a farm, make a recording of farm animal sounds and have your students identify them. Talk about how the hide of a cow feels compared to the fur of a dog or the down feathers of a goose. If possible, bring in texture samples for the children to feel. If you have a sensory table, consider filling it with “wood chips” or sawdust to introduce students to the materials farmers use to bed the stalls of horses, etc.
Read more

The Importance of Art in Early Childhood

In the early childhood classroom (and beyond!), it is essential to encourage student creativity through arts and crafts. Whether self- or teacher-directed, children learn about themselves, others, and their surroundings as they engage in creative processes. Many studies have shown that art also helps students develop awareness, explore different forms of media, broaden language skills, strengthen fine motor control, learn to express themselves, relax, develop a sense or design and color, and much more!

Art professor and the Lee Jacks Professor of Education at Standford University, Dr. Elliot Eisner agrees, and lists ten key lessons children can learn from art:

1. Good judgment. Art is not governed by rules, but rather an individual’s judgments based on what can be seen and what they can envision.
2. Comprehensive problem solving. Problems can have more than one solution or answer. Students learn to think through each alternative and select the best solution.
   Read more

Print Making in Preschool

Allison McDonald suggests thinking outside the box when painting with your preschoolers. Paint brushes are great and allow your students to practice properly holding a writing utensil as well as strengthen fine motor skills, but introducing new tools and styles will boost creativity and help them make connections between lesson concepts and the world! One of her favorite activities is print making with unconventional tools!

Print Making

Print making is a wonderful art concept that will help you teach your students about precision and accuracy, as well as textures and relationships. As just one example of how you can incorporate printing into your curriculum, McDonald suggests having your students make prints of various cups and jars during your unit on circles.
Read more

Preschoolers & Dry-Erase Boards

Dry erase boards aren’t just for high school anymore. Deborah J. Stewart, early childhood professional and Teach Preschool blogger, provides several ideas for incorporating these great learning tools in the preschool classroom!

Dry-Erase Options

• Large wall-mount boards. These are great for instructional use, but not ideal for interactive activities.
• Easel boards. Adjustable legs allow this board to be used for both instructional and interactive learning.
• Paper pads. Paper with dry erase surface features reusable sheets that can be mounted on walls, easels, and other clean surfaces when in use, then taken down and stored for future needs. Great for instructional learning, as well as interactive exercises.
• Lap boards. Offers an ideal solution for individual practice and interactive learning.
• Sentence strips. Provide lined options for individual printing practice and interactive exercise participation. Read more

Organization Tips for the Preschool Classroom

Organization is key to the success of every classroom. Deborah J. Stewart, early childhood education professional and creator of the blog Teach Preschool, offers several tips to help new and seasoned preschool teachers make the school year run more smoothly.

Supplies You’ll Need
- Colorful plastic baskets or tubs
- Pocket file folders
- Labels

To organize daily lesson plan materials, Deborah suggests creating a labeled pocket file folder for each day of the week, filling each respective pocket with the children’s books, games, craft projects, songs, etc. that you plan to use that day. Placed in a plastic basket or tub these pocket file folders keep lesson materials easily accessible and allow you to focus on presenting the lessons in new and exciting ways. Note: If all your daily lesson materials and supplies do not fit within the folder pocket, use the files as dividers, placing the supply “overflow” between them in the basket.
Read more

Encountering New Concepts in Art

You don’t have to put in a lot of time and effort to provide your students with a new art experience. As Jean, creator of The Artful Parent blog, suggests, simply cut a hole in the day’s art paper, provide an abundance of graphic art tools, and observe the new techniques, art processes, and progression that takes place! She proposes beginning with a single, centered hole, then introducing an off-centered hole, several small holes, or a smattering of different sized holes. Once your students have become tired of circles appeal to their imagination and artistic creativity through squares, triangles, and the other shapes!
Read more

Beach-Themed Preschool Activities

A great way to infuse summer into your preschool lessons is with beach-themed literature, games, and activities.

“Who Lives in the Ocean?” Matching Game

Search online for colorful pictures of sea life. You’ll need about 20 different pairs so brainstorm before you hit the net. Animals you may wish to include:

• Rainbow Fish
• Octopus
• Squid
• Jellyfish
• Star Fish
• Sea Horse
• Shark
• Whale
• Clam
• Sea Turtle
• Coral

And the list could go on and on. Print the pictures onto 3″ x 5″ pieces of card stock and laminate them to protect against wear and tear. Not only will your students learn about the different creatures that live in the ocean, they’ll be testing their working memory as they try to make matches during the game. If you don’t have the time to make your own card game, you could also purchase a pre-made set of cards.
Read more

Helping Your Students Become Great Scientists

Jennifer Sinsel, elementary science teacher and Lesson Planet guide, maintains that students become good scientists when they master the following science process skills:

1. Observe
2. Infer
3. Measure
4. Predict
5. Classify
6. Communicate

Science Journal Writing Prompt: Observations vs. Inferences

Place the picture of an object up on the front screen and invite your students to make a list of things about the photo. For example, showing the picture of an adult black labrador retriever, your students might list: Read more

Learning About Coins in the Elementary Classroom

Teaching children about money (e.g. the different denominations, the value of each different coin, etc.) can be a challenging job. Amy of Teach Mama suggests purchasing a package of play money kit and using these songs/poems to help children learn!

Ten Pennies

One little, two little,
Three little pennies.
Four little, five little,
Six little pennies.

Seven little, eight little,
Nine little pennies.
Ten little pennies in a dime.

From Scott Foresman–Addison Wesley
Read more

Story Time with Eric Carle

Learning about bugs in your classroom? Here are some great Eric Carle books and activities that will make a great addition to your lesson plans!

The Very Busy Spider by Eric Carle

As you read,

• Invite your students to feel the textured pages.
• Talk with your students about webs; how they are designed, types of lines, why spiders build webs, etc.

After you read,

• Help children make their own webs with string, liquid starch, glitter, and wax paper. When dried, the web can be peeled away from the paper.
• Assist children in making hand print spiders to be cut out and placed on their newly created webs.

Read more

Bugs, Bugs, and More Bugs!

Summer is almost here and your preschoolers are certain to be excited and ready to be out of school. A fun activity that will allow your students to burn off energy outdoors, while learning about nature, science, and counting is a ‘find and count bug hunt’!

Supplies You’ll Need
- Clipboard
- Pencil
- Magnifying glass
- Bug checklist

Using clip art and word processing software, magazine cutouts and card stock, or your own drawing skills and a copy machine, find (or draw) a picture of common bugs in your area and make a ‘treasure hunt’ checklist. On the day of the activity, give each of your students (or group of students) a clip board, checklist, pencil, and magnifying glass to take outside with them.
Read more

Free Play in Your Toddler Classroom

With toddlers, play-based learning is highly beneficial. Since their attention span is much shorter than older children, organized lessons can sometimes fall flat, but by taking advantage of organic learning opportunities created through normal play, your students are on the fast track to completing all the learning objectives on your list!

Trucks & Cars

By observing your toddlers as they push around their Matchbox cars and oversized trucks, you’ll notice that more is at work than simple play:

• As they push the cars up inclines and over bridges they’re discovering gravity.
• They experiment with motion and speed as they ‘race’ cars around the classroom (and sometimes in to walls!).
• Students tap in to problem solving skills during activity.
• As students work and play together, they learn critical social skills.

Read more

Bringing History to Life with Art

If you’re finding your history lessons a bit drab, spice things up by studying and re-creating the art of ancient civilizations. Not only will your students experience other cultures ‘first-hand’, you’ll breed a new enthusiasm for history (or at the very least you’ll catch their attention)!

Here are some different ways to study the art of the ancient world:

• Thematically – compare and contrast specific themes or genres presented in the art (e.g. funerary, political, etc.)
• Chronologically – compare and contrast art evolution within a specific culture or across several different cultures. Be sure to explore the historical, technological, etc. causes of these changes. As a way to bring all the information together, create a visual timeline, printing pictures and writing short artist bios. This will take the chronological study a bit farther, allowing you to compare and contrast various eras, skill/technique progression, and styles.

Read more

How to Expand Your Students’ Vocabulary

Sometimes building vocabulary comprehension and exposure requires less complexity than you think. Carolyn Lingenfelter, a seventh and eighth grade language arts teacher, offers some practical ways to get your students involved and learning!

Lingenfelter suggests starting each week with a new activity sheet entitled “Words of the Week”. At the beginning of each class period, present your students with a new word. As Chris Anderson commented, a year’s worth of vocabulary can be planned in advance to ensure a logical progression and/or relatedness. Additionally, word choices can be correlated with specific objectives (e.g. literacy topics or themes covered, linguistic origins, parts of speech, other subjects of study, etc.).
Read more

Developing Your Preschoolers’ Fine Motor Skills

Erica, contributor to ABC & 123 Learning blog, has developed a comprehensive post of games and activities that will strengthen your preschoolers’ fine motor skills!

Here’s A Short Recap…

1. Biggie Beads – Offered by Fun Fusion, Erica suggests having your students use tweezers to pick up each bead and place it on the fusion tray. BONUS: Practice counting, color recognition, and patterning as you go!
2. Toot & Otto – Similar to ‘Connect Four’, it takes control and coordination to get the tiles into the small slits at the top of the game board. BONUS: Practice reading, phonics, and patterning!
3. Balancing Marbles – Cut a piece of craft foam into a rectangle, have your students push golf tees into the soft material, and then practice balancing marbles on top of the tees!
4. Sticker Tracing – Make worksheets of shapes, letters, or numbers and have your students use small stickers to ‘trace’ the objects.

Read more

Google Earth: A Great Geography Tool

There are endless possibilities for using Google Earth in the classroom.

America’s Favorite Landmarks & Google Earth

Since Google Earth allows you to explore the world from your computer, have your students take a tour of America’s favorite landmarks including, but not limited to:

• Liberty Bell/Independence Hall – Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
• Statue of Liberty/Battery Park – New York, New York
• Jefferson Memorial – Washington, DC
• Grand Canyon – Grand Canyon, Arizona
• Mount Rushmore – Keystone, South Dakota
• Golden Gate Bridge – San Francisco, California
• Pearl Harbor – Honolulu, Hawaii
• Empire State Building – New York, New York

Read more

Connecting the Solar System to Other Subject Areas

Jennifer Sinsel, elementary science guide for lesson planet, provides a unique perspective on teaching students about the solar system. In most cases, elementary students find space exploration, planets, and ‘all things space’ to be highly fascinating. Sinsel suggests capitalizing on this enthusiasm by incorporating solar system elements into other areas of learning.

1. Math – When learning about scale, circumference, relative size, etc. use the planets as your example and discussion starter. Measuring the distance between each planet is the same as calculating the distance between New York and Portland; they just use immensely different scales.

Read more

Summer Lesson Plans

Just because the school year is winding down, doesn’t mean your lessons have to! Daniella Garran, contributor to Lesson Planet, has compiled a list of ten lesson plans that will bring the excitement of summer into your classroom!

Summer Solstice

For a combination lesson in the earth and social sciences, have your students research the summer solstice, as well as, ancient traditions relevant to the phenomenon.
Read more

Infant Room Lesson Plans

Lesson plans for your infant classroom may not be traditional in comparison to other age groups, but they’re important all the same. Deborah Stewart provides simple guidelines to follow when planning out classroom activities and exercises.

Suggested Developmental Disciplines to Consider:

• Physical – Including fine and gross motor development.
• Social – Awareness of and interaction with others.
• Cognitive – Ability to understand and order the world.
• Emotional – Including self-confidence and self-awareness.

Read more

Preschool & Science Reunited

As Deborah Stewart so eloquently describes, often times, “preschool teachers shy away from planning science in the preschool classroom because they are under the impression that science is all about formal experiments and chemical reactions”. As a preschool teacher and experienced authority in matters of early childhood education, Stewart maintains that the act of encouraging students to ask questions, nurturing a desire to explore and order the world around them, and even making predictions about everyday occurrences sets the stage for future encounters with science! Stewart has a few suggestions for approaching science in the preschool classroom.
Read more

Making Use of Centers in Preschool

Along with structure, preschoolers need variety, as well as, the ability to explore and learn at their own pace. Creating classroom centers and rotating them daily will help keep your students engaged, inspired, and enthusiastic! Not only do learning centers or stations provide a practical way to manage your classroom, they promote student interests, social interaction, independence, and other wonderful skills.
Read more

Exploring the World from Your Classroom

Whether on safari or in the classroom, Jolanthe of Homeschool Creations provides a wonderful template for learning about new cities, countries, or regions! While the activities are spread out over two weeks, this lesson could also be condensed to fit into busy class schedules.
Read more

Math with Sweet Treats

While children may not understand math, they certainly understand food. Heather, creator of Blog, She Wrote, designed a great activity that combines fun snacks with a lesson in math.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Most of your students will be ecstatic if you bring in a sweet treat. For health and safety reasons, most districts will require you to bring in a store bought snack, but it will work just the same for the activity.
Read more

Next Page »