Last year, I started a new Space Club program at four middle schools. Not wanting to reinvent the wheel, I searched the web for ideas and curriculum to implement. I soon became excited to find great resources like NASA and TeachEngineering , but I was
Young women activity ideas for class activities or combined mutual activities. Cheap, fun, and easy activities to put together.
Engaging process art activities are the foundation of this pre-k art curriculum for children ages 3 and up. Also great for art therapy.
Open House ideas. Great activity for students to do to show during Open house.
I've got a huge list of FREE Bible curriculum for homeschoolers to use in their Bible Lessons.
Inside: Looking to do 3 year old preschool activities at home? Today I’m sharing my favorite activity ideas to include in your 3 year old’s daily routine. Life with a 3 year old can be challenging, right? You’ve just come out of the twos and your toddler is likely talking and asserting themselves more. Their fine motor and gross motor skills have further improved and
Here's how to decide if the Handwriting without Tears preschool program is right for your child. The most important thing to keep in mind is...
Science curriculum doesn't have to be expensive. A good portion of what we've used for science over the years has been free resources!
Storytelling activities not only build imagination and creativity, but they can be a beneficial learning tool too! Great for the classroom.
Roundup post with lots of Montessori-inspired compass rose printables and activities along with ideas for outdoor compass walks.
Hey all! I hope that you are enjoying your last few days of summer. I've had some questions lately from both new and veteran teachers alike about year-long pacing of curriculum. How can you make sure
I've got a list of Free Printable Kindergarten Homeschool Curriculum for your family! Free kindergarten language arts, copywork, and math!
Hello everyone! Today, I am going to tell you about our Instant Online Curriculum for Kindergarten, which includes a FREE Pacing Guide/Cur...
Are you looking for free preschool printables? These printables are perfect for homeschool preschool and are all free for you to download and print.
Free printable preschool worksheets pdf for teachers and homeschoolers. Fun preschool worksheets for math, English, fine motor skills, and more!
Easy forest school activities, done-for-you forest school lesson plans and ready-made nature curriculum: save time and teach better!
Hi! I recently finished rewriting my K-6 art curriculum plan. We are required to do this every 4 years. You can see my first blog post about organizing curriculum that I wrote a few years back. I use the curriculum plan as a guide for my yearly planning. If students are interested in one area of art more than another, I tend to adapt my plans. If I have a brilliant idea for something new I want to try with … Read more... →
Add elements of sight, sound, touch, taste and smell to your preschool centers to integrate science and play while students explore their senses.
Boost Your Preschoolers' Fine Motor Skills with 25 Fun Pincer Grasp Activities! Engaging and easy-to-follow, these activities will help strengthen their hand control and dexterity. Let their tiny
Two Points: This is MY method, and not necessarily right for you, your teaching or care philosophy, your set-up, or your students. Curriculum participation by my students is VOLUNTARY. I invite them to participate, but if they choose not to, then that is fine. I usually offer them a choice of a few of the activities and let them decide where we start and where we go. An engaged child learns, a dis-engaged child rebels. The 3-year rotating curriculum is theme based. Some times we stick to the plan, but usually I observe what they are interested in learning about, what they are asking questions about, and suggest up to three different themes they can choose from for us to study. I make my own 3-year rotating curriculum for many reasons: Packaged curriculum is often only one year. Since I teach for 3 years, this would be redundant. Most packaged curriculum focuses on skills my students master early. My 2s count to 20, know 11 colors, know most of their phonics, uppercase and lowercase letters, 10 shapes and some of their numbers and I still have 3 years of curriculum to teach them. They often are worksheet intensive. My students usually are cognitively advanced from their fine motor skills. I have 4 year olds that still can't write well. If I had relied on worksheets for the last 2 years, there is no way they would have the skill sets they have. Worksheets are also not considered Developmentally Appropriate Practice [DAP] for children under the age of 8. We use them here for writing practice starting at age 4. [Yes, worksheet-intensive public schools are not using DAP for kindy through 3rd grade!] They can be expensive. If you are purchasing worksheets, why would you spend even $1 a week/$52 a year when you can purchase a 400 page Scholastic preschool workbook from Sam's Club for $8 that covers probably more material, is most likely aligned with the public school expectations, and is colorful. Colored copies are NOT affordable to make from packaged curriculum. Most [ALL!] preschool learning should be interactive. Pinterest is a better source for ideas. My students change every time I do a theme. I have to be able to tweak it to the interests and capabilities of those currently in my care. Plus, I'll find more interesting activities on Pinterest, have an idea for a new game, etc. It's a constant evolution to keep my curriculum relevant to our current group, situation and resources. However, curriculum planning and creation is very time consuming. Even with older curriculum I spend several hours going over it prior to teaching - updating, creating new materials, purchasing and setting new classroom decorations. While I have had my 3 year curriculum, this year I found myself wanting a more specific schedule to focus on specific skill sets for this particular group of children. Most of these skills can be incorporated into our themed curriculum, or they take 5 minute sessions to pop into our day. I have two groups, the younger preschoolers are 2-3 years old and the older ones are 4-5 years old, all at the same developmental and skill set level within their group. This makes it easier, as I can tailor everything to just 2 groups. If I were to have additional levels of children, then it would be tailored to each level. Children here are taught at their developmental level, not age. Asychronastic development is normal, so I may be teaching a child at various levels depending upon the subject matter. For the younger preschoolers, I came up with this structure. For the older pre-k students, I came up with this one. For instance, both of them have Measurement & Comparison on Friday for Reasoning. However, for the younger students, this would be a more/less, longer/shorter, big/little, etc. activity, while the older students would be measuring with rulers, yardsticks, tape measures, measuring cups, unit blocks, foot steps or themed units, and graphing the measurements to compare. Same skill set, differentiated at vastly different levels. Even this needs conditional tweaking. All the pre-k's know how to spell their last names now, so that is no longer a relevant skill activity for music and will be changed out. In another post I'll get into the curriculum components and the importance of each. For instance, how counting on Friday teaches 1-to-1 correspondence and creating method processes for counting groups of objects. CLICK PICTURES TO VIEW LARGER I use this MS Word template, available for FREE on TPT, for curriculum planning. Often, the daily skill sets above are either already incorporated, or can easily be incorporated, into the theme planning. For an example of a completed curriculum unit, check out our Owls Theme. Each monthly theme is broken down into 4 sub-themes. For instance: SPACE Astronauts & Rockets The Universe Our Solar System Aliens & Robots We also have a musical component, often classical, and an art component, often a master, and Spanish vocabulary component that we incorporate. This planning form may not include all games, file folder games, manipulatives, room-set up, etc. that I utilize. For those of you trained in curriculum creation, I do NOT do a full curriculum development for each activity. With having these children usually from infant to school-age, I keep an internal evaluation of progression and plan out only weekly learning objectives. Since I am creating the activities for my personal use, I do not need to create written procedures and evaluations. My curriculum is stored currently in file folders in a large office bookcase unit. I would like to get it into boxes so that I could have EVERY theme-related item, including dress-up, room set-up, manipulatives, etc. together for an easy pull. File boxes will most likely be the easiest, but they do take up a lot of space. In each file some of the things I probably have: Completed planning sheets All the books I own for that theme Flannel board Sentence and word walls File folder games Samples of previous crafts DVDs CDs Coloring pages Mini-book(s) Build-a-[theme item] game Curriculum creation is one of my great joys. I love the research and compilation, the creativity and excitement of bringing something fun and educational to my students. Learning is rarely linear. Children take developmental leaps, sometimes in odd directions. As a teacher, it is important that I keep each one challenged without pushing or inhibiting their growth, and that takes constant evaluation and a good eye for when those leaps happen so that we can move on to a higher level of instruction. When we do an activity, I constantly question if they WANT to do another round, another activity, and I usually cut them off while they are still engaged. I want them wanting more, and they will usually ask if they can continue. One of the most important desires and abilities I can instill in them is that of self-directed learning. So as they choose to go off with their rulers after we've spent several minutes doing a measuring activity, conferring between themselves as to procedures and what to measure next, I step back and let them. They know I am here as a resource, rather than an intrusive director. It is my job to ensure that when I invite my students to learn, they glow with excitement and anticipation of a fun, interactive, playful time. The results, so far, have been astounding. A few of my complete curriculum units are available through my TPT store. Apples Dental Ice Cream Penguins Rainbows St. Patrick's Day Valentine's Follow Connie -'s board Classroom on Pinterest. Tags: preschool, child care, pre-k, curriculum, development, teaching, education, homeschooling, homeschool, home, school, preschool curriculum development, planning
Looking for fun Weather Activities for Preschool? This set is packed with weather charts, activities, and weather worksheets you'll love.
With our detailed Montessori curriculum PDF list, you'll have everything that you need in order to give great Montessori lesson presentations.
Grab our free, clickable Mega List of Themes and Skills for Pre-K & Kindergarten Lesson Plans to see what themes/skills I cover in my classroom all year!
How to start a garden at your school and resources to incorporate it into your classroom curriculum.
Get ready for the first day of school with these Kissing Hand activities. These back-to-school printables are perfect for preschool and kindergarten classrooms!
Learn about France with this France preschool unit! Activities, crafts, food, songs, etc to give your child a taste of France.
Our theme this week was "Our Five Senses" and we focused on the letter B and the shape circle. We read this week: Ferdinand by Munro Leaf Paddington by Mark Brown Paddington and the Busy Bee Carnival by Mark Brown The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle Stellaluna by Janelle Cannon Our question of the week was "What is something that you are really good at?" For our theme of the week, we talked a lot about our senses, what they help us do and why we need them. We made texture collages: This week is full of some of my favorite activities from the year, these texture collages being one of them. I love how each one is different, and the kids are so proud of the texture choices that they make. AND they look amazing on the wall. We tasted sweet, salty and sour things, and the kids had to vote on their favorite taste. (They think it's awesome when they get to eat things as part of a project.) We tested their sense of smells with this project where I asked them to describe the things that they were smelling. I used perfume, shampoo, chocolate syrup, pickle juice, toothpaste and (the most tricky) water. Out on our schools nature trail we talked about the different sounds that we could hear. We did this at various points of our walk, close to the school, by the parking lot and deeper in the woods. Lastly we did another activity with the sense of touch. I set up my table with different texture objects. I used flour, rice, oatmeal, sand and a scrubbing sponge. As the students felt each thing, I asked them to describe what they were feeling. It was hard to get them away from just telling them what the items were and to use describing words, but we got there in the end. For our shape of the week, the kids practiced drawing circles with this cool worksheet of circles and another with squares and circles. We also worked on recognizing circles out of other shapes. We talked a lot about things that are circles. We sang the song "This is a circle, this is a circle. How can you tell? How can you tell? It goes round and round, No end can be found, It's a circle, it's a circle." -Found Here For our letter activities, we used our handwriting sheet for the letter B, the sheet that helps work on letter recognition, both were mentioned in the "All About Me" post. The students also wrote in their journals for the letter B. We turned B's into Bees! After we read Ferdinand we all made our own bees. This was a great way for the kids to practice their cutting skills. I love how each child's bee is different. Another project that we did (another one of my favorites all year) is the Boat Builder activity. I love it because I give the students the materials and the end result is something completely their own. Each child got a piece of white paper, a square of brown paper, a skinny black rectangle, scissors, a glue stick and crayons with the instruction of make me a boat however you want to. (They love when I say that). If I get "I don't know how..." or " I can't do it.." We go back a few steps and talk about boats.. what do they look like, where do we find them, what do they do, and then the creative juices start flowing. Here's the end results! Love it! For our Alphabet wall we made butterflies with coffee filters and water color paint. After the children painted their coffee filters and they dried I used small pipe cleaners to turn them into butterflies! And with the B addition, our wall now looks like... Our list for words beginning with B's was very impressive. Here it is! As a side note, teachers always need to be flexible, and as such, it was in the best interest of the flow of the classroom to switch two centers, the library and dramatic play center. And I'm always telling the kids to make sure that they turn off the water faucet after getting a drink or washing their hands. I tell them to "Save the water for the fishes, so I painted a mural for above the sink to remind them. Up next week: The letter C, Triangles and "Our Feelings".
Check out these 50 (!!) project based learning activities to engage and excite students and get you started with PBL.
Stations are a great way to get in a ton of review with your students. Check out 27 activities for stations in Spanish class in this post!
Need some guidance for teaching preschool Spanish? You’re in the right place! Young children are the perfect age to soak up a new language. I'm currently raising my own three kids bilingually, and have taught classes to this age group as well. It's never too late to start, and 3-5 year olds are really fun to teach! In this post I've compiled my favorited strategies for you. To get started in learning Spanish together, you Can Do three things: 1. Outline some beginning topics. You can create your own list, with common preschool topics (think numbers, colors, greetings, etc.)Take a
If you're looking for P.E. activities to do at home, this list of 100 homeschool P.E. ideas is sure to serve you well.
Heavy work activities are powerful tools for self-regulation, attention, focus, body awareness, and calming sensory input.
We are currently doing a short study of the human body. We recently finished up our unit on the Brain and Nerves, and here are some of the activities we did and resources we used.
If you are doing Montessori at home, this free Montessori curriculum download will be a God-send! Come and take a look!
Freedom Homeschooling lists free high-quality complete all-in-one homeschool curriculum for all grades and learning styles.
Discover my favorite activities that are aligned with the science of reading curriculum to help your young learns master reading fast.
Pre-K & Preschool theme ideas for learning about families Find more Family Theme Activities for Pre-K on the category page. Books Check here for a
Students can travel across the globe without leaving the classroom. Check out these fun geography lessons for any grade and curriculum.
Inside: If you’re looking to homeschool your 4 year old this year, you’re in the right place! Today we’re going to walk step-by-step through a simple, doable 4 year old homeschool schedule and routine. I feel like I say this about every age, but 4 years old really is a magical age. 4 year olds are able to do more than they could at 3.
Preschool homeschooling should be filled with fun, interactive educational activities that little ones can enjoy! There are a lot of free Preschool Homeschool Curriculum options to help keep you from breaking the bank! Little ones are often ready to start learning long before we even begin thinking about their education. It is important for parents …
Kids will have so much fun going through this 50-page worksheet pack for fall. It's full of cutting, counting, coloring and writing activities that will keep your students busy and excited for all things autumn!
