Pre-K children are only a year away from entering traditional, all-day school. Learning about how their pre-K school runs (i.e., rules, schedules, expectations) will help them adapt to being in a school setting. Classrooms are for learning and doing, not just playing. Books, songs and games about going to school will be used during this theme.
This theme addresses families. Children will be able to do projects about their own family, learn about their friends' families and play fun games about family. This is a great time to discuss how families are different and how some are similar. Children will enjoy discussing their family members with their pre-K friends.
During this theme children will learn that everyone around them is different. People may be from different countries, have different skin colors, speak different languages and have different types of families. Children may make multicultural dolls, pretend travel around the world using passports, learn songs and rhymes from different countries, and read foreign language books.
A fundamental part of school is learning letters and numbers from an early age. This theme will use books, games, art and songs to teach children their letters and numbers. Each day of school may represent a different day or a different number. Each student could also represent a letter or number and create a mini-lesson about his letter or number.
This theme can be very hands-on. Children can plant new plants or flowers in a school garden. Walks around the neighborhood can be a great way to teach the names of different flowers and trees. In class children can use art, songs and books to learn about flora and fauna.
An animal theme can be focused on one group of animal (i.e., farm, ocean or rain forest) or a single animal. Children by nature love to look at animals, see new animals and talk about them. Children can talk about their own pets, animals they have seen at zoos or farms, or pick an animal to learn about and tell the rest of the class.
Parents would love some assistance in food exploration and getting children more comfortable with eating a variety of foods. Introducing children to the food groups, to different colors and textures of foods and how to prepare food may make mealtime more enjoyable at home. Children can use real food, play food, songs and books to learn all about eating, nutrition and food fun.
Children think mud puddles are fun, and it will be even more fun to learn why it rains and how mud puddles are made. Children can learn about snow, hail, rainbows and sunshine. With songs, books and games children will learn to accurately report the weather where they live by using the correct adjectives.