Cultivate a child's creativity by setting up dramatic play areas. Each week teachers can change the theme of the play area to expose children to changing environments. Examples of themes could be: restaurant, hair salon, grocery store, doctor's office or a theatre, among many others. At the beginning and end of the week, teachers can support language learning objectives by exposing children to the vocabulary that corresponds to each week's theme. Throughout the week, as children interact in the dramatic play area, let them figure out new ideas on their own and explain aspects of the environment to children as necessary.
The idea with open art is to encourage preschoolers to express creativity without a defined right or wrong way to do things. A great open-ended art project for students is sun catcher butterflies. For this activity, instruct children to cut out their idea of a butterfly shape from black paper, then fold the shape in half and assist the children punch holes in one of the winds. After the children have made as many as they desire, have them design their butterfly with sequins, tissue paper, glitter etc. Once the butterfly is dry, glue butterflies on the window.
Learning letter names during preschool provides children with a starting edge in kindergarten. Preschool teachers can help children develop reading and writing skills by conducting open-ended letter activities that promote various forms of letter recognition. In addition to alphabet blocks and displays, arrange letter activities to encourage children to recognize that letters surround them. Distributing magnetic letters and have children arrange them in different ways on the chalkboard or play line segment games where you draw different parts of a letter and have the youngsters guess the letter you are drawing.
Set aside time for an afternoon to conduct a version of show and tell: "listen and move." In the week prior to having the "listen and move day," expose children to various types of music and dance. Then, on "listen and move day," invite each preschooler to share his or her favorite song and dance move with others. Open-ended music activities enable preschoolers to become more aware of their five senses and shape thoughts about melodies and beats from other parts of the world.