Before you put together lesson plans for your preschool students, make a list of goals. Begin with overarching goals for the entire year, such as color recognition, eating with utensils or recognizing the letters that make up their name. Next, break down these goals in a way that works best for you, such as units or months. These goals will help to guide your lesson planning and give you something to work towards. As you plan, remember to choose goals that are achievable for the age group you teach.
Make a list of your students' interests to help guide your choice of activities. Spend time getting to know each of your students. Observe your students as they interact with one another. Make a list of student interests based on what you observe. Use this list to plan engaging activities that your students will enjoy. Make certain to meet the needs of each of your students.
As you plan lessons for your preschool students, include alternate activities. If you realize that your students are not engaged in a lesson, you can then leave it and move on to another activity. As you plan, think of ways to broaden or extend the lesson to keep students focused. Consider some of the problems you might encounter and think of ways to avoid those problems during the planning stages.
Create a lesson plan template based on your daily routine to make lesson planning easier. Routine is important for preschool students, so create a schedule that you can follow every day. For example, you might always begin your morning with calendar work or a story, eat lunch at the same time every day and present math and science lessons in the afternoon. Once you have your routine set, plug in specific activities in each block of time. This allows you to spend more time actually planning activities rather than planning your schedule each day.