Successful teachers engage students in activities that incorporate social skills and subject matter which children view as play. Read pre kindergarten students a story like "The Gingerbread Man" or a book about animals who make choices concerning honesty or friendship.
Oklahoma teacher Talitha Bray introduces books to her students by using a puppet, Mr. Worm, to actively engage students. She builds an activity around Mr. Worm coming to class late and the students must update him on what he missed. The puppet will ask the students questions. Students retell the story to the puppet by sharing bits of what they recall, while the teacher assesses how well they retain, analyze and synthesize new information.
Observant teachers take advantage of knowing that students mimic parental behaviors. Have students become role models, by asking them to bring in a favorite doll or stuffed animal who will become part of a mini-classroom. Line dolls and animals up along a wall or set them in small groups. Have students teach concepts they learned in class to their pretend students.
According to Michigan State University's College of Education, teachers need to keep their students actively engaged in learning. Children learn by doing and by gaining skills as they discover, think about and analyze their world. Keep students engaged in learning throughout the day. Show them how to learn while walking to the cafeteria or playing outside. Have them count the number of steps it takes to reach the bus line. Name as many different colors as they spy on the playground. Show them how to act out kinds of talking on the playground: have them sing, whisper, tweet, yodel, growl. Let them practice different ways of walking by asking them to skip, hop, meander, sneak, dash or leapfrog around the playground.
No one has more influence over a pre kindergarten student's learning than his family. Send home family assignments. Have pre kindergarten students and their parents draw a house and illustrate themselves somewhere inside the house in a manner that represents them. Use colored pencils, crayons or glue and old magazines.
Send families on a weekend scavenger hunt. Instruct them to place items in a coffee can or a paper bag that are round, triangular, square, squishy, blue, useful or any one of a number of adjectives relating to what you are teaching.
Send home a stuffed class bear and let the child share family activities with the bear. Instruct families, via a photocopied sheet, on how to help the bear write pages in his journal. Family members pretend they are the bear writing about her week with the family. Each family will add to what came before and show how they engage in regular family activities.