Help the students get to know one another at the beginning of the school year with a preschool classroom theme focused on friendship. Decorate the walls and doors with flower cutouts and garden-themed embellishments such as watering can, insect or sun clip art. Create a flower for each student by cutting a picture of her into a circle and gluing it to the center of a flower die cut. "Pick" at least one flower each day and interview the student about her favorite foods, television shows or hobbies. Write the information on the flower petals and then share the details with the class as the student tapes her flower to the classroom bulletin board.
Throughout the week, read the children stories about friendship, sing songs about making new friends and help the students make simple friendship bracelets by stringing foam shapes onto pieces of stretch cording sold at craft and sewing shops.
Take a cue from the Childcare Lounge website and develop weekly classroom themes to teach the preschool students basic concepts such as colors, letters, numbers and shapes. Organize a "color of the week" or "letter of the week" theme, for example. If the letter of the week is "B," adorn your classroom with B die cuts and stickers, as well as illustrations of baseballs, babies, bears or boats. Organize themed activities such as making banana smoothies, buzzing like bees to a well-known tune or having a bunny hop relay race that requires the children to hop across the room and back before tagging a teammate.
Teach the children about healthy eating with a class theme focused on fruits and vegetables. Turn the classroom into a pretend produce market by affixing fruit and vegetable cutouts on the walls and placing baskets of plastic produce around the classroom. Organize a trip to a supermarket or farm or invite a nutritionist to help the children make simple and tasty snacks with fresh fruits and vegetables. Introduce the children to new foods and reinforce lessons about colors by letting them paint construction paper cutouts of different types of produce.
Design a weekly preschool theme around the seasons, as advocated by the Preschool Rainbow website. In addition to room decorations to evoke the feel of spring, summer, winter or fall, organize coloring and story activities to teach the students about the history of seasonal holidays and let the children take turns discussing what they love about the season. Design projects such as flower planting for the spring theme or making glittered snowflakes for winter.