Preschool children enjoy graphing activities. The versatility of graphing allows teachers to use the activity within various content areas. Children enjoy graphing personal traits and information such as eye color, hair color, the color of their shirts, shoe sizes, family pets and favorite fruits. Teachers may provide individual-size candy bags for preschoolers to graph the color or sizes of candy in each bag.
Each holiday throughout the year presents an opportunity to utilize hand prints. Hand prints on the side of a flower pot makes the perfect Mother's Day gift. Children also enjoy creating adorable little turkeys and Christmas wreaths from hand prints. Hand prints easily evolve into reindeer antlers and Indian feathers. This tactile activity provides a method for children to develop small motor skills and explore the texture of paint. Parents will enjoy the results for many years to come.
Preschool children love to count objects. Teachers may place matching sets of objects in a box. Children enjoy counting the matching sets of objects in the box as they explore the contents. Finding four matching erasers, two matching toys, six matching blocks or a matching pair of socks provides several minutes of counting, matching, tactile exploration and fun. Preschool children learn to recognize numbers and number words by matching the number of matched objects to the number or number word.
Preschool children adore animals. Creating their favorite animal from basic shapes develops shape recognition skills. For example, preschool children may create a duck using basic shapes. A large oval becomes the body of the duck. Two heart shapes create the wings. Smaller circles become the eyes. A triangle marks the duck's beak and he waddles on two orange star shaped feet. Imaginations come to life and decision making skills improve when children must decide which basic shapes they need to create their very own favorite animals.
Preschool children develop small and large motor skills through music and movement. Children love putting motions to their favorite songs. Teachers encourage participation and learning by creating lyrics that teach particular concepts and putting them to familiar tunes that the children already know. Once the music starts, children begin to sing and little hands and feet begin to clap, wave, skip, hop, jump and dance. Through music and movement, preschool children learn various concepts, improve motor function, develop social skills and have a lot of fun.