Images

No one ever thought 2020 would be the year parents turn into teachers. Covid-19 has brought out many emotions and changes into our daily lives. The last worry you need on your plate is entertaining your preschooler.  Here are 3 fun and engaging activities to keep your children entertained and you sane.

1. Hand Washing Sensory Bin

Teaching children about the importance of cleanliness and hygiene is very vital for their safety and well-being. However, teaching children how to wash their hands with a sink and a nursery rhyme can become very repetitive and disengaging. With a hand washing sensory bin, children have the opportunity to learn and experiment on how to wash hands with a quick and inexpensive activity!

2. GoNoodle

Clean Up – Moose Tube | GoNoodle

Clean up, clean up – everybody, everywhere! Clean up, clean up – sing this new clean up song with FLARE! Create a free account on GoNoodle.com now and find h…

GoNoodle is a free website full of interactive videos that are sure to get your children up and moving. Videos on this site range from teaching children 15 different languages to having them dance along with their favorite cartoon characters. This is a perfect activity for to get children active on those cold, rainy days or for those moments where you need them to be indoors.

3. Restaurant 

Yeah, yeah, we’ve all played the game with our children where they mix a bunch of plastic food into a bowl and tell you to eat it. When you do (and hide the toys so they think that its really gone) they then laugh and tell you that they put hot sauce or some other funny “substance” in there. But what if we brought their restaurant alive without having hot sauce in our food? We can with these 5 easy steps!

1. Create a theme
2. Create a Menu
3. Create the food
4. Dress up to match the theme
5. Eat!

This is a fun way to go to those favorite restaurants that are currently closed or to bring some entertainment to dinner. Children are working on their writing and artistic abilities by creating a menu. They are being taught life skills, math, and science as they turn different foods into a meal, and parents are able to get dinner out at a reasonable time!

One can only hope that this quarantine ends sooner rather than later, but with these 3 new activities are bound to help you and your child through these long days.

 

20 five-year-olds, 2 teachers, and 1 bunny make for an interesting classroom experience. By 8:15 the children are shuffling on the carpet for morning circle, except there isn’t much morning circle time. After a bilingual good morning song, the question of a day, and a short story it’s time to wrap up and head into breakfast. Seeing this made me wonder…how important are morning circles and what should be included in them?

Morning circle routines vary between classrooms throughout the world. They are commonly found within in early childhood education centers and elementary schools. It is the time in the morning for a class as a whole to talk about classroom business, expectations, and the overall theme of the day. Morning circles are actually very beneficial for the class.

Benefits

• Socialization Skills
• Builds Friendships
• Routine Practice
• Solves Problems
• Sense of Belonging
• And more!

Morning circles can vary from classroom to classroom, but they still hold a lot of the same core ideas.

Ideas

• Classroom Hello
• Calendar
• Songs
• Weather
• Rules Chant
• And more!

Ariel Villano, a preschool teacher, has found the idea of adding  I have  mindfulness into her routine. In return it has helped her students start the day out calm and refocused.

Overall, morning circles are a valuable piece of the classroom schedule. They give children the opportunity to get focused on the day and know what to expect. Classrooms are a community and needed to be treated as such.

Villano, A. (2020). Mindful Morning Meetings. Teaching Young Children, 13(3), 12–13.