Children have notoriously short attention spans, and they don’t learn unless they are constantly engaged in fun and entertaining activities. This can be hard to keep up throughout the week, and it’s understandable that teachers run out of things to keep their little ones occupied by at all times.
Here are some teaching ideas for preschool to teach your students these important skills:
Reading and writing
Reading and writing are integral skills for kindergarten kids to learn before advancing to the first grade. It allows them to communicate and socialize with others and provides a good foundation for entering school.
Drawing stories are a fun way to teach kindergarten children to read and write. Remember that at the age of three, a child’s first experiment with writing will largely be based on drawing pictures. Read out a short story to the classroom and get them to draw what it is about on a piece of paper.
Math
Mathematics is a subject that is rarely enjoyed by children but probably one of the most essential for them to grasp. They need to know numbers before they can tell the time, and as they get older they will have to pay for things, work out bills and math helps you to teach important problem-solving skills.
Board games are a great way to teach math to little ones. Any board games that have a dice and require children to count are great to have in the classroom. Board games such as snakes and ladders are an excellent example that will teach children while they are having fun.
Science
Science is one of the most interesting and fun subjects to teach to any age group but particularly so when it comes to kindergarten children. Their curiosity ensures that they are constantly interested and eager about science lessons and experiments. Science helps children to question and understand the things that happen in the world around them.
A great science lesson is nature postcard prints.Take your students outside where they can collect a variety of flowers, pods, and seeds. Glue them down on cardboard and paint their surfaces. Then get blank postcard paper and press it down on top. Once dry, the children can write a small note for their parents.
Creativity
In a world that is dominated by technology – creativity is incredibly important to provide children with much needed time away from screens and an outlet for their feelings. It also teaches them about other subjects – by mixing colors for art they are learning science and their hand-eye coordination also improves.
Keep in mind that at this stage children are still getting their artistic skills under control and can’t be expected to produce Gogh-esque kind of paintings. Painting blob animals is an easy and fun art activity for children.
Each child should have a sheet of paper that you have previously folded in half. They then must put a blob of paint on one side and fold it together again (help the younger ones). They must then draw whatever creature around the result.
These are just some examples of the hundreds of creative and entertaining lessons that you can use to teach your students essential skills while they have fun at the same time. If you would like more information and ideas for teaching lessons, download our new guide Getting the Most Versatility Out of Your Teaching Tools. Have a look at our Miniland School blog for more advice on teaching and the classroom.
