Preparing a Lesson Part 4- Focus Activities

Before we begin talking about Focus Activities I just want to point out that as much as I would like to, I do not plan a detailed lesson for each day we do something.  I would love to do that, but it can be very time consuming and with three young children, a husband, and a household to take care of it just isn't realistic at this time.  The more prepared I am, the better our days go.

Focus Activities are to help children practice skills related to the theme of the day.  Different art activities are perfect for learning to cut, paste, draw, etc. Keep in mind that the focus is on practicing and aquiring skills not on the final product.  They should be things that children can do without too much help from an adult. 

Try to get a variety of different activities for the day. For example, with our apple theme we could do

Apple Prints

taste test different types of apples

play a matching game

measure how many apples long we are

It helps to have a list of what is needed for each activity and have it on hand before it is time to do them so no one loses interest before actually doing anything. :) 

If you've missed any part of this series you can check them out here

Part 1- Themes

Part 2- Preassessment

Part 3- Gathering Time

Preparing a Lesson Part 3- Gathering Time

Today is Part 3 of Preparing a Lesson.  In Part One we discussed themes and in Part Two we discussed Preassessments. 

Gathering Time (or Circle Time) is when the actual teaching takes place.  This can be as formal or informal as desired depending on your situation.  Last year I did my teaching completely informally, though this year I am thinking that I will attempt to do it with my boys sitting down with me in front of them.  Gathering time shouldn't be long and being flexible will save a lot of heartache. 

Avoid doing all of the talking.  It's true, that now is the teaching time, but children should be actively involved.  Avoid asking answers that have a right or wrong answer to them.  Use your ideas to be emphasized that you gathered from what you learned of your preassessment and find fun and interactive ways to teach the children these new concepts.  Decide what message to get across and then decide how to go about doing that.  Here is a list of ideas that are great to use during Gathering Time:

• graphing
• role playing
• sorting
• what's missing?
• puzzles
• sequencing
• treasure hunts
• guess the picture (cover picture)
• puppets
• songs
• finger plays
• stories (all different types)
• memory games
• movement
• matching

Here is a little example of one point.  Keep in mind, I'm no expert.  :)

Apples grow on trees


• “I have something in this box and I need your help figuring out what it is.” Give clues one at a time. If they haven’t figured it out by the end then bring it out anyway. “It is something we eat.” “It is a fruit.” “It is crunchy.” “Sometimes we eat peanut butter with it.”


• Show an apple to the children. “I have an apple here.” Show another apple that has been cut. “Apples have seeds inside them. We can take an apple seed and plant it in the ground. Pretend to take your seed and plant it in the ground.” Have the children pretend to dig a whole and put a seed in and fill it back up.


• “After a while that seed will grow until one day it grows into a tree.” Have the children curl on the floor and then slowly grow like a tree.”


• “That tree then blossoms and then apples begin to grow on it. At first the apples are small and green, but as time goes on they will turn their true color.”


• Sing, “A Little Appleseed” (sung to Itsy, Bitsy Spider)


Once a little apple seed was planted in the ground


Down came the raindrops, falling all around.


Out came the big sun, bright as bright could be


And that little apple seed grew to be an apple tree!


• “This apple turned red. “When apples turn their true color than they can be picked and we can eat them.”


• I will put up sequencing cards as we talk about each thing.


• Mix up sequencing cards. “I need your help figuring out how these cards go.” Have the children take turns putting cards up so that they are in order.

Gathering Time can be so much fun.  Good luck!

Preparing a Lesson Part 2- Preassessment

In yesterday's post I talked about choose a theme.  Today we are going to talk about preassessment.

Once you have chosen a theme you need to find out what the children already know about the topic so you can extend their knowledge on the topic, that is the purpose of doing a preassessment..  It's surprising what you find about your own children doing this.  Sometimes I find that my boys know things I didn't realize they knew and vice versa.

Some ways to do this are by:

• asking open-ended questions
• questions using visual aids
• observing the child
• activities

Writing notes down as you have a conversation or immediately following is a great way to remember what was learned.  I rarely write it down, but I think I may start to.  Sometimes children come up with some humorous stuff!  I would for sure write things down in a public preschool setting since there would be different answers from different children. 

Here is just one example of a preassessment.

*Note- from here on out I will refer to my 4 year old as Mario, 2 year old as Luigi and my baby as Toad. :)

"I was eating an apple and asked Mario and Luigi, 'Do you know what I am eating?'  Mario told me it was an apple. 'What do you do with apples?'  He replied that we eat apples.  Then I asked, 'What kinds of foods can you make with apples?'  He didn't think we could make any other foods with apples he then added, 'They grow bigger and bigger.' I agreed and then asked, 'Where do you think apples grow?'  Mario said he didn't know.  I prodded more asking if they grew in the ground, he told me no.  Then I asked if he thought apples grew on trees.  He said no.  After asking him a few more places he said he thought that apples grew on trees and 'get bigger and bigger.'  Then I asked, 'What colors are apples?' He told me they were red and Luigi piped in that they were red.  'Are they other colors besides red?  How about green?'  They both replied, 'No!'  I asked if they could be yellow and they said no to that as well."

From this preassement I learned that they knew that apples can be red, but didn't realize that apples can be other colors as well.  Mario had a vague idea that apples grow on trees, but it took some prodding to get that out so I'm not sure how well he understands that.  He did know that apples grow and get bigger.  Neither realized that we can get other foods from apples.

From this preassessment we can then develop which concepts we want to teach.  For example I could choose

Apples can be different colors.
Apples grow on trees.
We can make different foods using apples.

Stay tuned in for my next post about preparing a Gathering Time.

Preparing a Lesson Part 1- Themes

I have been brainstorming as to what I want to accomplish this year as far as preschool goes.  It is my 4 year olds last year before kindergarten and my 2 year old will turn 3 in September so the majority of the school year I will have two preschoolers in the house. 

Lesson Planning was the hardest thing I did during my pursuit to getting a degree in preschool education.  I thought I would share, piece by piece some things that may be helpful to others whether you are working in a public preschool setting or working with your own children.  I won't be focusing on every aspect that you would have in a public preschool, but some main things I do as I work on preparing to do stuff with my own children.

First, I like to pick themes to focus on.  One beauty of doing preschool with my children is that I get to do topics that I couldn't do in a public setting, for example I plan on doing a theme about Jesus Christ at Christmas time.

When picking a theme avoid topics that are too broad.  Community Helpers is way to broad to do in a day, however, try doing mail carriers and you are set.  If the topic is too abstract, in other words if the child can't be taught through using their senses it probably isn't appropriate.  I think this is the hardest thing for me and I'll be honest, sometimes I choose topics, like holidays or religious themes anyway, but it does make it harder.  Another issue you may run into is choosing a them that the child has no experience with.  If it isn't applicable to a child  the age you are trying to teach then don't bother.

Is the theme interesting?  Is it meaningful?  Is it something the children are regularly involved with now?  Will studying this theme help children gain a greater understanding of it?  Can this topic be taught through direct experience?  Ask yourself these questions before going any further.  The answer to all should be "YES"!

I have been thinking about September and what topics I want to cover.  Here are a few of my ideas:

apples

bakers

caterpillars

elephants

ears

As I mentioned above sometimes I don't follow these rules perfectly, but I definitely keep them in mind and believe me, when I don't it is much harder to figure out how to teach new concepts to my children.

I hope this was useful to someone out there.  Stay tune for Part 2...