Preschool themes

Here are some of the themes I used in my old preschool class.

Africa

Songs: One Elephant; Down on the Savannah, An Elephant Goes Like This.

Themes: animals. hot and cold places.

London

Songs: London Bridge; I'm Driving In My Car: Hickory Dickory Dock

Themes: transport

Sing A Song of Sixpence

Songs: Sing a song of sixpence; Princess in the castle; Princess Pat; Old King Cole

Themes: royalty, counting, baking.

Incy Wincy Spider

Themes: weather/ Halloween

Songs: Incy Wincy; It's Raining, it's pouring; Singing in the rain; Five little pumpkins; Witches come on Halloween.

High Frequency Words

Keyword Kingdom

Every year I create a high frequency word display. This is obviously a great reference for the children during lesson and it can also be a resource for bingo, spelling tasks and other games. 

Keyword Kingdom: Year 2 permanent display to practise high frequency words.

Spiders Explained

Usborne Beginners

This Explanation Unit is based on Spiders...great for grabbing the imagination of all the boys in my Year 2 class! Children enjoy the chance to research this topic. I used Spiders from the Usborne Beginners series to start off the topic. Here are some of the teaching points covered...

Fiction versus non-fiction

Children have a selection of fiction and non-fiction books. They browse through them in groups and chat about the differences. Then we sort the book titles into a Fiction/ Non-fiction table.

Alphabetical Order

Some spider based activities to work on alphabetical order!

Index

Children have lists of words from an index and they have to jot down the page numbers in a table. They will then have a go at writing their own indexes...

Labels and Diagrams

Lots of labeling activities to 'tell some one what something is'...

Glossary

Little definitions of spider related words such as web, silk, egg etc.

Write An Explanation!

Finally children can write an explanation about how spiders create their webs. I use videos on Youtube to introduce this part...

Library Time

We set up a class library full of non-fiction books. Children read them when they finish their task and during silent reading/ group reading activities. The boys in particular enjoy the books on offer. Usborne have a lovely collection of non-fiction books for children.

Native American Art Project

This Autumn in Year 1 we did a Native American Art project. Whilst we were being creative in our Art room, we listened to Native American music. As a plenary, we listened to some simple tales, based mainly on the animals encountered by the Native Americans. Here are some of the finished pieces and our final display.

Native American Scenes

Totem Pole

Christmas Nouns

'Twas The Night Before Christmas...

I use this poem at Christmas to help teach nouns. Children listen to the poem and in pairs jot down any nouns they hear. They sort these nouns into three columns - person, place or thing. They enjoy working as a team during this activity. 

Getting Creative...

I then allocate a noun to each child and we use art materials and LOTS of sparkly glitter to create pictures for our display. ICT can be incorporated too as children can print out labels for their nouns - remembering of course to use capital letters with proper nouns.

Displays

 I have to say, this one of my favourite parts of the job. I LOVE doing classroom displays with the children, especially if we can make them really eye-catching and colourful. Here are some of the displays I have done in the past with various classes.

Fantasy Stories. Year 1.

Electricity Year 2

Life Cycles. Year 1.

Science. Year 1.

Harry Potter. Year 2.

We're Sailing to the Galapagos! Year 2.

Hundertwasser Project. Year 2.

Spanish Story unit. Year 4.

Portraits Unit - based on Andy Warhol. Year 2.

Plurals

Plural Soup

This little activity fits in well with instructional writing and recipes. We discuss the basic plural -s and then add ingredients to make a soup. We also practise 'there is' and 'there are'.