Pre-Kindergarten

Spying Neighborhood Helpers Lesson & Activities 

A neighborhood is made up of living things.  People, animals, and plants are connected to each other through helping. People, animals, and plants help each other by sharing resources. Help is given as act of kindness. Help is also given to get something in return. When children learn the concept of helping others it opens their understanding of neighborhood. It introduces them to a sense of community. These simple activities listed below allow pre-k students to look at their neighborhood and identify examples people, animals, and plants helping others:

• Reading books about how different people, animals, plants help each other. 

• Take a walk around your neighborhood looking for live examples of 

  • people helping people, animals, or plants
  • animals helping people, animals, or plants
  • plants helping people, animals, or plants

• Have pre-k students talk about the feelings and emotions people and animals feel when they help others or they are helped by others

• Guide pre-k students in thinking of ways they can help people, animals and plants in their neighborhood.

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Traditions Lesson & Activities 

Traditions, the practice of habits, customs, actions, and beliefs from generation to generation are found in families, schools, churches, organizations, government,  or other locations in our everyday lives they frequently visit. Use the activities listed below to help pre-k children to discover traditions such as habits, customs, actions and beliefs they practice that have been passed down through generations or that happen every year around the same time:

• Reading books about the different holidays practiced by different people or cultures.

• Have pre-k students identify at least one tradition such as:

  • Holidays
  • Bedtime rituals
  • Religious practices

• Have pre-k children write down their favorite tradition at the top a sheet of paper then draw a pictures of what their tradition looks like in the past, present, and future.

• Assign a homework activity for pre-k student and family to explore family history to find traditions.

Warm Weather Civics Lesson & Activities 

Civics is about the rights and duties of a productive citizen. Civics is also being a part or member of a larger group. The activities below are designed to preschoolers the abstract idea of the meaning of civics in terms of warm weather safety:

• Read books about warm weather activities

• Preschoolers will list warm weather  activities with safety wear or practices that will make the activity safe such as

  • Swimming/swimming shoes
  • Swimming/eye goggles
  • Playing outside/sunscreen

• Take the activity a step further and practice some of these actions in your classroom, outside your school, or at home. 

• Preschoolers can practice wearing their own warm weather gear, taking warm weather precautions or learning proper hydrating techniques to keep their body safe.

Making a Map Lesson & Activities

Teaching basic map skills can be creative and fun. The mapping activities below will help develop spatial thinking or geographical thinking:

• Read books about different places around the world.

• Have preschoolers draw or paint their physical surroundings such as

  • their bedroom
  • inside their house
  • outside around their house
  • their neighborhood 

• After preschooler reproduce their physical map on paper using paint or crayons, talk about map directions and how things are represented on their illustration. 

• Have a discussion about their drawings and how they stand for actual things and how they relate to one another in their actual surroundings.