TOYS unit activities

1.       Sorting: the book series that I used for this theme is Sprinkles 1 from Richmond Publishing; it comes with cutouts for every unit. I made my own flashcards that you can download at my Facebook Group: ESL/EFL preschool Teachers.

I divided the board using my big flashcards . Ask each student to identify the big flashcards. Shuffle the cutouts and have individual students come up, take a card and place in the corresponding section on the board. Repeat until all the cutouts have been sorted. I place masking tape on the back of  each cutout.

 

Another sorting activity could be sorting the cutouts by color or by item.

2. Graphing: Using the same big flashcards make a bar graph. This activity include collecting data and organizing it in a variety of ways, either be on the board, on the floor.You can use magazine cutouts for the children or simple drawing of their favorite toy. Graphs make counting and comparing meaningful.  The graph question  here is What is your favorite toy ?. each child comes up with the draing or pictuire of his/her favorite toy and paste it on the board. Continue with all the children and then count the total of each toy.

 

3.   Patterns: with the cutouts you can make any kind of patterns. Patterns are repeated cycles or similar relationships. The concept that children should grasp is that toys have "similarities" such color, as the one I did here. You can do them on the board or have children come up and stand next to each other with the cutout in hand. The most basic pattern is the AB pattern, where two items repeat in an alternating pattern at least two times without interruption, but you can move on to more patterns such as ABC, AABB, ABB if you class is prepared for that.

4 . Lacing toys: I create my own lacing cards using fun foam, a puncher and shoe laces. Lacing is an excellent activity for developing fine motor skills, it also improves hand-eye coordination and concentration. It is "sewing" in and out of the holes.

5.  Math: Include math in your theme. I did some ordering by size and reviewing the words big and small, the biggest, the smallest. I got my props from www.childcareland.com. See if they are available, if not I´ll send them to your mail. Write to me: ei98srl@gmail.com

     Shapes are another thing that can be reviewed. I got mine from the same site.

 

6.  Using the same template, I created a Student of the week necklace. Get the teddy at the Facebook Group mentioned before.

7. Car matching game: There another game that I got from childcareland, see if you can download it from her site. If not, you know you can ask me for it.

 

Please join my Facebook Group ESL/EFL Preschool Teachers and post your pictures and ideas there. I´m still looking for guest bloggers. Let me know if you´re interested.