Most children love our four-legged and feathered friends. Transform the dramatic play area into something extra special! This Vet Clinic can be a wonderful way to tie in science, math, cooperative play, and literacy skills all in one dramatic play area. It also encourages empathy, and can even help a child who might be feeling…
available on TpT
Sandwich Shop Dramatic Play Center
The dramatic play center is the perfect place for young children to “play to learn”. Our basic home living center is a kitchen, with play food, dishes, babies, dress-up clothes, and a phone. For a week or two each month we transform it into something extra special. This Sandwich Shop is a great one to…
Our Half-Day Preschool Schedule
One of the questions that I receive from other teachers, more than another other question is, “What does your preschool schedule look like?” This is a tough question to answer because although our routine is the same every day, the schedule is a bit flexible and it’s very much personalized to suit the needs of…
Library Dramatic Play Center
We are always looking for new and creative ways to encourage learning in the dramatic play area. During our “Fairy Tale” unit, the students fell in love with all of the fun stories that we read. They constantly asked to take the book home to read again, which got me to thinking… we should set…
Taco Dramatic Play
Hola, Amigos! We have something very delicious and fun ready for you in the dramatic play area. You might remember how much the preschoolers love the Pizza Parlor and the Pancake Cafe? Well, now it’s time to take a trip south of the border to visit our “Fiesta” Taco Stand Dramatic Play! Bienvenidos!! 🙂 Welcome…
Free Penguin Emergent Reader Book
One of the things that I most often hear from parents when their child is learning how to read is, “She’s not really reading. She has just memorized the book!” Guess what?!! That is reading! That’s what emergent readers do! They pretend to read just like they see parents doing! They read books over and over…
Name Books
We spend a lot of time learning to recognize, spell and write our names in preschool. I am always looking for hands-on ways that the students can practice. They love things that they can practice in class and take home, like their Name Folders. When I saw the idea for Name Books on Fun-A-Day I knew…
Pumpkin Counting Mats
One of our early math goals is to develop a strong number sense in children. We want them to be able to identify numbers, use one-to-one matching while counting, and also to be able to subitize (visualize) quantities. These Pumpkin Counting Mats are a great way to practice all of these essential skills, in a very fun, playful and developmentally…
Pancake & Waffle Dramatic Play
I am honestly not sure who gets more excited each time we set up a new dramatic play area — me or the preschoolers! Our pizza parlor was such a big hit last month that I wanted to stick with a restaurant theme. When I came across Melissa & Doug’s amazing pancake and waffle sets,…
Pizza Parlor Dramatic Play
You might know that we really, really, love the Dramatic Play center. By changing it regularly from the basic Home Living center to other scenarios we give our students the opportunity to take on different roles. Since it’s the beginning of the year and we are just exiting survival mode and moving toward real playing and learning, we…