Teaching Preschool Kids?

Question

I'm going to school to become a teacher. In two weeks I have interview with the Education Board and I have to present a video to them of me teaching. I work at a preschool in the afternoons (we don't really teach then, just let the kids play and do some art) and I'm planning to tape myself there. Many of the kids in my class are from foster homes or had abusive parents and are now with their grandparents so most of them don't know how to recognize their letters/numbers yet. I was wonder what kind of lesson would be good for me to teach them? I had thought about reading them a story, letting them predict what might happen next, and then let them drawpictures of the story. I'd really like to do something more creative though. Any ideas would be GREATLY appriciated. Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

You could use newspaper or magazines to help teach letters. Have them circle a particular letter you are teaching them or cut out the letters from magazines or newspaper. They could glue them on something - card stock, posterboard, construction paper, paper plates, etc. Or you could have a little contest to see who can find the most "B's" or whatever letter or number you are teaching them. If you are teaching them colors, you can have them find pictures in magazines (libraries are a great resource to get magazines or even a freecycle.org group in your area) and make a collage of all the red things they can find. Depending on the ages, you could pair them up and have each pair look for a different color. If they can cut well, you could have various pictures cut out ahead of time and they can sort through them. Another idea for teaching colors, is to use legos (the larger ones for smaller kids) and you can do all kinds of sorting activities with them.
Hope some of these ideas can help you come up with a lesson to use. You could always practice the lesson a couple of days before you plan to video so you know how it will turn out, make modifications, and then when you teach the lesson for the video, pick a different letter, number, or color, but hopefully they will have the procedure of how to do the activity down some and that will go more smoothly.

Just thought of another idea, maybe you could make a matching game like "Go Fish" where the kids need to find a match of colors, numbers, or letters or you could practice matching upper and lower case letters. Keep it simple like only 4 or 5 letters so you will have 8 or 10 cards per group or pair of kids.

Hope that helps!

Answer 2

Before I got to the part of your description about your planned lesson the first thing that popped in my head was read them a story. haha. Great minds must think a like. I'm an Elementary school teacher, that has also taught preschool. I just graduated from college last May '06 so I know exactly how you feel. I was thinking maybe you could read them a story...something that most of the kids and yourself could relate to...for instance a story about a kid that took a really cool trip or had a special birthday or did something really fun. Then you could tell them a story about yourself that relates to the book. Then ask the children if anyone has a similar story that also relates to the book. (Be prepared to hear stories that have absolutely nothing to do w/ the story you just read..lol). Being preschoolers, most of them will have a story. So after everyone finishes their story they can draw a picture or do an art project that illustrates to the story they told you. Keep in mind some kids might not want to do that in which case you could find something else to do w/ those students, because they're little and still growing you don't want to force what I call "big kids work" (meaning structured things like sit down and draw/write, etc.) on them. I hope this helps some! Good luck!

P.S. You might want to draw a simple picture to illustrate your story as well to show them what you are talking about.

Also if you feel like giving them the option of coming up w/ a picture on their own might be too challenging then you can come up w/ a project that relates to the book that everyone can do...adding their own twist to it if they feel the need...(i.e. if your book was about butterflies, everyone could make a butterfly, but if someone wanted to add legs to their butterfly then that wouldn't be a problem). :D

Answer 3

Teaching preschool children doesn't really involve lessons.
Children at that age learn throught play so i think interacting with them and guiding their behaviour would be a good start. Maybe show yourself in a circle or doing problem solving with children. i think most places just want to know how you interact with a child.
I know this isnt part of your question but i wouldnt worry about them not recognizing their letters / numers yet. If you make it meaningful it will come. I know that i dont like sitting at home memorizing things and i doubt a 3 or 4 year old does either. You could start with name games or songs in circle. Put up names and words on their cubbies and all the activities in the class room (have a picture of a water table and the words saying water table). Emphasize birthdays or days of the month. Have children be the 'weather boy/girl" they'll day the day and the weather or something.
Good luck!

Answer 4

You could use newspaper or magazines to help teach letters. Have them circle a particular letter you are teaching them or cut out the letters from magazines or newspaper. They could glue them on something - card stock, posterboard, construction paper, paper plates, etc. Or you could have a little contest to see who can find the most "B's" or whatever letter or number you are teaching them. If you are teaching them colors, you can have them find pictures in magazines (libraries are a great resource to get magazines or even a freecycle.org group in your area) and make a collage of all the red things they can find. Depending on the ages, you could pair them up and have each pair look for a different color. If they can cut well, you could have various pictures cut out ahead of time and they can sort through them. Another idea for teaching colors, is to use legos (the larger ones for smaller kids) and you can do all kinds of sorting activities with them.
Hope some of these ideas can help you come up with a lesson to use. You could always practice the lesson a couple of days before you plan to video so you know how it will turn out, make modifications, and then when you teach the lesson for the video, pick a different letter, number, or color, but hopefully they will have the procedure of how to do the activity down some and that will go more smoothly.

Just thought of another idea, maybe you could make a matching game like "Go Fish" where the kids need to find a match of colors, numbers, or letters or you could practice matching upper and lower case letters. Keep it simple like only 4 or 5 letters so you will have 8 or 10 cards per group or pair of kids.

Answer 5

I would recommend that you read a story with very predictable text...like: "Brown Bear, Brown Bear." As you read the story encourage them to predict which animal would come next. For example...for brown they can guess it will be a dog, a horse...etc. Then you can have the children each pick a picture of one of the animals. They would color the picture and the teacher would fill in the blanks to:
Brown Bear, Brown, Bear.
What do you see?
I see a _________ _____________
Looking at me.

You can use the pictures to make a bulletin board display or make a book with all the pages after you have them laminated. The children will enjoy reading the book over and over throughout the year.

Answer 6

If they are doing art just let them color the numbers after reviewing them together. There are some activity books with the numbers and pictures to symbolize each number so that would be a good one... that way they are learning and coloring at the same time and you get to show your hands on teaching skills by going over the numbers with them. Congrats and good luck!!!

Answer 7

Hope none of your staff or any of the parents of kids from your class see this question and realize that it's you that asked it. You have stepped on a lot of toes and released some information that probably shouldn't have been released. If I were one of those parents, I'd probably take my kid out of such a class that you just described, based on what you just wrote. Will all the abusive parents from Tara's preschool please stand up..... (get my meaning?)

Answer 8

You do read a book about colors mixing together, and then do an "experiment" with paint and creating the colors.

Answer 9

http://kids.scintro.com