any good ideas for 3 to 5 yr olds in daycare besides art and craft?I do story telling with puppets.more ideas?

Answer 1

I've worked with this age group many years and am proud to say I never did a craft! We did many open-ended art activities. The art area was always open for children to create and was well-stocked with a variety of paper (including scrap paper of many kinds), scissors, glue, markers, crayons, popsicle sticks, recyclable materials, etc. The art easel was set up and available every day as well. .

Children love storytelling with puppets! Extend that - tell a story and then do activities related to the story. I have an irrational fear of using puppets (LOL), but when I would read a story such as "When You Give a Mouse a Cookie", we would do related activities such as pretending to be mice, making no-bake cookies, filling in the blanks to make their own story (like When You Give a (blank) a (blank), they will want (blank) and drew a picture to go with it..

Three to five year olds are so awesome to work with and able to do so many, many things!! Try to look at it from subject areas: science, math, writing, language, drama, fine motor, gross motor. I even used to do my written planning that way.

Do you have centres set up in the room?

There are so many great ideas, I don't know where to start. You can start with something they are interested in. Spend time listening to the children. What are they talking about? asking about? playing on their own?

Here's one of my favorite examples. My kids were in the block area. They built an airplane. I asked where they were going. One of them said "Africa". I asked them what they would do and see there. Over the next week, we read books about Africa, listened to African music, looked at some African clothing and items I borrowed from a friend. The children made binoculars and cameras in the art area and we went on a photo safari. We put chairs together in the middle of the room, like a LandRover sort of thing. I had taped up pictures of animals around the room and we pretended to "spot" them and take pictures. One of our parents had lived in Africa and brought in pictures and talked to the children. It was a great project!!

What's really great about having the children in day care is that you have most of the children all day, every day, and so can spend extended periods of time on activities.

With a little googling of any idea or topic along with "preschool", you'll find tons and tons of fun things onthe internet.

Here are some interesting sites for you:

Project Approach
http://ceep.crc.uiuc.edu/poptopics/project/allballs.html
http://www.childcarelounge.com/articles/project.htm
http://www.illinoisearlylearning.org/project-approach.htm

Places for activity ideas
http://www.enchantedlearning.com
http://www.preschoolexpress.com/
http://pbskids.org/zoom/activities/preschool/

Etc.
http://www.naeyc.org/ece/1996/01.asp
http://www.cccf-fcsge.ca/practice/programming/stage_en.html

Answer 2

My children are in this age group and they attend daycare, they love it! One of their favorite things is cooking day. They use very simple recipes and many times they have pictures. Great for getting the kids to read and use math-and they don't even know it! Grandma always does treasure hunts with them and that's a big hit! How about story writing-you start the story and go around the room and everyone gets a chance to add to it. Once you are all done then you could type it up and each child could draw a picture to go with it. So many ideas out there I'm sure...after doing it for so long you get a block similar to writer's block!! Have fun!

Answer 3

Dress-ups... My children's child care centre had an area where the children could go and dress up as Mummies or Daddies or whatever they chose. There was a huge box that had all sorts of clothing and shoes and the kids had a wonderful time.

Also a pretend kitchen using big boxes for the stove and fridge.
Children at age love to pretend and be other people. Imagination is a gift that some children these days lose very early sadly.

Answer 4

Kids this age love games. Play What's Missing? Put some small objects on a tray (a red block, blue block, yellow block, a pencil, a crayon, pair of scissors, small toy car, a small cup, etc. and ask the kids to look very carefully at the things on the tray. Then cover the tray with a towel, put your hand under the towel and remove one item. Then uncover the tray and ask them to figure out what's missing. Kids LOVE this game. Make play dough and then play with it. Let them help you cut up fruit to make a fruit salad for lunch. Play Duck, Duck, Goose. Play freeze tag. Learn some yoga exercises. Fill the water table or a large but shallow container with water and maybe some drops of dish soap for some safe water play. Go for a walk and collect rocks or wildflowers for craft activities like rock painting or wildflower collages. Lie in the grass and talk about what the clouds look like. I could go on forever! Maybe that's enough to get you started.

Answer 5

I taught preschool for 15 years...mostly 4-5 yr olds. They loved the games I created for them from a wonderful resource book called "Workjobs". I had to order it from the publisher. It's from the "60's". Totally worth it.
Arts and crafts activities don't have to be finished projects. Let the children work on their cutting skills (make cutting cards). For fine motor skills, (lacing w/big beads). You can create a Science Center. You'll need shaving cream, liquid water colors or food coloring, empty water bottles, other containers and stirrers. The children will love, love, love mixing colors into the shaving cream and pouring it into containers to make "potions" etc. Yeah, it's messy, but that's how you know they're having fun!! Good luck.
Libby

Answer 6

You can do lot many thing with Kids. Say, bring bread butter and Jam. Play a game with them. Ask them to apply Butter and Jam on bread and who wins gets a gift.

Make them play those games which they learn small small house hold things plus they enjoy (being messed up.

You can ask them to feed one another. Make a game out of all those things which usually parents do not allow childrens to do at home. Obviously not elderly work but things like dressing up, makeup for girls, hair styling for boys wearing clothes which they usually are funny etc etc.

What you would not allow or want your own child to do when you are in the house ... let them do it. Water games. taking shower by themselves. There are hundreds of ideas and ways to make a child happy in this summer vacation

See ya, do give your vote if you really appreciate my idea

Answer 7

Read, read, read! Go to the library and ask for recommendations of quality children's literature. Have story time a couple of times a day. Children learn so much about language from being read to and they love to hear stories! As a kindergarten teacher, the one thing I wish I could tell every parent is to READ to your children every day.

Answer 8

Centers: Homeliving (kitchen), blocks, cars, library, listening center (with stories and songs on tape).
You can go to your local teacher store and find books a plenty on folder activities which are games you can make for the kids to do, most are cheap and easy to make.

Answer 9

pls include story telling based on spiritual articles. U can do it in ways that it wont be boring and i sure u know how u go about it. Also dont forget to tell stories with moral values that would help them build their good attitudes and behaviour.

Answer 10

If you have toys and stuff I'd just let them do that for a while on their own (whith supervision of course). Also, if you have a playground that will take up a bunch of time.