How to Create Everyday Teaching Activities for Your Preschooler

Busy parents often struggle to accomplish their everyday activities with a wriggling preschooler in tow. In reality, these moments present opportunities to invent teaching activities that will not only get you through the moment, but will help your preschooler build the skills she needs to be ready for school. Once you get started, you’ll see many teaching opportunities as you pursue your everyday routine, from the grocery store to the doctor’s office to dropping the older kids off at school.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

1. Numbers, Colors and Counting. Any store with merchandise on the shelves presents great opportunities to engage your preschooler. He can count the number of one kind of thing (“how many grapefruits are on that shelf?”). You can ask her to find everything of a certain color (“do you see any fruits or vegetables that are purple?”). You can tell him that you need “5 apples,” and ask him to pick them out for you. The opportunities are endless.

2. Sorting is a key early mathematics skill for preschoolers, and they are practically programmed to sort things--they love it! When you are unpacking groceries or folding laundry, encourage your preschooler to help you sort things by shape, size or purpose.

3. Rhymes and rhythms build early literacy skills. Read poems or nursery rhymes aloud with your child, and encourage her to finish the rhyming phrase. The late poet and illustrator Shel Silverstein wrote classic books of poetry that are perfect for this age because his words are often very straightforward while the accompanying, unexpected image tells an entirely different story. Read Silverstein’s silly poems with your preschooler, and when you finish a poem, point to the picture and ask “What really happened?” (See Resources.)

4. Choose picture books that are full of rich sounds and rhythms to read aloud. The perennial favorite, Dr. Seuss, is very good because his stories use rich vocabulary and lots of alliteration (words that start with the same sound).

5. Letters and their sounds. The world around us is full of text. Point out signs, newspapers, labels, anything with text and help your child identify letters, and play aloud with the sound of the letter. (“What other word do you know that starts with that sound?”)

6. Believe it or not, you can even introduce your preschooler to Scientific Inquiry! Asking good questions is key to getting good information. As you move through your day together, ask your child questions about what he sees, helping him learn how to ask questions as a way of gathering information.

7. Talk to your child, and treat every new situation as a way to introduce new vocabulary. Holidays, birthday, trips to new places, the first time for anything is an opportunity for a preschooler to build the list of words that he knows, which is a key predictor of how successful he will eventually be in school. Everyday activities are full of teaching opportunities for your preschooler.

Tips & Warnings

• “Pinky Dinky Doo,” an animated television program that airs on Noggin, is an early literacy program for preschoolers, and it also has many educational activities available online. (See Resources below).
• Every child develops and learns at her own pace. There is no “right” stage for your child’s age. And each newborn is programmed to feel excitement about learning new things and mastering fresh skills. If you can keep the joy in everyday moments and discoveries for your preschooler, you will be helping your child to maintain that innate love of learning.

Resources

• Shel Silverstein's Poetry and Art
• Pinky Dinky Doo
• Cognitive Development Milestones
• Sesame Street, Learning at Home

[Aussiegirl]

on 1/3/2009 I love your ideas! How fun it is to think up wonderful ways to help preschoolers explore their world!!