How to Set Up Lesson Plans for a Preschool Classroom

Your preschool curriculum must be diverse enough to hold the preschooler's interest.

A preschool curriculum plans is an important part of the educational growth for preschool children age 2 to 4. Children in the preschool classroom need a variety of activities to hold their interest and promote mental development. When creating a preschool curriculum emphasize the areas of language, physical development, art and social interaction. Including these activities in the preschool lesson plan will enable you to provide a stimulating and educational curriculum for the classroom.

Things You'll Need

• Access to teacher resources
• Sample preschool curriculum
• Kindergarten lesson plans
• Pre-K worksheets

Instructions

Preschool Education Basics

1. Begin your preschool curriculum with an outline that provides the basic template you will use weekly. Include activities the students will participate in daily, such as circle time and music.

2. Incorporate dramatic play into early childhood lesson plans. Preschoolers learn through role play and imitation. Provide items to nurture the children’s creativity, such as costumes and dress-up clothes, wigs, kitchen toys, play food, dolls, plastic cars and boxes that open and close.

3. Include activities to build fine motor skills in the weekly lesson plan. Children learn fine motor skills by using their fingers and other small muscle groups. Incorporate preschool crafts such as lacing cards, practicing cutting skills, stringing beads and puzzles into preschool education. (See step six)

4. Integrate activities that promote gross motor skills. These activities can take place on the playground or inside the classroom, depending on the weather. Include jumping, climbing, running, bouncing balls and any activity that helps promote large muscle growth in preschool children.

5. Add language and pre-writing skills by reading to the children every day, teaching the alphabet through songs and simple flash cards, and providing students with access to picture books during center time. Tracing pictures and the alphabet with a pencil promotes writing skills. You can use pre-K worksheets to bring consistency to the lesson plan.

6. Incorporate arts and crafts into the daily schedule. Art projects should include a variety of supplies that stimulate the senses, such as paints, paint brushes, butcher paper, modeling clay, crayons, markers and collage materials.

Tips & Warnings

• Social skills should be an important part of your preschool day. Social skills should be taught when the class is working or playing together as a group. Learning to share with others, taking turns and saying "please" and "thank you" are social skills that every preschooler should master before moving on to a more structured kindergarten setting.

• You may also want to look at a kindergarten curriculum to make sure you're helping children develop key skills.

• Create your weekly lesson plan around themes, such as the weather, holidays, animals or the seasons.

• When you feel that your preschool class is ready, add pre-math to your lessons by including simple patterns and shapes.

• Break up the lessons with free play or center time to keep the students from becoming overstimulated.

• Do not schedule a lesson for more than 30 minutes. Longer lessons will result in the children becoming unfocused.

Resources

• Read this Article in Spanish
• Preschool Education: Ideas for Parents and Educators
• Everything Preschool: Preschool Education Activities