Whole Child Development
Here’s a combination of hibernation activities for your preschoolers that fit nicely together for a story time or large group activity.
Here’s a combination of hibernation activities for your preschoolers that fit nicely together for a story time or large group activity.
Here’s a quick activity to do as part of your music and movement time, after reading a great wintry book, or any time you just need to work some wiggles out! You don’t even need any supplies, so it’s ready to go whenever you need it!
As you and your children are exploring the properties of pumpkins, you discover that the fact that they are hollow is one of their best characteristics. You find this out as you dig out their seeds and make Jack-o-lanterns. You realize it’s importance as you send even enormous pumpkins floating on water. Another great way to utilize the hollow property of a pumpkin is to use it as a drum!
Laurie Berkner has a great monster song that just compels your little monsters to get up and dance! You can download Monster Boogie on iTunes, and you can listen to it with a little animated video on YouTube here. One of the great things about Laurie Berkner’s music is that you almost instinctively know how to dance to it just from the elements she uses. At the beginning, the music is staccato, and so we march with our scariest monster faces. Then during the boogie/wiggle chorus, we dance and wiggle as only a silly monster would. Often the roar at the end is the favorite part! Music and movement activities are great for transitioning, building large motor skills, as well as enjoying the creative and interpretive aspects of music. As an extension, you can have the children create drawings of a monster party with all their favorite monster characters boogying down!
For more favorite fall activities, click here!
This is a well-known fingerplay that in 1998 was illustrated and put in book format by Dan Yaccarino. It’s a book little ones enjoy reading, especially once they are already familiar with the fingerplay and can essentially “read” the book independently. Whether you use the book or not, here’s the fingerplay!
Five little pumpkins, sitting on a gate (Five fingers on top of opposite hand. I usually explain the word “gate” the first time through. For the next five lines, show the number of fingers corresponding with the ordinal number and really play up the rest of the intention of the line with your facial expression.)
This is one of my favorite activities! Help your child take a leaf and place it between two strips of muslin or other white, cotton fabric. Together, hammer the muslin with a rubber mallet. As the mallet strikes the leaf, the chlorophyll is released from the leaf and absorbed by the fabric. Colored leaves in the fall work also as long as they have not become too dry (though their red and purple colors come from a type of sugar in the tree instead of chlorophyll. Check out this website for more science information about fall leaves.)
Parachute activities are always enticing to kids. They’re great for building motor strength and control, as well as self-control. They also strengthen the child’s ability to listen to and follow directions and to work with others as a group, all great social skills. Parachutes don’t have to cost much. I picked up a small, 6 foot version, to be used in small spaces and with groups of 10 or less children for about $10 (see where to order it here). You could also just use a bed sheet instead of a parachute.
Here’s a song you probably already know, but just in case you don’t I’ll share it with you! It’s so simple and perfect for the season. As we sing, I have the children float their hands back and forth down to the ground like falling leaves. Here’s the song:
Once you’ve done your Four Seasons chart, you can extend the discussion (perhaps the next day) by singing the “Happy Children” song. What makes this song so great, is that it’s written, in part, by the children!
Start out with your Four Seasons chart, as well as five pieces of paper. On one paper write the title, “Happy Children” and perhaps add some quick drawings of smiling children. On the next paper write, “Happy children in the spring time…” Repeat this line on the other papers, substituting for the four seasons (“summer”, “fall time” or “autumn”, “winter”).
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