Welcome- Preschool Themes - 2care2teach4kids

A welcome theme is a great way to start the school year or to review rules when a new child joins the program. This is a great time to make each child feel welcome with special games and activities to help them get to know each other better. Learning the program rules is important to so that everyone has a fun safe experience together.

Here are some ideas to use in your program. There are many activities listed so that you may pick and choose what will work best with your schedule, program and children's needs.

D.W.'s Guide to Preschool

The Kissing Hand

What to Expect at Preschool

I Love You All Day Long

Spot Goes to School

Franklin Goes to School

Mouse's First Day of School

Corduroy Goes to School

Clifford's First School Day

Blue Goes to School

Froggy Goes to School

Welcome everyone to circle time with a "name" song. This helps everyone learn each others names and makes them feel special!

Literacy

: Play a name clapping game to help children learn each others names and for enhancing listening skills (syllable recognition). Print each child's name on a piece of sentence strip. Store them in a decorated Pringles can. As you pull out, pull a name out slowly showing only one letter at a time, see if the kids can name the letters, sound it out, guess what name it is. Have the kids say the name and clap the syllables. Try doing each name as you add it to the list.

Circle Time: Guess Who!: Using an old school bell or any other bell play a fun listening game. One person wears a blind fold and has to try to guess who has the bell. Sit in a circle and the person who is it can sit in the middle. Hand the bell to one of the kids and they must ring it. The person in the middle has to try to say who has it. If they guess correct they get to trade spots with that child.

Talk with the children about school fears. Invite them to bring in pictures of their family to have at school. Take a picture of each child to use for various activities through out the year (such as in friendship concentration, people puzzles, etc.) Give each child a lip sticker on their hand to remind them of the story The Kissing Hand that you read with them.

Circle Time: Friendship Concentration: Take one picture of each of the children in your group or program. Have double prints made and let the kids use them for a matching game. Match them face up or use them for an old fashioned game of concentration.

Literacy

: Make a list on chart paper of some of the highlight events for the next couple of weeks. Draw simple pictures next to each event so kids can begin to recognize them and see what they have to look forward to. *In addition, as you complete special events like field trips and special guest, have the children tell about their favorite memories and things they have learned. Record their answers on the chart paper also then at the end of the year if you compile a memory book of some sort all you will have to do is look back at the chart paper to add those important memories to the book.

Cooperative Musical Chairs: Musical chairs is a great ice breaker game that kids love. But no one likes to sit out. So in cooperative musical chairs the kids have to work together to get everyone on the chairs, until you are down to one chair and when the music stops, everyone is trying to sit on each others lap! You will be surprised how well they do at it!

Shark: This is played much the same way as the cooperative musical chairs only using hula-hoops. Lay about eight hula hoops out on the ground. They are the islands. The children have to swim around and between the islands until they hear the shark come. (the teacher opens and shuts hands like a shark mouth and makes Jaws sound like da,da-da,da). When the shark is coming the children have to stand in the middle of the hula-hoops. Then hula-hoops are removed after every time the shark comes so that the children are forced to work together to get everyone on the island. Everyone is a winner then!

Hug Frozen Tag- One person is it. When they tag someone they are frozen and the person can not move. Other children can unfreeze them but in order to unfreeze another person they must Hug them!

Personalized Paint Shirts
Supplies: Plain colored large short sleeved men's button up oxford type shirt. Ask parents to bring if they can. Fabric paint in a variety of colors. Keep them at your program for the kids to use when ever they do messy activities.
Directions: Have kids paint their shirts, hand prints and names are a must! Give them some ideas, sponges, and stencils would be good too!

"Look What I Did" Magnets!
Supplies: Magnetic strips or computer printable magnet sheets. Popsicle sticks (if using magnet. strips.) Paint, small paintbrushes, or markers, a permanent marker, and glue.
Directions: Assemble a picture frame with pop-sickle sticks and sticky back magnetic strips or preprint frames on printable magnetic sheets you can buy for your computer! Let the kids color or paint them, then print "Look what (child's name) did at (program name)" and stick a picture of each child behind the frame (glue). Now they have a cute little magnet to go on the fridge for displaying art work, projects, or notes.

Personalized Puzzles- Let the children draw, paint, or marker a picture, or use a photograph again. (A good idea would be to make an enlarged photo copy of each child from one of the pictures you take for the bulletin board) Laminate the picture. Cut then into puzzle pieces for the kids to try to put back together. Let them try to do each others puzzles too!

Creative Art- Play dough is always a winner with kids and a great starter activity. Another great starter activity to introduce art to children is easel drawing with crayons or one color of paint (as the kids learn how to use these tools correctly start to add more color options).

Literacy

: Ask the children to tell you about their pictures. Print their response on an index card and attach it to their picture.

Counters: Set out a variety of small school supplies to use as counters. Pencil erasers, paper clips, crayons, etc. are all great for kids to practice counting with. Use small baskets of gift bags for the kids to count them into or out of.

School Kids Discrimination- Have out pictures of many kids, cut from a magazine or something, let the kids look at them and talk about how they look, what is the same and what is different about them.

School - have available to the kids, school bags, lunch boxes, and other items for them to pretend to be going to school.

Smiley Face English Muffins. Cut a smiley face out of a slice of American cheese. Set it on top of a hot toasted English muffin.

Teddy Grahams -Variety Packs. Give each child a few of each flavor of teddy grahams, discuss which are everyone's favorites. You could even graph them!

Infant /Toddler Extras:
Put out some unbreakable mirrors for the infants and toddlers to explore.

Helping Hands- Having "helpers" is a great way for kids to feel special. Keep each child's name on a note card, draw names for the helpers of the day. Let the children try to read the names that are drawn. You can make a great "Helping Hands" bulletin board display for the helper chart. Click on the link and scroll down for instructions!

"Apples of My Eye"- Cut out or purchase apple shapes to use as picture frames. Cut out the center of the apple and attach a picture of each child to the back. Hang the apples on a big tree or just in a bunch with the title "You're the Apple of My Eye" over the top.

"Whoo" Comes to (Program Name)- Hang up the title "Whoo" Comes To (and your program name). This could go in a tree also, or just be on it's own. Hang a large Owl next to the title of the bulletin board, then under it hang smaller owls with each child's name on them. Create your own owls or purchase an owl note pad to use for the small owls