Examples of Preschool Curriculum Activities

As a parent, it is important for you to be aware of common preschool curriculum activities. If your child is almost old enough for preschool, then you need to prepare him or her for the experience. Knowing about some of the activities he or she will be involved in will help you do just that.

Common Preschool Curriculum Activities

Most preschools will help children develop emotionally, intellectually, and physically. This, plus their short attention spans, means there will be a lot of activities during the day. There will be activities to help improve children's fine and large motor skills and spatial awareness. Other activities will prepare the children for reading and math. Some activities are also geared towards teaching the kids about the world they live in, like knowing community helpers and exploring science.

Most preschools will have blocks, Legos, and other manipulatives that will help the children develop their muscles. This is important for writing in the future as well as for cutting with scissors. It may appear like the kids are just playing, but kids, as well as older kids and adults, learn through play. There will also be activities to help the child develop their senses. This is why you may find a sand table in many classrooms, or an area that displays things with different textures for the children to explore.

Readiness for reading and math is a goal of some preschool curriculum activities. There will be exercises and games that will teach the children their letters, names of shapes, and counting. This is usually done with finger plays, nursery rhymes, and songs. These activities also add to their vocabulary development, which is important in Kindergarten and primary school. A good preschool will not have writing worksheets, as the children are not ready for them yet. A few worksheets are OK, as long as they involve circling an answer or coloring the correct picture. Cutting and pasting worksheets are good, too.

Hopefully, you will find a lot of creativity in preschool curriculum activities. Enriching children's creativity is important to helping them psychologically and emotionally. In most preschool classrooms, there is a dress-up area, a puppet stage, or some area for dramatic play. Musical activities should be available too and should include not only singing, but also playing instruments as well. These instruments need not be purchased; they can be made out of sticks or cans that are filled with beans. In addition, while there may not be room for easels to be set up for art, any preschool classroom should have art activities as a major part of the curriculum.

Lastly, there are general activities that will teach the children about the world around them. These will include stories and activities about community helpers, like firemen and policemen and physical science activities about things like animals, the water cycle, and the earth we live on.

Preschool classrooms will have a variety of things that will help the children develop physically, mentally, and emotionally. There will be many preschool curriculum activities designed for these areas that include creative play, counting, singing the ABCs, learning to take turns, and exploring the world.