Preschool Lesson Plans: Time to Do a Kindergarten Prep Theme

It's that time of year! It is time to prepare our students in a year round 4K preschool programs for kindergarten.

They will be experiencing so many new things in a few short weeks, and it is our job to prepare them. They will be in a new class, with new kids, a new teacher, and a new way of doing things.

So that being said, you can take a few weeks and use a theme to prepare them. I have used a Kindergarten unit with my classes several times and I know how it made them more comfortable. I am just going to go through some elements that I like to throw in there.

I like to, of course, schedule a trip to a Kindergarten class or have a Kindergarten teacher come visit. This helps them get settled even if it isn't their teacher.

I would do a calendar activity where we counted down until Kindergarten. I gave each child a calendar page print out to hang in their cubby. Everyday at the end of circle time they got a graduation cap sticker and marked of a day. this helped them better predict how much time was left.

I have a bunch of books about Kindergarten, my favorite being Ms. Bindergarten Gets Ready for Kindergarten. I would read this book in circle time a lot, and created an activity to go with it.

I would have a child's backpack and a teacher's bag, and I would have a bunch of stuff that a child or Ms Bindergarten would use to get ready for school- i.e toothbrushes crayons markers, ABC strips. And had each child pick one and decide which bag it belonged to. We would pack the bags.

I also had a activity called a "bubble race" in which I taught good hand washing skills. This was important for healthy hygiene in kindergarten because the teachers might not be able to help as much as we did. The idea was to do every step correctly 3 days in a row. When they did they got a bubble race award I made up on the computer.

That's just a few ideas from my arsenal, but if you have some of your own leave them in the comments section.

The main idea is just prepare these beautiful kids for the adventure they are beginning.

My Favorite Preschool Lesson Plan

I have one favorite Preschool lesson plan. My Kindergarten unit. I began my Kindergarten lesson plan because I was working in a class of 4-5-yr-olds. It was spring and the whole class of 20 couldn't talk about anything besides kindergarten. So, as I learned from my professor, I followed their interests. We did a whole month's lesson plans with Kindergarten as the theme.

We did things like a "Countdown to preschool Graduation" with a calendar and and graduation hat stickers, we did sorting activities with things we take to Kindergarten, and we went on a field trip to see a kindergarten class. Also, we charted how many kids were going to which schools.

I have looked back many times remembering how much fun that theme was for not only the kids, but for myself and my co-teacher, as well. I wondered why that was so much more successful than other preschool lesson plans. but I think it's simple. This was completely student directed curriculum. Because of that, they learned so much more than if we had done yet another unit about the zoo or ocean life.