Gayle's Preschool Rainbow - Activity Central

Gayle's
Preschool Rainbow - Activity Central
"Where Early Childhood Teachers Find Ideas"

Preschool education activities and early childhood education lesson plans that give preschool children choices. Ideas for pre-k and kindergarten teachers that enrich classroom curriculum are arranged by theme. Plus easy at home fun learning games. There's even a search function and an opportunity to submit your own ideas. To receive announcements about updates in an occasional newsletter, enter your email address below and click the 'Join' button.
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Activity Central
"A rainbow of preschool education activity plans"

The Summer Theme has hot ideas and cool cooking learning activities for preschool and kindergarten children. You'll find 2 web pages filled with science, picnic and beach early childhood activities with ideas for bulletin boards too.

The Outdoor Play Theme includes summer activities that promote the gross motor and observation skills of young children. There's even a few activity plans that will help youngsters create volcanoes.

In the Rainbow Resource Room:

4th of July Independence Day Theme In the 4th of July Theme young children have fun celebrating Independence Day with patriotic preschool learning activities. Try the Holiday Windsocks, the Paper Chain Flag or the 4th of July Fireworks. There is a black & white printable coloring page available for this theme.

Flag printable coloring page

The Ocean and Sea Theme brings the underwater ocean, sea, river and pond into your preschool and kindergarten classroom with science, dramatic play, cooking, songs, fingerplays and art & craft activities. Indulge in fantasy with the Mermaid Friendship Story. Engage youngsters with dramatic play beach and sailboat activities followed by the sensory experiment Fresh Water vs. Saltwater activity then continue with Saltwater Painting. You'll also find an activity that will help youngsters create Shark Puppets. There's a lot more plus Bulletin Board ideas too. 2 black & white printable coloring pages are available for this theme.

1. Fish
2. Ocean & Sea Creatures (Sea Turtle, Shark, Seashell)

With the activities in the Blowing Beautiful Bubbles Theme preschool children have fun blowing bubbles and won't know that they are learning about science. In this theme you'll find secret recipes and tips for the biggest and best bubbles along with rhymes. There is a black & white printable coloring page available for this theme.

1. Bubble Bottle

Camping Activity Theme Here are Camping Activities that provide creative camping dramatic play experiences for preschool and kindergarten youngsters. Bring the outdoors inside the classroom with these early childhood education ideas by creating a Camping Theme Box, a Camping Dramatic Play Center or by transforming your entire classroom into a campsite where young children participate in literacy and counting activities during their visit to Camp Learn Alot.

Creepy Crawler Theme In the Creepy Crawlers Theme there are early childhood activities, lesson plans and ideas about insects, bugs and fuzzy creepy crawlers. Cook an Edible Ant or Strawberry Ladybug treat and show preschool children how snails are able to maneuver on plants with the Snail Circus activity.

There are 5 black & white printable coloring and pattern pages associated with this theme.

Creepy Crawler Basic Bug
Ant
Snail
Spider
Ladybug

The Bird Theme has many preschool activity plans for creating bird nests, bird houses and bird feeders. You'll find rhymes, songs and a counting activity that is sure to have preschool and kindergarten children learning skills and having fun. There are 3 black & white printable coloring and pattern pages of Birds available for this theme:

Great Horned Owl
Meadowlark
Robin

In the Science Experiments Theme you'll find science discovery experiences for preschool and kindergarten children that promote observation and prediction skills as they explore their environment and actively construct their own knowledge using fun inexpensive science experiments.

Planting an indoor classroom garden all year-round provides preschool children with lots of science experiences. You'll find activities and ideas for summer, spring, fall and winter in the Plant Growth Theme.Try Sprouting Seedlings in a ziploc bag or planting an Egg Shell Garden. Sing a few of the songs or create your own classroom Greenhouse Garden and develop a plant growth bulletin board while preschool youngsters become familiar with natural science. There are 4 Printable Coloring / Pattern Pages that help with this Plant Growth Theme.

Seed Growth and Flower

Bean Plant

Plant Growth

Flower Cross-section

You'll find these themes and 60 more in the Rainbow Resource Room.

How to Choose a Picture Book In this article written exclusively for the Preschool Rainbow, award winning author Ellen Jackson offers advice that early childhood teachers can give to parents about choosing good picture books for preschool children.

Preschool Books Listed by Themes
A pre-k curriculum resource of suggested picture books for early childhood teachers and parents of young children. With more than 20 lists of kindergarten and pre-k books for story time and the library areas of early childhood classrooms.

The Preschool Rhyme Theme Collection is a curriculum resource with tons of finger plays, action poems, songs and nursery rhymes grouped according to early childhood education themes. Rhymes that enhance early learning about insects and bugs, animals, family, transportation, counting, community helpers and so much more!

Animal Activities promotes pre-k and kindergarten learning with literacy, science and dramatic play ideas. Activities for Zoo Themes are here.

Activities for Toddlers has 4 seasons of learning ideas and activity plans for very young preschoolers.

Preschool Activities for a Dinosaur Theme
Lots of early childhood classroom activities for teaching preschool children about these fascinating creatures.

Alphabet Theme
Preschool children have fun learning the letters of the alphabet when early childhood teachers use these activity plans and games in their classrooms.

Counting and Number Theme
Active learning ideas that engage both small and large groups of young children in the development of counting skills.

The Preschool Links page has informative resource sites for preschool and kindergarten teachers, plus places of interest for both parents and young children.

Search the Preschool Rainbow

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