Pet Clinic Dramatic Play

Dramatic play is an essential part of children's learning.  It allows children to develop skills in such areas as literacy, language, math, social emotional, cognitive, and writing.

Providing children with different types of dramatic play can be a challenging and time consuming.  Try to find one storage unit that can be changed easily without having to change the whole home living center.

   

This dramatic play stand is not in my home living center but rather right outside the area.  It allows me to be able to change out the role play theme easily and often to give children the opportunity to act out different types of life experiences.  

Here it is turned into a Vet Clinic.  Children can play on both sides of this unit to extend the play.  

Children negotiate what roles they will be playing.  Vet, customer, vet assistant and even groomers.

Writing in the dramatic play area happens naturally when providing signs and prescription pads on clip board. 

 Children learn to care for the animals by feeding them and walking them.

Props provided in the vet clinic where

Doctor Tools

Stuffed Animals (dogs, cats, lizards, turtles, mice, and snakes)

Dog Treats

Collars and Leashes

Food and Water Bowls

The Vet Clinic printable kit can be found on Vanessa Levin Pre-K Pages

 She has many other dramatic play themes to chose from.  They are easy and quick to use to transform you dramatic play space into something magical.

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More Pet ideas can be found from Learning and Teaching with Preschoolers in the Pet Shop lesson plan theme bundle, also available is a Lap Book to Big Book Doggy in the Window.

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Got Milk Bones Freebie

A fun way to get your little ones talking about size, small, medium and large.

 Children will sort baskets of milk bones into three different size bowls.

Meet the common core standards with these simple activities. Standards that can be meet (K.MD.1, K.CC.3, K.CC.4a, K.CC.6 and K.MD.3)

 After they had an understanding of the different sizes I gave them the sorting sheets.  Where they could practice the skill and discuss with one another which one they had the most of or least of.  They also wrote the amount of bones at the bottom of each column with a dry marker. 
      

 The following day we gave the children a shorting work sheet to help assess them on the skill.  These sheets then went into their portfolios.

Click on one of the links bellow to grab your free copy of the math activities Got Milk Bones. 

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Educate Your Young Child

It is with great pleasure that I introduce to you a new book for parents Educate Your Young Child a practical guide for parents: how to prepare your child for school.

The early years of a child's life are vital to a child's lifelong development.  A child's earliest experiences and their environment will set the stage for future development and the success in school.

Parents play a critical role with a child's early learning before formal learning will take place.

This book Educate Your Young Child a practical guide for parents provides families with simple low cost activities that will promote learning in early childhood.  It provides parents with activities in all the learning domains so that children will be able to step into school with the confidence they need to learn and succeed.

This is a booklet that heeds to be in the hands of all parents, family members and care takers, so that they have the confidence in helping to educate their child. 

This book is written by Anita Ayre of Northern Beaches-Sydney, Australia. She has been touch the minds of young children for 30 years and she holds a Diploma in Early Childhood Education.  She has been a facilitator of change in teaching practice in a state-wide literacy and numeracy project, working in city and country to improve experiences for children in classrooms.  She brings all of this knowledge together in a book for parents.

Let's Do the Bunny Hop

The "Bunny  Hop" is both a song and a dance.
Here are the few lyrics it has:

Put your right foot forward
Put your left foot out.
Do the Bunny Hop.
Bunny, Hop, hop, hop!

Dance this new creation
It's the new sensation
Do the Bunny Hop
Bunny, Hop, hop, hop!

Let's all join in the fun
Father, mother, son
Do the Bunny Hop
Bunny, Hop, hop, hop!

Bunny Art

 Milk Jug Bunny Baskets

First we painted the heads to our bunnies

Then we painted the milk jugs with different designs.  We added glue to the paint so that it would stick to the jug.

 We will be using our bunny baskets for our egg hunt.


 Number Order with Bunnies

 Bunny Can Games for Small Group

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Apple Carton Eggs

Paint and Add Glitter

 Egg Carton Chicks

To make a cute little chick just paint a egg carton, glue in a large color pom pom add wiggle eyes and feathers. 

Bunny can games can be found on Teachers Pay Teachers or Teachers Notebook.

From Bad to Fab

My puzzle center was in great need of a makeover, when an area in the classroom is cluttered or in disarray, it creates a chaos that cannot be described.  This is what was happening in my puzzle center, it is time for me to do something about it.  

I believe that organization is the key to helping children learn and motivates them to interact positively with each other.

 So to help children keep the pieces together I placed small basket with every puzzle on the shelf.

 The children grab a puzzle with basket.  When they dump the pieces they place them in the basket so that children in the area know which pieces are to their puzzle they are working on.  If a child is having a hard time putting a puzzle together then they know to just place the pieces in the basket and set the puzzle frame and basket back on the shelf. This way when another child choose that puzzle the piece are all together and not miss placed.

 We eliminated the floor puzzle boxes and placed each floor puzzle in a color tub with picture of puzzle taped to the outside of the tub.  We then placed one tub per shelf.  Puzzle boxes are saved in the storage area so that when we rotate puzzle they can be placed back in the box with the picture of the puzzle inside. 

If you are thinking of making over your learning centers in your classroom you might like using this classroom design workbook.  It will help keep you organized and on task as you work your way around your classroom in creating an effective learning environment that is without chaos.   

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Farm Unit

Favorite classroom farm books

Shared Writing

What we know about farms

 Pocket Chart Activity

You can download this pocket chart sorting activity for free on Teachers Pay Teachers or Teachers Notebook.

 Small Group Activities

Sorting Letters

Writing Letters

Counting Animals

Adding Animals

Making Words

 Creative Art

3-D Pigs

3-D Horses

Paper Plate Chicks

We also made paper plate ducks, roosters, and red hens.

 Small group activities can be found in the unit Down on the Farm

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 Barn Yard Math can be found on

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