- ISBN: 9781453140659
- Copyright: 2024
- Grade: Ages 3-5
Meet the April Preschool Learning Kit!
The kit’s four weeks of learning, about the endless wonders of Earth and nature, can be your complete April curriculum or enhancement to existing preschool lesson plans.
Want more guided play in your center’s day? Need help going deeper with learning? Need more lesson and activity ideas to reinforce kindergarten ready skills? Need help engaging families? We’ve got you covered!
In our individual kits, timeless preschool themes rule the day. Educators can unbox and organize the kit’s contents around their existing themes and units for use any time of year, ensuring teachers are supported and in control of their days.
April Theme: Big Backyard
April Theme: Big Backyard
Across four weeks of play-based experiments and “dirt-y” springtime
exploration, students learn to see Earth as their big backyard — filled with
creatures big and small that deserve care and respect. Through hands-on
activities, they practice empathy by taking care of pets, learn how to
separate recyclables, consider why nature can calm their worries, celebrate
Earth Day, and more!
The kit’s lessons engage students’ senses, creativity, logic, and reasoning
skills, all while guiding them to become responsible and proactive stewards
of this precious planet they call home.
Across this kit’s four weeks’ worth of lessons, students:
- Head outside to create bird nests from natural materials and learn why birds build them
- Shrink down to bug size! With oversized food props and cardboard utensils, children explore how ants carry food, build homes, and work together.
- Take magnifying glasses outside to observe tiny worlds— bugs, worms, seeds, pebbles…What will they find?
- Reel in magnetic letters on a fishing expedition, then identify, write, and turn them into words.
and so much more!
What else comes in the kit?
What else comes in the kit?
Good question! Each kit ships in one box and includes:
- Portable box with a weekly time-saving organizational system
- Monthly theme posters provide an overview of each month’s four
weekly themes for quick reference for teachers and families - Monthly teacher guide provides a step-by-step plan and overview of
core topics, activities, songs, and materials lists - Weekly theme templates feature teacher-led activities and child directed STEAM activities.
- Circle Time cards explore core activities at welcome and reflection
circle times (19 cards per week) - Learning Lab cards (centers/stations) with play-based small-group
and independent STEAM activities. (16 cards per week) - Weekly Family Newsletters to keep families engaged in what their child
is learning. (Newsletters to send home each week for up to 24 students) - Weekly Tell-Me-More wristbands for families get children sharing about
all their joyful learning. (Wristbands for up to 24 students)
Purposeful Play, the Highlights Way!
In every resource, we seek to stoke a child’s sense of creativity, agency, and joy.
Logic & Reasoning
How do mama birds keep their eggs from falling out of the nest? Students hypothesize, brainstorm, and “hatch” a plan to protect a real egg (sealed tightly in a plastic bag, of course). Will cotton balls do the trick? A stack of books? A bean bag chair? After constructing their own egg protection system, students predict what will happen when the egg falls on it. Taking turns, they drop their eggs and compare outcomes. Children never tire of this eggciting STEM-focused activity.
Dramatic Play (centers/stations)
Dressed in vests and gloves, tiny clean-up crews take their grabbers, rakes, and brooms for a mission: tidying up their make-believe neighborhood, just as any responsible citizen would! As they work together to “recycle” and clear away “trash,” they discuss the importance of Earth Day and how it takes teamwork to keep our planet happy and healthy. Then they dive into a Hidden Pictures puzzle of critters sprucing up their own park – play that hones concentration and attention to detail along the way.
Weekly Family Newsletter for At-home Connections
The weekly Family Newsletter is an excellent way to engage families and –psst – show off all the excellent learning at your school! Just some of the activity ideas that little ones and families love in the Big Backyard Family Newsletter (one of the four included in the kit):
Don’t throw that milk carton away – turn it into a bird feeder with just a few household items and some bird seed! As families craft together, they can chat about reusing materials, caring for their own little habitats, and why it’s so gratifying to get outside for active play.
Every Family Newsletter includes a QR code packed with ideas. This edition takes families to fun, budget-friendly ways to make outdoor spaces more inviting for exploration, curiosity, experimentation, and running-jumping-skipping fun.
Looking for more themes or a full curriculum?
Looking for more themes or a full curriculum?
Discover flexible ways to purchase your next curriculum. Choose from full year, half year, or monthly packages
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