community
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Easy Trunk or Treat Ideas
On Monday I shared some tips for planning a trunk or treat event. This has been on my mind because I’m currently trying to pull together decorations for my daughter’s school trunk or treat. Have you ever searched trunk or treat ideas on Pinterest?! People get elaborate! That is not my vibe, I’m all about using materials I already have or can get from the Dollar Tree. The photo above was last year’s effort, every single thing was from my house – I fully went with the witchy coffee shop look so I could use the pillow and ottoman from my daughter’s playroom. Here are some other super simple trunk…
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Tips for planning a trunk or treat
When trunk or treats first became a thing I didn’t really understand them, why do you need another opportunity to trick or treat? Let me tell you, as a parent I TOTALLY get it. My daughter’s child care program and her elementary PTO both host a trunk or treat annually and my favorite thing about these is that it seems like a safer option than trick or treating. The group of parents are people that we know and trust, and the safety piece is so much easier to manage. Of course there are other perks – more opportunities to wear those expensive costumes for one! Since I’ve been planning trunk…
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Building School Spirit
Preschool is often children’s first experience with school, and encouraging school spirit can really build a feeling of community for children and their families. If your school is associated with your local school district then you’ve got easy access to already defined school colors, mascots, and sports teams that you can really lean into. If you’re in a child care program you can still take advantage of many of these same things by partnering with your local district or creating your own set of spirit guidelines. Here are some excellent ways to use these with your families: Spirit wear fundraisers – get everyone geared up! T-shirts are standard offerings, and…
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Friday Freebie – Community Helper Puppet
Happy Friday! I’ve got the perfect freebie to finish out a week about community helpers. It doesn’t get more traditionally preschool than paper bag puppets. This Police Officer Puppet would be the perfect addition to your classroom library, and it might even inspire your students to make their own versions of other occupations. Go download yours from Carrie Lutz and have a wonderful weekend!
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Community Helpers Preschool Activities
I promised yesterday that I would share my favorite activity centers for exploring community helpers, here they are: Community Helper Handprint Wreath – A great visual for all of the places in your community that you would find helpers. Community Helper Occupation Booklet – Explore the tasks of each job and the tools and materials that are associated with it. Community Helper Hats and Badges Freebie – Perfect for your dramatic play area! Community Helper Matching – Great for a language center, encourages children to practice letter and word recognition to match the helper to their title. Community Helper Dances – A little music and movement is always appreciated, and…
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Introducing community helpers
One of the most common topics in the preschool classroom is community helpers. Whether you do a theme week about them, or regularly rotate community helper costumes through your dramatic play area, you’ve probably covered them at some point throughout the year. There’s good reason for this; we want our children to know who they can turn to when they need help, and we want them to recognize that we all play a role in making our community run successfully. My favorite way to introduce this topic to preschoolers is with a discussion. I ask them to name adults that help them, to which they typically reply with family members…
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Holiday-Themed Random Acts of Kindness
The holiday spirit is a powerful thing, and I love to take advantage of this time of year to encourage my students to do nice things for others. Here are some random acts of kindness that work perfect for the holiday season: Tape a sweet note to a candy cane and leave these throughout the building Go Caroling Write special Christmas cards to people who have been especially helpful Collect toys for children in need Share baked goods with local first responders Hang Christmas lights around the school for everyone to enjoy Make the janitor’s job easier by cleaning the classroom really well Put together a special gift for support…
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Engaging families in community service projects
This week I’ve been sharing ideas for starting a community service project in the preschool classroom. For any school community service project to be successful you have to engage families and get them excited about the project. This is not always an easy feat, so here are some of the ways that I’ve encouraged parent participation – and actually gotten it! Get the children excited about the project – when you’re working with preschoolers you can use their enthusiasm to your advantage. If the children are excited about your project then they will not stop talking about it, they will let their parents in on every single detail, and they’ll…
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Community Service Projects for Preschoolers
Preschoolers love to help, so I try to use their desire to be helpful to help teach empathy, and November is the perfect time of year for that. As you begin to think about Thanksgiving and the holiday season, consider tackling a community service project with your class. The key is choosing a subject that the children will get excited about. It is also helpful to do something concrete – something that the children can participate in first-hand and see the results for themselves. Finally, make sure that you communicate the details about the project openly with your parents and families, because you’ll need their help too! Here are some…
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November Challenge!
One of my favorite project topics for the month of November is community service. It’s the perfect time of year to help children understand empathy and encourage families to take part in the project too. So today I’m challenging you to work with your students to come up with a community service project that you can take on together. Do your students love animals? Think about collecting supplies for a local shelter. Do your students love to be outside? Work with families to clean up a local park. One year my class collected food for our local food pantry, and then we were able to take a field trip to…
