Originally Posted by MarinaVanessa:
I plan general themes that follow a general timeline based on the season, holidays etc. but I leave it flexible just in case the kids aren't interested or they suddenly get interested in something else. I have a couple of planned themes already with activity ideas in all "subjects" like math, science, cooking, writing/literature etc. This way if something comes up that they're interested in I usually already have the lessons planned out, it's just picking and deciding on what activities to do.
I always have my sand area out so as far as sensory are goes all I do is add toys relating to the theme and offer suggestions (like if we're talking about transportation I might add cars to the sandbox and suggest they build roads etc.)
Not really sure what you mean about open ended questions. I have morning meeting time which is like circle time and we discuss what we're going to do during the day so when I introduce the day's topics I do ask questions and usually we read a story so I'll ask them to guess what the story is about or if we've read the story already I ask them to recap etc.
I try my best to do some type of movement/music activity every day at some point. The kids love it and it's fun. I typically introduce an easy song, poem or rhyme and use it a lot so that they can memorize it.
I don't always have food that can relate but when it's easy to incorporate then I do. If we're learning about a color then I may serve something that color, or if we're learning a shape then I might provide food in the same shape etc.
My themes usually last 3-4 weeks and are broken down into sub-themes. If we're doing an All About Me theme for example I'll break it down and one day we'll do activities about what our hands can do, the next day can be about what our legs can do etc.
You can see a general plan of what my activities are here on my website:
http://myhelpinghandschildcare.webs....-1-1-2-5-years
Open-ended questions are questions that you can not answer yes or no. Example:
What is the weather like today? The answer will be open ended because it's going to be cold, hot, sunny, rainy, etc. Anything they come up with themselves will be the answer.....not necessarily the right answer but they have to think of the words themselves.
Is it cold outside today?.............CLOSED ENDED because the answer can ONLY be yes or no or uh-huh or maybe, etc. It's always best to teach yourself to ask open-ended questions vs. not.
I guess my main point was like if you have a theme, like "Spring Time!" do you have a goal in mind where you want the kids to be able to answer 3-5 open-ended questions like "What is Spring"?, "What do you wear in the spring?" or if your theme is "Sharing" do you have a list of open-ended goal questions like "What is sharing?" "Why should we share?", etc? Maybe I'm thinking of a list of objectives?