Preschool & Parenting Blog Archives

Daily routines and preschool schedules for children ages 2 1/2 to 5 years old.

Preschool Daily Schedule

Daily Routine for Preschoolers in The Classroom A sample or example daily schedule for preschoolers and toddler children (below) in your preschool classroom to help you organize your day and your preschool and toddler students day. You can use the pre k daily schedule for preschoolers below or the daily toddler schedule below or any variation of these 2 schedules, to organize your day and get the preschool children use to daily routines and activities. Scheduling examples like these help to make things easier and helps to add daily structure in the pre k children’s lives when they are in the classroom. Please be sure to Share & bookmark the sample preschool and toddler schedules below if they are of use to you in your teaching. PRESCHOOL DAILY ROUTINE SCHEDULE (Ages 2 1/2 – 5 years of age) 6:45am ~ 8:30am Family Grouping and Arrival 8:00am ~ 8:15am Washroom Routine 8:30am ~ 8:50am Snack 8:50am ~ 9:50am Outdoor Activities 9:50am ~ 10:00am Bathroom 10:00am ~ 10:10am Circle/Calendar 10:10am ~ 11:10am Free Flow Activities/Hand Washing 11:10am ~ 11:40am Lunch Routine 11:40am ~ 12:00pm Washroom Routine/Clean-up/Teeth Brushing 12:00pm ~ 2:00pm Sleep Time 1:40pm ~ 2:00pm Washroom Routine (As Needed) 2:00pm ~ 2:15pm Washroom Routine 2:15pm ~ 2:30pm Snack 2:30pm ~ 3:30pm Free Play 3:30pm ~ 3:45pm Dressing for Outdoors 3:45pm ~ 4:45pm Outdoor Activities 4:45pm ~ 5:30pm Free Play/ Family Grouping/ Departure Preschool Daily Routine for Toddlers: Toddler Daily Routine & Schedule The following daily routine for toddlers is an example which you can follow or alter to best suit your preschool learning center and the needs of the toddler children. It is important for the toddler children to have structure and routines. It is important for teachers and educators to be organized and have a preschool daily routine in order to accomplish the set learning and educational activities, snacks, lunches and other things planned daily for the toddler children. The sample toddler schedule or routine below can be used and you can modify it where necessary to suit your needs. Sample Daily Routine for Toddlers: The following Daily Toddler Routine is an example which you can follow or alter to best suit your Preschool Learning Center and the needs of the children. Center Opens – 8:30 am: Family Grouping Time 8:30am – 9:00am Diaper Routine, Snack Time 9:00am – 10:00 am Outdoor/ Gross Motor Time 10:00am – 11:00am Circle/Programming, Diaper Routine 11:00am – 11:10am Clean-up, Bed set up 11:10am – 11:50am Lunch/Clean-up, Tooth brushing 11:50 am – 2:00pm Back Rubbing/Nap/Music 2:00pm – 3:00pm Wake-up/ Snack, Diaper Routine, Beds Away 3:00pm – 4:00pm Free Play (Music) 4:00pm – 5:00pm Outdoor Play 5:00pm – Close Family Grouping Time, Diaper Check Remember: Always remember, its a daycare center NOT a children’s BOOT CAMP! Be flexible with your preschool and toddler activities and enjoy the day with the Pre K children and toddler children. Everyone will be in a better mood as a result. Have Fun!

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Preschool programming ideas and preschool curriculum areas of teaching for preschoolers and toddlers.

Daily Preschool Program Ideas For Early Childhood Development

Preschool Programming Ideas for Early Childhood Development: In order to find appropriate daily preschool program ideas for effective early childhood development for the pre k children in your classroom, you should OBSERVE the children while they are playing and OBSERVE and listen to what they are saying. Doing this will give you, as an early childhood educator and preschool teacher, many different teaching & preschool program ideas for early childhood development according to what the preschoolers and toddlers are interested in. Take a look at the various areas of early childhood programming that we have listed below and incorporate them through out your daily schedule. Preschool Program Ideas for Early Preschool Development: Sensory Ideas: Sand, water, objects to explore, goop, flubber, pot pouri, feely boards etc. Art Ideas: Free flow, blank paper, according to topic Science Ideas: Tools to explore with, circle experiment. Math Ideas: Number puzzles, books, poster, circle activities, math songs, flash cards. Dramatic Play: Real life objects, dress up, home setting, real life settings for pretending. Blocks: Shelf, Lego, log house toys, wooden blocks, trucks, (paper, pencils, tape, scissors – OPTIONAL) Music Activities: On shelf/table, bells, tambourine, drum, triangle, music through out the day-CD’s, circle activities using songs. Free Flow Toys: Change variety and types of toys weekly (no later than bi-weekly based on interest levels or behaviors) Quiet Area: Picture book of preschool class, age appropriate books, one word books, pic books, soft pillows, blankets, cuddle toys, felt stories etc. Puzzles: Simple puzzles ranging to more advanced based on different levels of learning, numbers, letters, familiar objects. Have a table available with lots of room. Computer: Educational games, learning to use the ‘mouse’, time limit games/timer games, 1-2 children at a time. Toddler Programming Ideas & Activities: For toddler programming ideas, you should use ONLY a couple of the above preschooler programming ideas each day. *Otherwise it becomes too overwhelming for the toddlers. We need to keep things simple and progressive when using toddler programming ideas in the classroom or at home.

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Three Day Potty Training Tips For Boys And Girls

Three Day Potty Training Tips – How to Potty Train a Girl or a Boy: Are you a parent or caregiver that cringes at the thought of potty training? Are you looking for three day potty training tips for boys and girls? Well the truth of the matter is you are not alone. Many parents and caregivers have sought out many different avenues when it comes to the including spending hundreds of dollars on books, videos, and products. Through some research I have found that a lot of the information available to us has become out dated and just doesn’t work. It ends up making you and your child frustrated and leaves you with lots of accidents, tears, dirty carpets and dirty furniture. Many parents and caregivers don’t know what to do when their child shows their first sign of interest in potty training. There are so many personal opinions out there and so much hear say that it can be very overwhelming and quite confusing. With so many potty training materials to buy it makes you wonder how many of them are a gimmick, just to make money off of a desperate parent or caregiver encountering various potty training problems. Did you know that diaper manufacturers have a dirty little secret? If you knew how all of the diaper manufacturers have everything planned out I think you would be surprised. Did you know that it takes a little boy or little girl who wears ‘pull ups’ 3 times longer to potty train than a child who just uses diapers? You may not have known that but the diaper manufacturers definitely do, and they prey on the fact that we don’t find out.They know approximately how long your child will be in diapers for and so they are going to come up with as many ways as they can to squeeze every dollar they can out of you, yes, even by reward programs. Just think about it, the more you BUY, the more points you get for rewards that would probably cost you less than all of the diapers you had to buy just to get those points. So how do you get your little girl or little boy to potty train and save you money? Most importantly, how do you get your child to even tell you that they have to go to the bathroom? This is where three day potty training comes in. One mom learns her lesson and comes up with this fail proof potty training solution. Carol, a mom of four found that out the hard way and also a very expensive way when the $300+ designer pants she was just trying on just for fun fell in a puddle of her daughters pee on the change room floor. If you want to hear her tell the story she tells it well in this video. The interesting thing about it is that accident actually led her to create a fail proof method to potty train children. This mom of four

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Managing Child Misbehavior

Setting Clear Ground Rules & Managing Child Misbehavior: We all want our children to listen to what we say, or follow rules which we know will protect them and help them become valued adolescents and eventually adults in our society. This is why ground rules need to be introduced as early as at least 3 years of age. All children need limits, as this is the only way they will come to know what is expected of them. We don’t want to bombard children with a huge list of rules which will overwhelm them and make our efforts seem worthless. Four or five rules should suffice to start and once they become part of everyday life we can add new ones as they reach older ages with different responsibilities. Tell Your Children What YOU WANT them To Do: A rule should tell children what to do, instead of what not to do. For example, instead of always saying don’t for every rule which sends out a negative tone, try setting the rule in a more positive tone to help in managing your child misbehaviour better. Clean up after yourself, is a much nicer rule than, Don’t make a mess. Speak in a pleasant voice, is a much nicer rule than, Don ‘t yell. Rephrasing your rules is easy. All you have to do is think about the rule you want to enforce which will more than likely start with the words NO or Don’t, and rephrase it to tell the child what you want them to do. Here’s one more you could use, instead of saying don’t run, you could say, walk in the house. Getting children involved in rule making is a very effective way to set rules. Because they have a part in coming up with them they will remember them much easier, and be more inclined to remember them. Here are a few tips when coming up with some ground rules & managing child misbehavior: •have no more than 4-5 rules •rules should be age appropriate and easy to follow •there should always be consequences when rules are broken •rules should say what to do instead of what not to do Over the next week, sit down with your family or students and come up with four or five rules that should be enforced in your home or classroom. Write them down a large sheet of poster paper or print them out in large print on a regular sized piece of paper and post them for everyone to see and be reminded of. I am sure you will see a big difference when you put the information in this article into practice. Remember this is just the beginning, next weeks article will discuss how to use directed discussion when rules are broken. Until then, be consistent, clear, and work with your children rather than against them. Marisa Robinson (R.E.C.E.)

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Under Stimulated & Over Stimulated Behaviors In Children

Understanding Under Stimulated & Over Stimulated Child Behaviors If you are reading this preschool article, chances are you have read ‘Part 1’ and are ready to go through the 4 types of behaviors. This article is going to focus on the first type, and that is, calming a child who has over or under stimulated senses. The child who has over stimulated senses will usually show signs of irritability, they may scream to drown out noise, tantrums, they may be non-verbal, try to run away, and show signs of nervousness or anger. The child whose senses are under stimulated may show signs of moodiness, they may be very quiet, they may rock, chew their clothing, and have no or low energy/motivation. Something must be happening to cause these behaviors to come out in a young child. Over Stimulated Child: For a child whose senses are over stimulated they may react in the ways noted above due to: the environment being too loud things moving too fast and its overwhelming lights are too bright things may be too confusing words are too confusing things may feel scratchy (clothing tags, certain materials, etc.) certain food textures may be painful to them Under Stimulated Child: A child whose senses are under stimulated is most likely experiencing mental and emotional shut down from boredom, and they will be spaced out and/or unfocused. They may need: more touch more people watching or taking notice of them more movement (rocking, jumping, running, etc.) louder sounds mouth stimulation (teething toys help) What should we never do about those behaviors listed for both types of senses? The number one thing to NEVER do is stop the behavior. If it is not harming anyone or themselves, then let them be. That behavior is more than likely having a calming effect on them and is helping them cope, and now we have an idea of how to help them. Let’s put ourselves in their shoes. Imagine you were sitting in a room with a bunch of people and everyone got to play their favorite song on a CD player. One member of the group plays a loud, ear piercing song that makes you feel uncomfortable and it’s so loud your ears hurt so you cover them and that helps you cope and you decide to keep your ears covered until the song is over. The person who has the song playing sees you and immediately comes over to you and pulls at your hands to take them away from your ears because they think you need to hear the song. You resist and it becomes a struggle. You then become angry, the person pulling your hands away is angry, and the rest of the people in the group become uncomfortable as they watch the struggle. Wouldn’t it be nice if you were able to keep your ears covered until the song was over or you were able to leave the room until you felt comfortable enough to join them again?

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Understanding Behavior Issues In Preschool Children

Child Behavior Issues & Problems – Part 1 I took a workshop on ‘Behaviors in Children’ at a early childhood education conference I recently attended. I was hoping to walk away with some effective strategies on how to deal with, and stop certain child behavior issues I was seeing in some of the pre k children in my classroom. Instead I walked out with a totally new way of looking at behavior problems. I quickly learned how “dealing” with them isn’t going to change anything, but how understanding these ‘child behavior issues’ and working with the child(ren) will make for a much more calm and happy teacher, child, and preschool classroom. I couldn’t wait to get home and share it will all of you Parents, Early Childhood Educators, and Child Care Providers. This, in an effort to make your job much easier and a little less stressful with a better understanding of (preschool) children and their behavior issues. I am going to write a few parts to this preschool article and make it into a series for everyone. I will write about one point at a time so I can really focus on it, explain it, and it won’t be consuming so much of your time to have to sit and read a 50 page article on every subject at once. In This Child Behavior Article: So in this article, (Part 1) I am going to explain what I learned about understanding behavior issues in preschoolers and young children. Once we have the meaning of that then in the next articles it will be easier to follow along with the examples, specified behaviors, and strategies to use to respond to them. The Child Behaviors Presentation Begins: The presenter talked about all types of behaviors which I myself and I am sure you have come across throughout many years of working in the Child Care field. Some of those behaviors are, irritability, anger, tantrums, kicking, hitting, moodiness, verbal aggression, clingy, rocking, fidgeting, power struggles, self inflicted injuries, screaming, no energy, selfishness, and that’s just to name a few. There are also children who have diagnoses like Autism, ADD, FAS, and more. Did you know that most, if not all behaviors have a real underlying issue behind them? And what has been the most common response we have all been guilty of responding with? I know I have been guilty of responding with ignoring the behavior, sitting on a “time out chair”, telling them to stop or a privilege will be taken away, and I am sure there are more maybe you have tried. The result is usually a frustrated teacher, negatively interrupted classroom, and emotionally unstable child. Why do we respond the way we do? Well for me, it’s what I was taught to do in College, society, and it seems like the easiest way to stop that behavior in the child and get on with things. What if we took a few minutes to get to know the child and figure out why

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