If you are trying to teach your preschool child how to grow educationally and emotionally, you need to pay attention to solid preschool lesson plans. A preschool lesson plan allows you to ensure that the subject you want them to learn is actually being taught. Lesson plans are very effective in providing you with a framework and objective for your lessons.
Key Points of Preschool Lesson Plans
- Keep the lessons short and to the point. Preschool-aged children will be learning extremely rapidly but it's vital to keep the learning experience a fun and exciting time.
- Try to focus on one topic at a time. This limits your preschooler from feeling overwhelmed with the rapid fire of information.
- Be sure to add a lot of play and exercise time in between lessons to help keep your preschooler focused and excited.
Preschool lesson plans should have a singular objective. What kind of objective? Well, for the objective, you need to decide what it is the preschool students need to learn. There are some very obvious things that they need to learn. On the academic side, they should try to learn their ABCs.
They also should know how to count their basic numbers and know the names of the colors. It's also important for preschool students to learn the shapes and how to recognize differences. On the social side, preschool children should learn how to interact with other children in socially acceptable ways. This means learning to share and having good manners.
A very interesting addition to a preschooler's lesson plan is an hour of structured play. Structured play is the plan of having a set learning goal combined with a fun activity. The point is to increase learning time while allowing for more fun focus, connecting ideas to the real world, and burning off some of that extra energy.
Of course, just as you can't put together a lesson plan to teach several math topics at once, you can't teach several of these objectives at once. That's why you focus on the one topic you want your preschool student to learn. With that objective in mind, you need to come up with activities or games that support the objective you are teaching.
The typical preschool lesson plans have three major components. First, you introduce the topic and objective. Next, you want to have the students practice the objective. Finally, you want them to produce it on their own. If you are teaching them the ABCs, then your lesson might consist of showing flashcards for each letter and identifying them. Next, you might have students take turns trying to identify the letters. Finally, you might end with the students singing the ABC song. A preschool lesson should be a focused plan of action to teach the objective in a clear, concise, rewarding, and varied way.
Preschool Lesson Plans in the News
On May 17, 2023, Yahoo Finance released an article discussing an ongoing partnership between PNC Grow Up Great and PBS Kids. PNC Grow Up Great is a program that provides lesson plans for preschoolers; many of their plans are offered in Spanish, providing much-needed support to underserved communities. The Grow Up Great program provides lesson plans created in collaboration with educators. These lesson plans are ready to go, and can be implemented as soon as an educator wants.
Through their partnership with PBS Kids, PNC Grow Up Great has created a multitude of lessons that can and will be found on PBS LearningMedia. Many of these lessons incorporate popular PBS Kids characters, as well as games and other activities to help preschoolers learn. Based on feedback from educators, the lessons are broken down into “bite-sized chunks” that are easy for young children to absorb. The current plan is to offer 118 lessons to kids through PBS LearningMedia by fall 2024.
Educators have reflected that the lessons are stimulating and educational; the quality of them has left educators eager to try more. The lessons encourage children to get excited about learning, and help form a love of exploring and engaging with the world around them. Through the aid of PBS Kids' most popular characters, PNC Grow Up Great is able to bring a multitude of critical knowledge to some of America's youngest.
If you're interested in learning more about this partnership, or about the lesson plans that Grow Up Great has to offer, be sure to check out the original article on Yahoo Finance. When you're done, return to MomsWhoThink and check out some of the other articles we have on preschool and early childhood development. We've got articles to answer whatever questions or concerns you've got!