Small Muscle Development Activities:

• Stacking small blocks
• Puzzles
• Threading beads and lacing
• Finger painting
• Drawing, colouring in and painting with a brush
• Creating using origami
• Using pencils, crayons, scissors, rulers and other tools
  
  

Large Muscle Development Activities:

• Dancing
• Yoga
• Using ride on toys/push toys/tricycles and bikes
• Playing with balloons
• Playing with bubbles
• Exercise breaks such as jumping jacks, sit ups, hopping and balancing using one leg
• Kicking, throwing and catching balls
  
  

Self Help Skills:

• Putting on coats and jackets
• Hanging up coats and putting shoes neatly
• Tidying up toys
• Using cutlery such as forks and spoons
• Helping set the table
• Filling cups of water with assistance of teacher/s
• Washing hands
• Participating in cleaning duties such as sweeping up small messes using the pan and brush
  
  

Good Health and Safety Habits:

• Washing hands before and after eating
• Washing hands after bathroom breaks
• Washing hands after picking/wiping noses
• Sitting down while putting on socks and shoes
  
  

Intellectual Development involves:

• Providing choices based on children’s interests using teacher based resources (hipporay resource ordered)
• Providing interesting objects and a wide range of developmentally age appropriate toys to enhance learning.
  
  

Encouraging Curiosity:

• Helping children to think about questions by asking them questions throughout the day
• Switching out toys and materials on a regular basis to peak interest
• Placing fascinating objects in the daycare that are visible and can be touched
• Providing activities that encourage younger children to learn more and for older children to ask questions
  
  

Promoting Reasoning Skills:

• Giving children choices
• Asking children to choose a book
• Asking children to listen to and follow simple directions given to them (i.e., please go the bathroom and wash your hands before snack)
• Referring to a visual schedule and describing routines before transitioning to the next activity (i.e., we are going to clean up and put away all the toys before we get ready for outside play, lets sing the clean-up song”
  
  

Promoting Problem-Solving Skills:

• Engaging children in activities that get them to research and explore (i.e., “when we mix red and white paint together, what color does it make”?)
• Providing enough time daily for children to choose activities based on their interests and developmental needs.
• Asking open-ended questions during activities to help children discover the problem they are trying to solve
• Observing children’s interactions and dilemmas they may face, asking questions to help children solve simple issues
  
  

Concept Building Skills

Classifying Activities:

• Matching games (finding pairs)
• Sorting mixed shapes into groups of the same kind
• Sorting animals by distinction of the habitat they live in (i.e., fish, octopuses and whales live in the ocean).
• Identifying and coloring objects of the same kind (i.e., coloring all the triangles yellow and the circles orange).
  
  

Ordering Activities:

• Placing numbers cards and letters in sequence
• Arranging pictures in sequence to tell a story
• Placing dinosaurs and other varied sized toys from smallest size to biggest
  
  

Determining Direction:

• Playing with wheeled toys such as cars and trains and on ramps and pathways
• Playing with wheeled toys and figures on Hot Wheels Road map
• Using ride on toys to follow directions (i.e., this is how we go right, this is how we go left, this is how we go straight)
  
  

Spatial Relationship Activities:

• Building with blocks, or large lego
• Putting a large puzzle together
• Putting together a train track set
• Asking children to draw a map of their bedroom and their surroundings

Creativity

• Art (Hipporay resource)
• Movement/Music
• Imaginative Play
• Storytelling
• Construction and Model Making
  
  

Strategies:

• Allowing children to choose their own materials to create their own individual and unique ideas.
• Providing resources like thought-provoking objects, pictures and so forth to stimulate ideas
• Allowing children on a daily basis to listen to music and songs
• Teaching children songs and movement during circle time
• Allowing children to make up their own songs and encourage singing and movement
• Teaching children how to dance and express movement freely in positive and appropriate ways
• Providing dress up props for them to use freely- this encourages them to use their imagination
• Providing artificial kitchen toys such as play food, utensils, pots and pans to engage in imaginative play
• Allowing children to engage in storytelling by using felt boards and the puppet theater
• Reading stories to children to stimulate the imagination
• Allowing children to use magnetic construction tiles to build various objects
• Allowing children to use playdough and playdough accessories to create their own figures
  
  

Environmental Activities:

• Taking walks around the neighborhood/parks and discussing with children what they see and hear
• Collecting from nature (i.e., leaves, pinecones etc. which could be used in

 future art projects)

• Upon arriving back at daycare, asking the children to name one thing that they enjoyed the most about the walk
• Seasonal activities include planting seeds, flowers and herbs. Encouraging responsibility by allowing children to water their individual seeds, watching them grow and taking pictures for progress of growth,
• Allowing children to use their sense of smell by smelling flowers or herbs, and to describe the scents and differences in smells

Language Development

Speaking and Listening Activities:

• Playing cd books or reading stories aloud to children/asking children what their favorite part of the story was or a question about the story (i.e., what did the three pigs eat for breakfast?).
• Playing “telephone” and having a conversation with children, asking questions
• Encouraging sharing time during circle (i.e., asking the children to name one thing they did on the weekend).
• Asking children to bring in one item from home for show-and-tell
• Asking children to story tell using the puppet theater
  
  

Understanding Written Words (Activities):

• Having the children put together a picture book of daycare experiences (i.e., nature walks, field trips)
• Reading books with children and pointing out sight words
• Using a visual schedule on the wall to match pictures with words
• Asking younger children to talk about their drawings and encouraging older children to write a short sentence about their drawings
• Assisting children with writing their name on their work as this prepares them for entry into kindergarten
• Making a word tree (naming colors/rhyming words and so on)
• Allowing children opportunities for card making (i.e., father’s day, mother’s day and so on).
  
  

Emotional Development

Developing and Building a Positive Self- Concept in Children (Strategies):

• Praising children when they do something successfully
• Praising children for following directions and displaying good behaviors
• Using positive words of recognition when you see a child is putting their best efforts in
• Encouraging children to ask for help when they need it
  
  

Encouraging Children to Express their Feelings in Appropriate Ways (Strategy):

• Using the zones of regulation to foster self-regulation and emotional control (picture chart)
  
  

Encouraging Pride and Sharing in Cultural Background (Strategies):

• Encouraging children to share their traditional rituals during circle time (i.e., on a special holiday called so and so we do this….)
• Celebrating different cultures with various crafts (i.e., Canada day, Chinese new year)
• Celebrating birthdays and being accepting and welcoming of different foods that the child’s parents may want to bring in (taking into consideration allergies)
  
  

Social Development

Building Social Skills (Strategies):

• Planning group based activities for social interaction
• Using social stories to teach social skills
• Reinforcing and teaching positive behaviors
• Teaching children how to show respect for the daycare environment, other children’s belongings and personal space

Teaching children about forgiveness and reconciliation