Planning Quality Content for Your Early Learning Program

Take the stress out of planning quality content for your early learning program. Make the planning more exciting and less challenging with these tips and ideas.

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This article will help you make the most of your time and energy planning quality content for your early learning program.

The goal of a preschool or kindergarten program is to nurture developmental skills as children engage in everyday play. We support this goal by providing interesting materials, in a welcoming setting, that promote hands-on learning through play.

What do you have planned for your preschoolers today? Are you excited to share a rhyming song about rainfall with them? Do you wonder what will they create with the new art supplies you purchased?

This can include child-led discovery with sand and water play, dress-up clothes, and art supplies, along with teacher-led small group activities such as reading and singing together.

This is the fourth and last post in a four part series: Convenient Guide for Preparing an Early Learning Program.

This article discusses ways you can design a successful program that supports early childhood development, with both the activities you deliver as well as the environment in which your preschoolers play and learn.

Planning quality content for a preschool program

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Table of Contents

Content in the Play Area
Content in Child-Led and Teacher-Led Events
Content in Daily Schedule
- Circle time
- Small group time
- Arts and Crafts
- Gross motor
Conclusion

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1. Content in The Play Area

The play area can be divided into designated spaces often called stations, corners, or centers. These spaces are physically defined by furniture placement, shelves, tables and chairs, or floor coverings.

For example, the art easel is separate from the housekeeping or dramatic play area; the science center is separate from the block corner.

Each individually designed area contains related toys and materials, helping to focus attention on specific tasks or themes.

Related: Fun-A-Day explains what centers are and why they are important.

Center Activities

Build a tower in the block corner.
Cook a pretend breakfast and set the table in the housekeeping corner.
Dig up fossils in the sand box.
Paint a rainbow at the easel.
Choose a puzzle or small manipulative from the puzzle shelf.
Perform a puppet show in a cardboard theater.

Free play or independent play allows students a portion of the day to interact with the various centers in the classroom. This engagement is an important part of the daily schedule, as it supports development of early childhood skills through child-led play.

Divided areas in your home or classroom will provide a unique environment that invites hands-on engagement with materials.

Related: Pop over to PreKinders to see a more detailed discussion of center time.

Themed Centers

Some teachers adopt a weekly or seasonal theme in their facility. The centers or stations are stocked with props that reflect a specific topic.

Dramatic Play: Include a fire fighter hat and pretend hoses during fire prevention week.
Block Corner: Add dinosaur figures to the block corner to extend a dinosaur theme.

Related: How to Plan a Dental Unit. from Little Sprouts Learning

2. Content in Child-Led and Teacher-Led Events

An early learning program will have a balance of child-led activities and teacher-led activities.

Child-led activities are often associated with free play or independent play in a preschool setting. This usually involves engagement with centers or stations with related play materials.

Set the table for breakfast in the dramatic play area.
Experiment with sink and float at the water table.
Build a tower in the block corner.

Teacher-led activities are introduced by the teacher or other leader at circle time or small group time with focused materials and learning objectives.

Read a story about dinosaurs.
Match felt shapes on the felt board.
Play a game of toss with rolled up socks.

This component of an early learning program introduces new information and skills, encourages group interaction, and invites students to explore and observe.

While this part of the program is formally teacher-led, kids can influence the direction of group play. The activities you choose for this directed learning should be playful and inviting, so kids just naturally want to join in!

1. Respond to a story.

Kids will contribute questions and comments about the story and its pictures based on their interest and understanding of the story. This may prompt further discussion, or extend the story to arts and crafts time or free play time. For example, build houses in the block corner for the three little pigs after reading the story.

2. Handle materials.

Kids interact with materials in different ways. They will create unique voices and movements for puppets, or use their individual skills to dig and transfer soil to plant seeds in a container.

Activities guided or initiated by a grownup should follow to the child’s lead.

Is the child engaged? Is the activity age and skill appropriate? How do the child’s responses alter or guide the delivery of the activity and the outcomes?

3. Content in the Daily Schedule

Committing to the role of play for nurturing developmental skills will guide you in choosing content for each event in the daily schedule.

The goal is to provide opportunities for kids to experiment, explore and make discoveries in both group and independent play. Preschool classrooms and home schools often have a range of ages and skill levels, so activities are chosen to fit a broad demographic, with differing degrees of engagement and participation.

Example Activity

Read the book Sadie and the Snowman by Allen Morgan (aff. link), then provide materials for an art activity – cotton balls, paper doilies, construction paper shape cutouts.

Instead of instructing children to “cut out a yellow circle for the sun”, or “make a snowman like the one in the story”, set out scissors, crayons and paper. Guide them through discussion and feedback as they draw or glue materials on a sheet of paper to make their pictures.

What happened to the snowman in the story? What was the weather like in the story?

Online searches allow us to choose and plan our programs from the comfort of our home or office, at any time of day. With so much information at our fingertips, these suggestions can help you save time and stress as you search for great preschool content online.

Assess the activities you hope to provide to make sure they are suitable for all participants.

Does the story book have large colorful pictures that everyone seated in circle time can see?
Is there enough space in the room for kids to leap-frog over cardboard lily pads on the floor?
Are there options for different ages and skill levels to complete the flower craft?
Is there adequate supervision to play the game outdoors?

With any activity, sharing your enthusiasm and encouragement is invaluable to the learning process. This is achieved simply by participating in the activities with the children – dance with the kids at small group time; share a paint brush with a budding artist at the easel; make your hand prints in the play dough at craft time.

Here are four areas where content will be delivered in your program.

Circle time

The terms circle time and small group time are sometimes used interchangeably but I will draw a distinction between the two for the purpose of this discussion.

Circle time is generally conducted in a quiet comfortable setting, away from the main floor space if possible. Children are seated on a carpeted floor, or on individual mats, in a circle or semi-circle. The teacher is seated facing the group.

Students engage in planned activities with the teacher: reading stories; singing songs with finger plays; matching colors or shapes on the felt board.

Related: How to provide a welcoming circle time from Preschool Inspirations.

Small group time

Small group time can be held around a table or in an open space. It generally involves an activity that requires children to make large motor movements, or to collaborate on a project.

Materials are provided to engage students in experimentation and observation.

These activities might include: working on an art project such as a wall mural; playing games with music and movement; sorting seashells; making vegetable soup; planting seeds.

Arts and crafts

Art and craft sessions are opportunities for drawing, painting, cutting, gluing and creating with a variety of materials such as construction paper, glitter glue, colorful feathers, pipe cleaners and modeling clay.

This area has tables and chairs for working with materials, and storage options nearby for craft supplies.

Process art is a term applied to art activities with a goal of making each activity less about following step-by-step instructions and more about following the child’s creative lead.

Teachers and parents engage with kids by using open-ended questions and comments.

I see you chose the red crayon to color your house.

Are you going to cut out leaves for the tree?

Support child-led art activities, where the benefits of an activity should not be limited by expected outcomes, as you can see in this paper flowers craft.

Gross motor play

These activities incorporate large body movements such as jumping, swinging arms, and stretching. Games will generally be non-competitive and open-ended, although kids may want to add up their scores in a game of toss, or run races in the backyard.

Indoors

bean bag games
balloon volleyball
ring-around-the-rosy
London Bridge
sensory walk
scavenger hunt
bowling

Outdoors

balls and ride-on’s
parachute games
playground equipment
scavenger hunt
hide and seek pumpkins
gardening
nature walk

4. Conclusion

The development of young children benefits from the care and expertise offered by early learning teachers. Planning quality content will help you prepare and deliver your best preschool program.

Prepare

an environment that fosters independent exploration and learning through play.
a variety of activities that nurture a wide range of developmental skills as kids play.
a daily schedule that flows smoothly from one event to another.

Deliver

toys and materials that invite imagination and creativity.
opportunities for open-ended experiences and discussions.
kindness and playfulness in an environment that fosters shared learning.

What are we doing today?

One morning I had a child ask: What are we doing today?

Once children learn that there is always something ‘going on’ in your classroom they will bring their energy and eager anticipation to the early learning environment. Planning quality content that invites engagement and participation is a step in the right direction.

Here are the links for the posts included in this four-part series:

Part 1: Determining the Goals of your Early Learning Program

Part 2: Establishing a Daily Schedule for Your Early Learning Program

Part 3: Why There is Value in a Daily Planner for Your Early Learning Program

Part 4: Planning Quality Content for Your Early Learning Program (you are here!)