Day 4 of the Home Preschool Jump Start Special Training
Now that you’ve chosen a lesson plan template, we’re going to look at two different approaches to creating lesson plans. You can either DIY them and create your own plans or you can use lesson plans from another source.
Today we’ll practice creating DIY lesson plans that you can do even when you don’t have a lot of time to prepare.
We’ll also provide you with over 125 low-prep activity ideas for the most common preschool learning skills so that you can easily pull from them as you create your own lesson plans.
Today’s goal: Learn how to create DIY lesson plans
Today’s tasks:
1) Grab a copy of the lesson plan template you selected yesterday.
2) Using your weekly schedule and your home preschool routine components as a guide fill out the lesson plan template sections so that everything you want to include is reflected in your lesson plans.
3) Review the preschool skills and activities sheets we provide below.
4) Add some of the activities from the sheets and fill in the sections on your lesson plan template to create an easy low-prep weekly lesson plan. The activities are generic enough that you can modify them based on your own child’s interests and the topics you want to teach about while still providing you with quick ideas to try.
Additional Notes:
Since many of the activities can be used for any theme and with a different focus they are very versatile. You could follow the steps above and create three or four weeks of lesson plans. Then you could cycle back through them again but focusing on a different topic each time. This would be a very easy way to have lesson plans available that don’t require a lot of repeat planning time. Of course, over time you could create new lesson plans, but these would work well for a while
You can use the same steps above and gather activity ideas from other resources like Pinterest, kids’ activities books, and your own personal ideas. Then use those ideas to fill out your lesson plan template and make your own DIY lesson plans. We’ll look at this process in a little more detail during Day 5.
Additional reading (optional):
In What Do Preschoolers Need to Know you’ll find information about different opinions on early childhood skills. You’ll also find information about developmental milestones you may want to consider as you plan for home preschool.
Printable templates and planning sheets:
Early Childhood Skills and Activities (5 pages)