Exciting Preschool Back to School Activities to Use This Year
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Welcome Students!

Get started creating your five-day back to school theme with these fun and easy to use ideas. Ahead of time you will need to gather or purchase the following items to add to your classroom environment:

  1. Pencils
  2. Backpacks
  3. Toy school buses
  4. Paper
  5. School bell
  6. Lunch box
  7. Hall pass
  8. Wheels on the bus song on a CD
  9. Books about school
  10. Photos of teachers, principals, janitors and lunch room staff
  11. Adult dress up clothes

Adding the above items to your classroom will provide a back to school theme and enhance the children’s knowledge of what school is really like including, enhancing play.

Day 1

Discuss school rules with your preschool students at morning group time and the consequences when the students fail to follow the rules. Ask the children why they think that rules are important in school and post the rules in your classroom. Also, be sure to introduce the new items that you added to your preschool children at morning group time. Moreover, tell the children where they can find the items and how the materials are to be used.

Activity Idea for Day 1: Provide the children with sales papers, glue and scissors. Have the children to cut-out back to school items and glue the items on a large banner to display in the classroom.

Day 2

Talk about the role of the teacher and read a book to the entire class about teachers. Be sure to discuss with the children that teachers also go to school to learn how to teach them.

Activity Idea for Day 2: Ahead of time, on a piece of paper, write the words, I like my teacher because…. Read the sentence aloud to each child and write down the child’s response. Encourage each child to draw a picture of a teacher.

Day 3

Bring a toy school bus to morning group time and talk about the school bus, how to be safe on the school bus, who drives the school bus and sing the wheels on the bus song.

Activity Idea for Day 3: Allow children to pretend to be on a school bus, by lining up chairs like school bus seats, choosing a child to be the bus driver and giving the bus driver a paper plate to use as the steering wheel.

Day 4

Bring a back pack to morning group time filled with school supplies and discuss why the children would need the supplies that are inside of the back pack.

Activity Idea for Day 4: Have the children to close their eyes, feel one item in the back pack and guess what it is. Be sure to give each child a chance to guess what the items are inside the backpack.

Day 5

This is the last day of the back to School Lesson for the preschoolers, so how about providing the children with the opportunity of visiting a public school. At morning group time, show the children pictures of school staff and explain each staff member’s role.

Activity Idea for Day 5: If your preschool class is not already in a public school, ahead of time, contact a local school to schedule a time where you and the children could visit a Kindergarten classroom. Prepare and send home a field trip permission form for parental consent.

Using these activities is a great way to introduce preschoolers to the concept of elementary school, studying and teaching. If you have other ideas please share them in the comments section below.