Preschool Lesson Plans

We’re always on the lookout for new ideas and ways to implement Building Blocks in the classroom. Just click to find activities and adaptations that make Building Blocks products work best for you.

Poems of Respect
Speaking respectfully is a key social lesson that all young children learn, usually by example.

Circle of Friends
The school setting presents a perfect opportunity to observe children’s social development and to help children learn to make new friends.

Teaching Students To Follow Directions
When your students learn to follow directions, they progress more easily in every area of the curriculum. To help children learn to follow directions successfully, it’s important to help them focus and listen carefully.

School Manners and Student Behavior
In “Good Manners,” a report to parents from the National Association of Elementary School Principals, resources say that lack of manners is a growing problem in classrooms and on playgrounds.

Childhood Feelings
Young children often do not understand their changing feelings. You can help them cope with childhood fears and anxiety or worries by helping them learn to talk about and express their feelings.

Helping Others
Guide younger children to learn how to care for others by showing them how helping another person is valued. Follow the steps below to provide a school or community project to help young children learn how to share with, and care for, others.

Classroom Quilt of Cultures
Sharing cultural traditions and talking about cultural diversity in the classroom helps young children grow socially and broaden their viewpoints. They will begin to understand what they share among themselves within their own culture. And, they will begin to appreciate the similarities among cultures, leading to less prejudice and stereotyping in school.

Daily Exercise Chart
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends that young people get at least 60 minutes of moderately intense physical activity every day.

The Classroom Library
According to Scholastic’s Classroom Libraries Work: Research & Results, building and maintaining an area where students are free to browse, read, and talk about books helps students attain reading skills and improves reading achievement.

Building Blocks: Your Prevention Tool
As children grow up, they are exposed to many things that may either increase their risk for, or protect them from, drug abuse and other risky behaviors. Protective factors are any circumstances that promote healthy behaviors and decrease the chance that a child will engage in risky behaviors, now or in the future

Be Prepared With Emergency Supplies
Being prepared is key to staying safe during any kind of emergency. Help young children know the importance of being prepared in case of an emergency by determining what’s needed in an Emergency Supplies Kit.

Responsibility in the Classroom
One of the most important lessons a child learns in preschool and kindergarten is responsible behavior: following rules, finishing tasks, and accepting consequences.

To Tell the Truth
Young children identify with characters they “know” through reading and the media. Use these characters to help students define and discuss honesty.

Sun Safety
Outdoor activities are a great way to promote exercise for a healthy lifestyle, but make sure your students are aware of the need for sun safety. Use these classroom activities to help children avoid sunburn now and the risk of skin cancer later.

Kids’ Humor
Laughter relieves stress, promotes better health, increases intelligence, and builds social bridges. According to KidsHealth, children laugh about 200 times each day; adults laugh only 15 to 18 times. Make yourself and your classroom healthier and happier by making sure that humor is part of your daily classroom activities.

Playground Safety at School
It’s summer and playground safety at your preschool is most important. Setting playground rules and monitoring children as they play isn’t enough to ensure your students’ safety on the playground. You and your class should check to make sure your school’s playground equipment, and the area surrounding it, are also “child safe.”

Calm in the Classroom
The classroom is humming with activity when, suddenly, you hear shouting. Students quickly begin accusing each other: "He said, he did" or "She said, she did." Help your students practice and use the simple strategies of conflict resolution to help keep your classroom calmer.

Now, We Teach Six Rs
We all know about “Reading, ‘Riting, and ‘Rithmetic” in the classroom. Now, add “Recycle, Reuse, and Reduce” to help students learn to take care of the environment. Try some of these classroom tips and projects to model responsible behaviors for the latest Three Rs.

Fire Alarms for Fire Safety
One of the most important times for children to follow rules is during evacuation drills. Knowing fire safety rules and routes to follow helps calm young students’ fears in case of an emergency.

Reading With Building Blocks
It’s always fun to find and use new tools to get children reading. Here are some tips for using characters, content, and components from Building Blocks to help introduce and reinforce basic reading and pre-reading skills.

Coping With Change
Change, whether planned or unexpected, is hard for young children to understand and accept. When change happens because of a disaster or other crisis, loss adds even greater anxiety in children.

Sleep and Energy
Sleep studies show that sleep deprivation problems can start with children as young as toddlers. Lack of sleep can make it difficult for young children to concentrate in school and can cause them to have problems working and playing with their peers. See if focusing on sleep can help your students do their best in school.

The Model of Fitness
One of the most important steps in staying fit is physical activity. Work with Building Blocks to help children and their families achieve fitness goals.

Size-Wise: Healthy Eating Habits
Many parents and grandparents were raised with the adage "clean your plate." That's good advice only if the plate isn't too full. How can we help children develop healthy eating habits?

4 Steps to Road Safety
Students learn about rules at home and at school. But perhaps the most important rules we follow every day are the rules of the road.

Teaching Child Safety
The classroom is a safe place to help young children think about staying safe. Discussing child safety doesn't have to be scary. Before you start, though, make sure the children know that you don't expect anything bad will happen to them; you just want them to know how to be safe.

Teaching Media Literacy
Although it may seem a bit silly to worry about "current events" with preschoolers, our national obsession with 24-hour news coverage and constant visual reminders of disastrous events in the news pretty much guarantee that even young children are exposed to the news.

Making Friends
Making friends is a key element of social and emotional development in the primary and pre-primary curriculum. In “Aggression and Cooperation: Helping Young Children Develop Constructive Strategies,” Dr. Jan Jewett, project coordinator for the Center for Supportive Education at Washington State University, stresses cooperative play and dramatic role play in social interactions to help children work and play together constructively.

Modeling Good Eating
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Dietary Guidelines for Americans (PDF) recommends that we eat more fruits and vegetables, choosing at least a cup of fruit a day and a variety of vegetables—dark, green, and leafy vegetables; orange vegetables; beans; and peas.

Classroom Rules
We all have a set of classroom rules that students help create and follow. Each of these rules makes the classroom run more smoothly and helps children feel safer in the classroom. One particular rule may help children better understand the concept of rules.