Building a strong classroom community is at the top of most teachers' lists, but doing that can sometimes be quite tricky. Especially when you find yourself leading quite a large classroom. But, no worries! Bring in, small groups. Although small groups can be a bit challenging at first, once teachers and students get a grasp on them, they will be a necessity.
Being able to both assess and work with individual students will provide a much longer list of opportunities for children. It's also an excellent opportunity for teachers to get one-on-one time with their sweet little students. Therefore, enjoy these 20 fun ideas and bring small groups into your classroom today.
1. Addition Cookie Jar
This super simple math craft activity will be great for preschoolers learning simple addition problems. Use this during your center time in order to work with individual children. Assess students' knowledge and understanding of addition.
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2. Small Group Oral Language
Working with students in small groups on oral language is essential in preschool. Preschools should be obtaining somewhere around 2,500 new words per year. This means that working with students individually is vital to key learning outcomes.
Learn more: APS Colorado
3. Small Group Phonics
Literacy in preschool is becoming more and more important. Using that knowledge, it's important to have literacy centers that can support a growing phonics vocabulary in students. This small group phonics game is great and can be used at any learning level.
Learn more: Lucia Parry
4. Small Group Science Activity
With this activity, it's important to make sure that students not in this center have something very engaging to work with. For students at your teacher's table, this is a great way to interact in small groups and instill classroom rules.
Learn more: Bright Horizons
5. Roll and Color
This is a great activity that students can work on individually. During those times that you're working hard with students on an activity, have the other students work with something like this. It will be both engaging and fun!
Learn more: Modern Preschool
6. Emotional Learning Small Groups
Activity ideas that support emotional learning aren't normally focused on small group activities. This bracelet-making center will not only foster emotional learning but also motor skills development. It might be a challenge at first, but once students get the hang of it, they'll be super excited to show off their bracelets.
Learn more: Engaging Littles
7. Circle Time Board
Understanding concepts at circle time is often much more intimate than any other time during the day. Which makes it an essential time for all students in the class. Providing students with visuals like this will help to make circle time successful for students on any part of the learning path.
Learn more: Geneva Centre for Autism
8. Small Group Bang
Support any learning style with this interactive letter sound activity. This is surprisingly one of those extremely efficient assessment tools to better understand your students' grasp of phonological awareness.
Learn more: Tonya Freeman
9. Small Group Story Telling
Students love telling stories! It's essential to use this to your advantage in the classroom. Working in small groups, students will be able to create and tell stories confidently, building their literacy skills. A perfect literacy lesson for any preschool classroom.
Learn more: CECE Early Childhood Videos at Eastern CT State U
10. Small Group Math Activities
Reach math goals but teach in small groups. Teaching math in small groups will help students to reach deeper learning in counting and other preschool math curriculum. Bring these math groups into your classroom and enjoy the journey of learning.
Learn more: Toni Osterbuhr
11. Preschool Color Mixes
This small group activity will focus on making color-coordinated necklaces. This can be either student or teacher-led activity. Using different colored noodles, this is a super fun preschool learning activity focused on using different colors and mixing them.
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12. Small Group Science Activity
Using this ocean-themed activity can be a great addition to your science literacy centers. This lesson could begin with an ocean-themed story read as a whole class or in small groups. Then have students complete the Venn Diagram with the preschool teacher.
Learn more: Heartfelt Impressions
13. Little Mouse Small Group Game
This color recognition game is perfect for any preschool classroom. In the video, the preschool teacher uses colors on the cup, but this can be changed to fit the needs of your learning curriculum! Make them into letter cups, shape cups, or any other cups.
Learn more: Preschool Learning Online
14. Green Eggs and Ham Literacy Practice
Matching often acts as a perfect literacy tool in the preschool classroom. It's especially great because it's one of those customizable literacy tools that can really be used for anything. This Green Eggs and Ham activity will be great for your small group center time.
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15. Me Puzzles
Me puzzles are a great all about me activity for students to practice math skills. It can be challenging to engage students in small groups and try to run a teacher table with such young ages. This engaging activity will be great for students to complete independently.
Learn more: NYC Department of Education
16. Small Group Letter Activity
This is a super simple preschool activity that focuses on individual letters. Help your students build connections to a bunch of letters that can be printed and matched up. You can use both magnet letters or just regular old alphabet letters.
Learn more: Turner Tots
17. Pipe Cleaner Colors
Use this activity during small groups focusing on colors. Students will organize the pipe cleaners by color. It provides students with an intro to color theory and enormously helps to improve motor skill development.
Learn more: Teaching 2 and 3 Year Olds
18. Shape and Color Exploration
Activities for preschoolers should both engage and challenge their minds. This activity includes individual letters and a variety of different shapes. Have students work together to separate the different shapes and letters into categories.
Learn more: S&S Blog
19. Giant Letter Activities
Use this activity to keep students engaged and working on their letter recognition skills. Students will love to use different shapes to outline the letters in front of them. Allow students to work together in order to understand and talk about letter recognition and letter shapes.
Learn more: Early Learning Ideas
20. Number Recognition Center
This is a great math center for any PreK classroom. Students will appreciate the one-on-one with teachers, and teachers will be able to quickly assess and determine students learning levels. With small group math activities like this, students will grasp the concept of identifying numbers.
Learn more: Little Minds at Work
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