This past summer I had the opportunity to work in a great summer program designed to give kids who did not go to preschool, a jump start before they got to kindergarten. It was a short program but we got the opportunity to do a lot of fun things with our class. The activities we did were really hands on and incorporated very active learning. This game below was designed to get the kids moving and working to identify numbers in various ways. We began by reviewing the numbers 1-20 for our upper group and 1-10 with my lower group. Then I would take a piece out of our number puzzle and say the name of the number. Once I called the number, the students could run around the big table that had the number smack poster and find the number I called out. When they found it, they had to smack it and hold their hand on it. Then I yelled out, "Peek!" The students lifted their hand but kept it right next to it so that I could check and chart the students who got it and who did not. We made it harder for the children who already could recognize numbers and just yelled out the name. I have repeated this activity in my preschool classroom and used fly swatters from the Dollar General. This gave my students something extra to make the game interesting. I used a rectangular table with chairs all pushed in so that the students could run around to find the numbers. Next week we are going to draw shapes all over our poster to review shapes. I think getting my students up and moving to learn makes them work harder and gets some of their energy out too! It is a win, win!
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