VPK Lesson Plans
The Creative Curriculum Study Starters

Young children are naturally curious about the world around them and eager to explore topics that are relevant to their everyday lives. The Creative Curriculum Study Starters guide early childhood teachers step-by-step through the process of planning and implementing long-term investigations of meaningful topics. They help teachers identify children's questions, provide background information and introduce vocabulary, organize and plan the environment, incorporate content skills and knowledge, and involve families.

Creative Curriculum Study Units

Beginning the Year: Teachers will be focused on building a strong classroom community, it shows teachers how to create a caring, stimulating, and cooperative learning environment for all children.

Pets: A study on pets not only offers opportunities for children to explore a topic that interest them, but it also allows children to gather information, become more aware of the world around them, and solve problems.

Rocks: Studying rocks enables children to learn about different types of rocks, their physical properties, and how they are used by people in the world surrounding them.

Balls: This study shows how to use children's interest in balls to help them explore social studies and science concepts related to the features and nature of balls, and to use skills in literacy, math, technology, and the arts as they investigate.

Exercise: Together, children and their teachers will explore questions as "How do our bodies work when we exercise?" and "What do our bodies need in order to move and exercise?" Teachers will provide meaningful learning experiences with individualized instruction.

Clothes: Studying clothes leads to learning about different kinds of clothes, the fabric clothes are made from and the processes of making and selling clothes.

Bread: A study of bread provides children with an opportunity to learn how bread is made, the kinds of bread we eat, who works with bread, and how and when we eat bread. When children work toether to develop their own new bread recipe, they use a variety of skills to predict, experiment, plan, write, draw, examine, and negotiate with others.

Trees: This study builds on children's interest in trees to help them develop an understanding of the characteristics of trees and gain an appreciation for their role in our natural and man-made worlds.

Simple Machines: In this study, children explore the simple machines in their lives, such as scissors, levers, forks and slides. The study also allows children to observe forces of nature, like friction and gravity, and to create their own simple machines.

Buildings: A study of buildings enables exploration of physical science and social studies concepts, including the purposes of different structures and the jobs related to building and maintaining them.

Flowers: A study of flowers encourages interest in the natural world, leading to discussions of jobs and transportation as they explore where flowers are sold and how they are used.

Music: Music is an important part of the life of the preschooler and preschool classroom community and is an invaluable part of children's academic, social, and emotional development. In the preschool years, children are often very interested in performing musically, understanding how music is made, and learning new ways to generate sounds.

Ants & Reduce, Reuse, Recycle: Ants are endlessly fascinating to young children. An organized study offers opportunities to study important life science concepts and social studies concepts related to location, maps, and people and the environment. A study of Reduce, Reuse, Recycle; children have natural curiosity about trash which provides a starting point for exploring what happens to trash after it has been thrown away and the concepts of reducing, reusing, and recycling.

Boxes & Shadows: Through a study of boxes, children learn about how goods are transported and examine the physical properties of objects. The Shadows study lets children explore their fascination with shadows - how they move when we move, how they are indoors and outdoors, and the different shapes they can take.

SUMMER TIME CAMP THEMES

The class will continue with reinforcements of Themes, Sight Words & Spelling Words.