May 21, 2015
Theme chosen in honor of National Waiter/Waitress Day

— Welcome song in English (emphasizes printed name recognition as Sweet Peas find their card in a line-up and place it on our Name Ledge)
— Welcome song in Spanish (reinforces names as Sweet Peas sing to their peers)
— Discussion of theme: we talked about eating at a restaurant, asked if any of the mommies had ever waited tables, and the kinds of things we see in a restaurant: tables, chairs, food, cash register, menus, etc.
— Storytime
— Unsquiggle activity
— Poem/Song before we break for Centers

 

STORY TIME
We took the opportunity to introduce the concept of money this playdate…because waiters and waitresses need to make change!

As the book introduced different values of coins, we passed around the oversize coins that we use in our own homeschool math center.

LITERACY CENTER
We introduced the concept of vowels in May – so here is another activity that takes advantage of matching letters to sounds.  I selected five foods that started with each of the vowel letters: apple, egg, ice cream, oatmeal or “O’s”, and unagi (a type of sushi).

Level 1: Name+Match the letter magnets

Level 2: Match the letter magnet to the beginning sound of the food item.

MATH CENTER
This was a shape-match center today! We put out the matching egg activity that was gifted to Puma for her first Christmas (the set is almost 11 years old now!).  We also pulled out a pancake-plate matching activity. The brown circles represent pancakes – the Sweet Peas would use the spatula to put them on the plate with the corresponding shape.

Level 1: Match shapes

Level 2: Match & name the shapes

Level 3: Sort the pancake shapes, and then count them as they are placed on the plates.

DISCOVERY TABLE
We put out the oversize shaped coins, along with actual coins. The sweet peas could interact with both the teaching and the actual money.

Level 1: Sort them into matching piles + introduce the concept of value

Level 2: Count how many coins are in each pile

Level 3: Add up the value of the money

ARTS & CRAFTS ~ Make & Take
Each Sweet Pea got to make their own apron to use during imaginative play time.  We used hole reinforcers to make the hole-punched paper stronger, and used a thin craft yarn for the ties.

After the kiddos finished their aprons and we cleaned up the stations, the Sweet Peas played restaurant. We pulled out the play cash registers, food, and kitchen so that they could take orders, prepare, and serve foods to the mommies.  I made visual order forms so that the children could see the written words for the food that the mommies were ordering.

We finish our Preschool Playdate with a sharing time: each child that wants to share gets to say what (s)he enjoyed the most about the morning.  We close with a good-bye song where children are welcome to give hugs.  It helps to set a formal end to the time together so that parents have a clear reason to insist that it’s time to go if they have somewhere to be afterwards.  Otherwise, the kiddos and parents that don’t have to leave stay and play until the music teacher for our older Sweet Peas arrives.