Pre school learning activities

Pre School education is a system based on activity. It is specially molded to help a child's different developmental stages. Unlike a student of a formal school, the PreSchool child cannot deposit his learning in the long term memory without elaboration. Taking this nature into consideration, the teachers should promote activities for every lesson being taught to the PreSchool child. There are two types of activities involved in PreSchool education.

It is important to cater the necessities of development in the PreSchool child. The two types mentioned above would be a great support for the overall development of a child. They are namely Gross Motor Activities and Finer Motor Activities. The Gross Motor Activities involves the large muscles of the body, while the Finer Motor Activities concentrate on Small Muscles of the body.

When considering Gross Motor Activities; running, jumping, climbing, dancing, eurhythmic movements could be named. The whole body is involved for such activities. These activities could be organized for educational purposes or utilized for development of various aspects such as behavioral development, language development, mathematical conceptual development, moral development and aesthetic development. Activities such as group games, role play, drama, dancing, and movement of the body partly or fully, as well as water games such as swimming would help the development of large muscles in the body.

When focusing on the Finer Motor Activities, the muscles in the fingers, face, eyes, ears, tongue, wrists, toes and mouth are considered. Development of these muscles is important for the child's future learning such as writing, reading, hearing and eye sight. The activities involved in finer muscles development could be mentioned as drawing, tearing, painting, finger games, passing laces through large beads, walking on tip toes, showing facial expressions, smelling, tasting and rolling eyes from side to side.

Large instruments such as swings, climbers, hanging tires, hurdles, mat slides, and swimming pools are supportive to develop different activities for Gross Motor development. Games such as 'Bring it for me' are very suitable to develop gross and finer motor skills. In the 'Bring it for me' games, the teacher sits at one place in the garden and students stand in a semi circle around her. The Teacher asks, "Do you listen to me" the answer is "Yes" in chorus. Then teacher says "Can you bring what I want", again the answer is "Yes". Then the teacher says "Then run and bring me a stone with black patches". The students run and try to fulfill the request.

There are many objectives behind this game. Firstly running and picking are Gross motor activities; then listening, searching and remembering the teacher's request involve different aspects of finer motor development. Thus this activity covers almost all areas involved in a child's total development. Therefore, activity based learning is essential in the Pre School age.