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How to Put Together Preschool Small Groups, and Why They Are Important

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Last Updated on August 20, 2018 by Sheryl Cooper

Inside: Preschool small groups is an important time for teachers to get to know their students better, while also building important skills. We keep this time short and simple, with fun, hands-on activities.

 

It took me a long time to embrace including small groups in my 3 year old class. I mean like a decade! I had no idea how to have small groups with preschoolers!

 

But, as I always do, I just keep reading early childhood articles and blogs. And I loved how they were incorporating small groups into their daily schedule!

 

And so, I gave it a try. We started super slow, with just one small group while the other children played. (I obviously still wasn’t a true believer.) But when I saw how wonderful that one group worked, I decided to take the plunge. Teachers, I’m here to say we’ve been doing small groups with our preschoolers for many years now and it rocks! They love it!

 

 

Preschool small groups is an important time for teachers to get to know their students better, while also building important skills. We keep this time short and simple, with fun, hands-on activities.

 

Disclosure: This post reviews products provided free of charge from Discount School Supply. We have been purchasing many of our supplies from Discount School Supply since 1999. This post contains affiliate links. 

Preschool Small Groups

 

Why preschool small groups are important:

Small groups is an important time to teach skills.  We play many games that include numbers and letters. We work in our journals, thread, and work with scissors to strengthen our fine motor skills. We practice self-help skills such as pouring water. We sort colors and work on shape recognition.

Preschool small groups is also great for strengthening communication and language skills. Our quietest children tend to feel more confident participating during this time because it involves less children.

 

How we organize our small groups:

Towards the end of each preschool day in our 3 year olds class is when we have our small group activities.  We divide our 16 children into 4 groups, and each group works on a skill.  Three of the groups are led by a teacher or assistant and the 4th group is independent. We only have 1 small group per day. The following school day the children will move to a different small group. So, it takes 4 days to complete 4 groups with rotations.

 

An example of an activity for preschool small groups:

 

I wanted to provide an activity that would involve color and number recognition.

 


 small group activities for preschoolers 1

Discount School Supply had asked if I would review their Colorations Glitter Dough, so I decided to use it with this small group activity.

 

small group activities for preschoolers 2

 

Since we were working on the rainbow theme, the colors Discount School Supply sent were perfect. I simply removed them from their air tight containers and placed them on our table as an invitation for my small group.

 

small group activities for preschoolers 3

 

I decided to make this be a color and number recognition activity. I included pipe cleaners that matched the glitter dough, and gave each of the children a number card.

 

small group activities for preschoolers 4

 

I handed each child a mound of glitter dough and they found the matching pipe cleaners. They counted the appropriate amount to place into the coordinating dough.

 

small group activities for preschoolers 5

 

I would then ask them to remove a certain amount of pipe cleaners from the dough.

 

small group activities for preschoolers 6

 

It was actually simple addition and subtraction for those who were ready.

 

small group activities for preschoolers 7

 

How to Have Small Groups with Preschoolers – More Ideas:

Organizing a Small Group (Pre-Kinders)

Small Group Games (education.com)

The How and Why of Using Small Groups (brighthubeducation.com)

 

Preschool small groups is an important time for teachers to get to know their students better, while also building important skills. We keep this time short and simple, with fun, hands-on activities.

 

favorite preschool school supplies

 

 

 

 

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About Sheryl Cooper

Sheryl Cooper is the founder of Teaching 2 and 3 Year Olds, a website full of activities for toddlers and preschoolers. She has been teaching this age group for over 25 years and loves to share her passion with teachers, parents, grandparents, and anyone with young children in their lives.

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Comments

  3. Jill

    This looks like a colorful and fun lesson!
    Thank you for stopping by the Thoughtful Spot Weekly Blog Hop this week. We hope to see you drop by our neck of the woods next week!

  4. Jodie Clarke

    Such lovely bright colours and I really love the simplicity of this idea, shall be adding it into my program for next week, thanks for the inspiration!