Preschools, childcare centers, and day homes are closed all over the world right now because of the Coronavirus pandemic and parents are scrambling. Parents are working from home while trying to juggle parenting and educating their children from home. It’s impossible for most, but I want to use my skill as a teacher and experience as a teacher trainer to help even the busiest parent feel empowered to provide some early childhood education for their child during the quarantine. I created Lunch Break Learning weekly preschool plan or the stressed-out parent struggling to check all the boxes. These ten weekly preschool plans are filled with simple daily activities parents can do on their lunch breaks or other times away from their professional responsibilities. No one needs to spend all day educating their 5-year-old and all night catching up on their work. You need to rest. You need to focus on your family’s emotional health. These plans make time for that while ensuring you have done something to continue your child’s education and development while at home.

More plans

Week 2 – April 20th plan here.
Week 3 – April 27th plan here. 

 

 

 

How To Use Lunch Break Learning Weekly Preschool Plan. 

1. Look over the plan. Take a screenshot and save it to your phone, or if you have a printer, print it out.
2. Read through the activity details. Take note of the “Make it harder/ make it easier” tips.
3. Prep the activities either the night before or one big prep Sunday night. This won’t take long.
4. Know you can do this. It’s going to be OK.
5. Come back every Saturday for the next ten weeks to get your free plan.For week #2 – April 20th-26th plan click here. 

 

Educational Activity Plan – April 13th-17th

 

PRINT HERE

 

Preschool Plan – Activity Details

Name Puzzles

Write your child’s name on a piece of paper.   Use an uppercase letter for the first letter and lowercase for the remaining letters. Cut the letters out, so each letter is its own strip of paper. Pop them in an envelope. Present the envelope to your child saying, ” What is in here? Let’s find out!” Take each letter out of the envelope and have your child name it if they can. If not, you name it. ” Look it’s a lowercase l, what’s next? Oh, look a lowercase i… until you get all the letters out. They do not have to be in order. When they are all out, ask your child if they recognize the letters. “What do you think these letters could spell?” Let your child play with them.  Together spell your child’s name. Mix them up and spell it again.

Make it easier -> For very young children write out their name on a 2nd piece of paper and have them place the letters on top, matching the letters to the intact name.

Make it harder -> use sight words for children who have mastered their names. Find sight word lists here. Do multiple words in one sitting if your child is eager and willing.

Kitchen Cupboard Counting

Grab a piece of paper and title it ” How many do we have?” then write whatever items you want to count together. After counting, write the number down, if your child can have them write it.

Make it easier -> Have a small group of kitchen items out to count, for example, 3 forks, 2 cups, and 4 spoons.

Make it harder –> before counting, ask your child to make a production about which items will have the most, how many do they think there are? After counting, make a simple bar graph on the paper comparing the kitchen items you counted.

Play Dough Treasure Hunt

Hide small items in the play dough and use those fine motor skills to dig them out.

Make it easier -> use more substantial items like small toys, Lego blocks, etc..

Make it harder -> sort the items after digging them out. Sort by color or size.

Book Letter Hunt

Write out the alphabet on a piece of paper. Sit down with a familiar book, you won’t be reading it, just using it to find letters.
Look for each letter, turn the page from time to time for a new search area.

Make it easier -> instead of the whole alphabet, look only for 5-10 letters.

Make it harder -> look for sight words instead of letters. Find sight words to look for here.

Animal Sounds Game

Go through your toy box or child’s room to find some animal toys pop them in a bag or other place your child can’t see them. If you do not have any animal toys, you can print photos of animals here.
Ask your child to close their eyes and use their sense of hearing for this game.
Make the sound the animal toy you have in your hand makes. For example, for a toy cow, you would moo.
Have your child yell out what animal makes that sound and then open their eyes to see if they are correct.

Big Project Ideas for the Weekend

Working parents may have more time during the weekend. Here are some longer projects you might like to try.

Find a fun spring craft to do from this list.
Watch and craft with me with these video craft lessons.
Paint with nature
Or maybe plant some veggies in your garden.

Bed Time Reading Tips

Every week I will include different ways to dive deeper into your bedtime reading, no matter what books you are using. This week I ask you to stop and ask your child how they would feel in the character’s shoes. Would they make the same choices? Would it be fun to be in the book?

When we ask children questions about what we are reading, we help them engage more fully with the material, which encourages more in-depth thinking and helps them learn more about storytelling, more vocabulary, and sparks curiosity.

Supplies Needed for the Weekly Preschool Plan

These supplies are what is needed for the Monday-Friday activities.
Please note that weekend craft ideas have their own supply lists in the linked post. This list includes affiliate links.

Paper
Pencil/ Pen
Scissors
Envelope
Play Dough
Beads or Buttons
Book
Animal figurines or stuffed animals – or free printable of animals ( print here)

Optional Additional Preschool Activities

 

Roll & Build Lego Game 
Color Toss
DIY Balance Beam
Move and Groove Letter Recognition Game
Word Scavenger Hunt
Exploring Smell with Smelly Markers
Slime Monsters

Lunch Break Learning Preschool Plans are purposefully simple, made for busy parents who need simple daily activities to keep their children learning without overwhelming their day. These activities are for you to browse if you have more time.