This blog was originally published on March 20, 2023, and updated on March 19, 2024, with new information. Spring can be a wonderful time to be outside, but can be a big challenge for early childhood educators to find spring-themed activities for pre-kindergarten classes that incorporate learning.
Finding such activities means teachers at your child care center often are forced to spend their time scouring the internet for craft ideas from blogs and Pinterest to keep kids entertained while preparing them for kindergarten.
The 2024 Child Care Management Software Industry Trends Report from Procare Solutions found that 30% of respondents to the survey used to compile the report said each teacher spends between three and five hours a week doing lesson planning and a similar percentage said their centers create their own curriculum.
And how they implement curriculum is all over the board:
A 52-week curriculum program is essential for early childhood education centers.
Procare Early Learning, in partnership with Learning Beyond Paper, is an all-digital curriculum specifically designed to meet the unique needs of educating children from infancy through pre-kindergarten. It’s an embedded, fully online curriculum program tailored to child care centers with a year-round program!
The integration with Procare makes this curriculum program easy to use. New content, training and tools arrive automatically! It’s designed so teachers of all experience levels can understand it easily.
It includes more than 4,000 daily activities for infants, younger toddlers, older toddlers, preschoolers and pre-kindergarteners.
Let’s take a look at one such lesson that’s perfect for spring!
Learning About Trees in Spring!
Learning areas in the Procare Early Learning curriculum include STEAM, language and literacy, physical development, cognitive, music and movement as well as interactive reading. Plus, teachers get tips and tools they can use in real time.
The spring-themed lesson below is for your pre-K classrooms and focuses on cognitive learning:
Let’s break down the sections of this lesson plan!
First, notice that the topic, activity name and learning objective are all clearly stated at the top of the lesson.
Teachers are given an organized list of what materials they’ll need to have ready for the activity, with pictures!
The Procedures and Teacher Talk section gives a concise and easy-to-understand guide to carrying out the lesson. This is one way the curriculum gives teachers the tools they need to teach kids at specific age levels.
Check out the Learning Support column that includes an activity modification for children who don’t understand the verbal prompt. And the Social-Emotional Development section tells you this activity provides children with the opportunity to maintain an age-appropriate attention span.
How Procare Early Learning Can Make Your Child Care Center Fun and Educational
With Procare Early Learning powered by Learning Beyond Paper, your child care center can:
- Equip teachers with state-of-the-art online curriculum at their fingertips
- Dramatically reduce the amount of time spent on lesson planning each week
- Offer children a high-quality, developmentally appropriate curriculum
- Save money with this cost-efficient solution that’s integrated with Procare
Want to learn more? Visit www.procaresolutions.com/curriculum and check out these resources as well:
• Download “Procare Early Learning Powered by Learning Beyond Paper: What a Digital Curriculum Can Do For Your Child Care Center,” a free eBook, here.
• Read here about how Procare Early Learning will save Sarah Miller’s child care center in West Virginia up to $1,600 a month!
• Listen to our podcast about why curriculum is so important for young learners, particularly babies through pre-kindergarten.
• And check out this article on Procare Early Learning to learn more about this cost-effective solution that benefits children and sets your child care center a part from competitors!
Procare is the only solution that can deliver the entire early childhood education ecosystem — lesson planning, lesson delivery within the classroom as well as assessment and parent engagement. Being able to do all of these with one platform simplifies classroom management and planning!
