books

Toddlers and Pre-Schoolers are a fun age to teach and a popular age group to teach in daycares. Once you have their attention they participate whole heartedly and are a lot of fun to teach.

If you are not sure how to get their attention – try something that sparks their imagination. They love pictures, animals, and mystery. Sparking their imagination builds imagination in kids.

“Imagination is the substance of the Creative World.”

p. 146, Ancient Secrets of Success for Today’s World

by Tulshi Sen

I have a whole shelf full of games, toys, music and books that spark imagination. When I’m planning my classes I often go to this shelf for inspiration.

Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?

The book shown in the picture is one I use regularly (once or twice a year) with kids. Basically this book costs about $10 and you can use it over and over again. It is a great addition to your teaching tool kit. The link above takes you to the board book version at Amazon. I recommend getting board books whenever possible so they won’t get ripped or torn in class – they last much longer and are sturdier for use with kids.

Each page of this book is brightly coloured, a little surprising (a blue horse!), and a yoga pose waiting to happen.

For instance for a horse we can get on our knees and neigh! We raise our arms overhead stretching up and back. If you have a large room you can gallop around it.

The perfect length for a half hour class
Each page ignites imagination and we enter into a world of animals. There are nine different

animals so we do nine yoga poses. It fits in perfectly to a half hour class. Kids this age don’t do poses for too long.

If you have a longer class you can use the repetition to ask the kids what other animals they see.

is a pretty popular book that alot of daycares and homes already have. Every once in a while you will get a group of kids who know every animal before you turn the page. In that case you can ask them to read the book for you!