Activity Idea: Can You Hear the Beat?

Kindergarten QuickSource® reminds us that "Fine Arts support all areas of development and allows the child to foster creativity and imagination. By painting a picture, singing a song or participating in a dance, a child can express her thoughts and feelings."

Here's an activity called Can You Hear The Beat? that encourages children to participate in musical activities and demonstrates beat, rhythm and dynamics. Before you begin, gather your materials: Empty toilet tissue rolls, enough for at least one per child; various colors of paint and brushes; pebbles or uncooked beans; and heavy-duty tape.

Let's Get Started!
1) Allow each child to paint the outside of a craft roll. Allow the rolls to dry overnight.

2) Help each child place tape over one end of the painted roll.

3) Help the child place a handful of beans inside the roll, then tape the other end trapping the beans (or pebbles) inside.

4) Using the rolls as a shaker, help the children discover the beat of a familiar song.

If using POCET™, this activity correlates to Developmental Guidelines: CA4: Recognizes and moves to different musical beats.


For more developmentally-appropriate activities, visit Teacher QuickSource® and browse through all age areas, including Preschool, Kindergarten, Infant & Toddler, and Head Start. Don't forget to explore activities promoting environmental awareness at Environmental QuickSource®.

Activity Idea: Extending Patterns

Preschool QuickSource® reminds us that "Through hands-on experiences with counting, children learn important number concepts and operations. Children begin to make these connections with activities involving counting in sequence, comparing numbers of objects, using one-to-one correspondence, and counting to determine quantity."

Here's an activity called Extending Patterns. The goal of this activity is to encourage children to create patterns by extending and comparing. Before you begin, gather your materials: manipulatives of several duplicated items, and sorting trays.

Let's Get Started!
1) Using the manipulatives, create a simple ABAB pattern using the attribute of color, for example: red counting disk, yellow disk, red disk, yellow disk. This pattern can be created in a line on a tabletop, or as a circle in a sorting tray.

2) Ask the child to identify which color disk would come next in that pattern.

3) Progress to other attributes, such as animals or size according to the child’s developmental level. (Geometric shapes should not be used until the child has mastered shape identification.) This activity can also be extended to more difficult patterns, such as: ABCABC, AABBAABB, etc.

If using POCET™, this activity correlates to Developmental Guidelines: MA4: Creates Patterns by Extending and Comparing.

For more developmentally-appropriate activities, visit Teacher QuickSource® and browse through all age areas, including Preschool, Kindergarten, Infant & Toddler, and Head Start. Don't forget to explore activities promoting environmental awareness at Environmental QuickSource®.