Father’s Day Celebration With Preschoolers

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Father’s Day Celebration With Preschoolers

Father’s Day is just around the corner and it’s still a little emotional for me. See, I lost my father many years ago when I was very young, and, if I want to be completely honest, it doesn’t matter how long that happened, how much I grew, and how old I am, I still remember him almost every day, but especially during occasions like this. That is why I wanted to get back to this post that I wrote a year ago, with fresh ideas to celebrate this important holiday with your preschoolers.  These activities could be done in the classroom or at home and absolutely wonderful to have a very fun and educational Father’s Day Celebration for Preschoolers. 

Sometimes I think that my posts are a little too long, but I love to use any theme to tie all domains for a comprehensive learning process because I still think that a special day like Father’s Day, could be used for fun teachable moments. These are ideas you can use for that purpose:

Circle Time

Circle Time is a perfect time to introduce the theme, review letters, numbers, etc., and promote conversations, language development, and social skills. I will suggest planning a special activity to do during circle time, to take advantage of this important part of the day. Some ideas I can suggest for circle time are:

Read a book

If you have read some of my posts you will immediately know how much I love storybooks, and using any book related to Father’s Day will be perfect to introduce this theme, then you can encourage a conversation by asking questions about the story, and how that can be related to their personal lives. Some of the questions you might want to use are:

• Who wants to tell me the name of your dad?
• What things do you do with your dad?
• Do any of you experience something like what happened in the story?
• What do you love most about your dad?
• What would you like to tell your dad that you have not told him yet?
• Do you have a grandaddy?
• What is his name?

Extension activities:  you can make a graph with the attributes of your children’s fathers using the color of their hair and eyes, for example. Another thing you can do is ask the children what is their fathers’ names, write them on a piece of chart paper, and use it to review the beginning letter and sound of each name, that way you can tie literacy to the activity.

Do a Group Story

After introducing the Father’s Day theme for the week, you can invite them to write a group story. First, make you have a piece of chart paper to take dictation of the children’s sentences, as they start developing the story.

You can start with a line like:  “When my dad came back from work…”.  Or “My dad likes to…”.  From there, just let children take turns telling you a sentence they want to add to the story, while you write the sentences in their own words.  Do not change anything.  Have them come up with a title for their story.

Extension:  When the story is finished, type it, print it, and divide it into sentences.  Provide sheets of paper cut in half, and have some children paste each sentence in one of the pages, some of them illustrate those pages and the rest of the group create a cover for the story.  When all the pages are dry, make copies and send a copy of the book home to each of the families.  Laminate the original to keep it in the library.

Literacy

This is one of my favorite things to work on because children can develop a lot of important skills children through literacy.  Some of those are:

• Listening to a story
• To teach letters, letter sounds, and beginning sounds.
• Recognizing letters and words.
• Using pictures to develop pre-reading skills
• Using letters or words to develop pre-writing skills.

There are tons of literacy activities that you can do, but I wanted to suggest you use some I created that are book-related to one of my favorite stories for this occasion, Following Papa’s SONG. I wrote a post about it and includes a FREE literacy pack with 9 sets of printables. You can find the post HERE. These are just some of those printables.

You might also like other posts with free printable packs I created for the “Following Papa’s SONG” storybook, with many book activities to do. These are:

• Following Papa’s SONG Science pack for preschoolers, which includes 5 sets of free printables. These are some samples of those activities.

• Following Papa’s SONG Math pack for preschoolers, which includes 6 sets of free printables. You can see below some of the activities.

Father’s Day Word Wall Cards

I always like to create Word Wall Cards or Vocabulary Word Cards for each of my themes.  These cards can be printed in white cardstock and laminated to make them last longer and can be used in many ways such as small group activity, during circle time, as a take-home practice, and quiet area option.

How to Use Them:

Place them on your wall where the preschoolers can see them during the entire month, and in the writing center, where the children can copy them, trace the words on top, or match the letters with plastic ones.

Extension Activities:

To extend the activity you can use these cards to:

• To introduce the name or sound of the beginning letter of each word. 
• As a spelling activity.
• As a matching activity, where the students can match the picture with the written word.

This Father’s Day Word Wall Cards set includes two pages with 4 words each, for a total of 8 vocabulary words.  It is yours for FREE by just clicking on the link below.

Storybooks for Father’s Day

I am partial to books.  For me, books are one of the most powerful tools anybody can use, not only to promote a love of reading in children but also an amazing way to teach them vocabulary, reading, writing, math, science, social studies, and everything else as well. 

Use as many opportunities as possible to engage your children with a wide variety of books.  There is no lack of possibilities out there. 

These are some of my favorite stories for Father’s Day. You can find these books at your local library, used book store, and on Amazon. If you want to expand your collection by purchasing some, my direct affiliate links embedded in the titles will take you directly to the right page.

• I Love You, Daddy by Jillian Harker and beautifully illustrated by Kristina Stephenson.  Little Bear is ready for some grown-up adventures – at least, Daddy Bear thinks so. But they soon discover that Little Bear needs a helping hand.

• Following Papa’s Song by Gianna Marino a heartwarming story filled with the wonders of the ocean and the comfort of a father’s presence, to be read again and again.

• Just Me and My Dad by Mercer Mayer tells the story of Little Critter and his dad going on a camping trip, where they enjoy canoeing, fishing, or building a campfire.  A perfect read for Father’s Day . . . or any day!

• Because I’m Your Dad by Ahmet Zappa uses a text that’s both playful and loving to express a father’s hopes and dreams for a one-of-a-kind relationship with his child. Whimsical monster characters bring the silly and sweet scenes to life and keep the book universal.

• Daddy Is My Hero by Dawn Richards is a fitting tribute to every child’s first real-life Superman…their dad.  From capturing and locking up outlaws to battling greedy dragons, and putting monsters to sleep with a wizard’s spell, there’s no end to the amazing feats of strength and ingenuity that his father can do! With clever rhyming text and adorably detailed illustrations, 

• A Perfect Father’s Day by Ever Bunting is a cute book that talks about a little girl called Susie taking her dad to a restaurant, for a special day filled with treats for both of them! When they get back home, Mom’s final surprise is a perfect ending for the perfect day.

• When Dads Don’t Grow Up by Marjorie Blain Parker is a playful story about four father-child pairs as they spend happy, silly times together, popping bubble wrap watching cartoons, and taking part in shopping cart races.

• My Dad Thinks He’s Funny by Katrina Germein talks about a dad who is trying to be goofy to make his son laugh. A perfect book to share this book with someone who doesn’t need sugar because, well, they’re sweet enough already.

• Daddy Hugs by Karen Katz tells a sweet story about how Baby and Daddy can cuddle and count along with this hug-and-read book, which is perfect for Baby’s teeny, tiny hands.

Songs and Rhymes

Games

Reserve sometime during this celebration for games. The good thing about this type of activity is that preschoolers don’t have a clue about how educational they can be. Children just think that they are playing, and you and I know that this is exactly the way they learn.

Some of these games are:

• Father’s Day Tie Matching Activities (Totschooling).  There are 6 versions to choose from and include Colors, Color words, Numbers 1-12, Number words 1-12, Letters (uppercase matching), and Letters (uppercase to lowercase matching).

• Water balloon baseball: just gather small balloons filled with water and a bat. and play “baseball” with the balloon instead of using a ball. I’m sure dad and child with have a blast!

• Flying kites: I’m sure traditional activity will continue to bring out Daddy’s inner child. This is also an excellent gross motor activity.

• Go camping: this wonderful activity is super fun for the entire family and will help Dad relax and “recharge his batteries”, away from the office. Use the opportunity to sing songs, play charades and do some fishing.

• Bowling: who doesn’t like that? Go to the nearby bowling alley or make your own at home, with some empty cans and a baseball.

• Board games and puzzles: there are more choices than I can count. Children just need to choose the one’s dad will like and invite him to play. These activities combined with some drinks and snacks will help Dad relax and spend quality time with his children.

Gifts

There are a lot of things that preschoolers can do as a gift to their dads, with a little help from an adult in their lives.

Some of these ideas are:

• A simple way to tell Daddy how special he is using one of these quotes, place it on a pretty frame and wrap it up. Dad will be proud to show it off in his office.

• Bake cookies, bars, or cupcakes for Dad. I have a lot of recipes that you can use HERE.
• Wrap dad’s favorite candy bar in handmade paper with the child’s art.
• Draw a picture of the child with his or her dad. Get an unfinished frame like this one or this one. Decorate it with bottoms, puzzle pieces, foam cutouts, shells, and other materials that the child wants to use. Frame the picture with it, and wrap it up. Perfect gift for Dad.
• Get a flat smooth river rock, make a picture with acrylic paint or permanent markers, write “To dad from……..”, wrap it up, and turn it into a beautiful paperweight for dad’s desk.
• Buy a baseball white cap like this one, decorate it with fabric markers, write a message, and wrap it up. Simple, easy, and useful.

Another thing preschoolers can do if time is an issue is to buy a gift for dad but wrap it up in a handmade decorated paper, adding a handmade card.

No matter what you decide to do with your children, always remember that the most treasured gifts any parent can have are the ones made by their little kiddos.

I’ve seen way too many times how teachers and parents end up doing most of the artwork for their children to avoid messes on the floors or the tables. I’m sorry, but that’s just sad. What value does that have? What lesson can children take from that? How do you think children will feel when they present gifts that they worked so hard on, instead of something where they hardly participate or not at all?

Good luck, and most importantly, have fun with your children. Remember they feed on your energy and a positive one reinforces their social-emotional wellbeing.

Finally, use this opportunity to have quality time with them. If you are a teacher, your students will benefit from these wonderful teaching opportunities. If you are a parent just treasure these moments. It will come a time, sooner than you think, when your kiddos will not be this receptive.

Be happy, safe, and creative. I wish you well.

Love,

P.D. Please let me know if you like any of these ideas worked for you, or if you think I need to add or replace something.  My goal is to help you in any way I can and I don’t like anything better than to post something that you might find useful. Also, if you came up with different ideas and want to share them, I would love to post them as well.

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