Come up with activities that use bananas.
Your preschoolers will go bananas for activities that incorporate this fleshy fruit. Using bananas as your star ingredient for activities is an effective way to stimulate your class of preschoolers so that they pay attention to the lesson you are teaching them. During the week that you educate preschoolers about the letter B, think of creative ways that you can add bananas into your activities.
Pass the Banana
In this activity, preschoolers get to monkey around as they pass the banana from one person to another in a relay race. This activity can get messy, so it is best to play it outdoors in a grassy yard. Instruct your students to take off their shoes and lie down on the grass in a head-to-toe formation. Each student's toes should be 2 feet from the next person's head, and so on. Separate preschoolers into two parallel lines so that you end up with two teams. On your mark, you will place a banana between the feet of the first preschoolers, who must pass the banana from their feet to their hands. Then, the preschoolers pass the banana from their hands to the feet of the kids behind them. The last person in the line has to peel the banana and eat it. The team that completes the activity first wins.
Sliced Banana Counting
Put together an activity that gives preschoolers practice with counting. Slice a banana into medium-thick slices and give an equal amount to each preschooler. As a class, count the slices. Then, tell students to move their banana slices to the side of the desk and place two slices in the center of the desk. Give another instruction to count how many banana slices are in the center of the desk. Continue giving instructions about adding banana slices and taking them away, so that preschoolers get to practice counting, and understand this introductory lesson to addition and subtraction.
Ants on a Banana Boat
Ants on a banana boat is a food activity that preschoolers can eat after they construct it. This activity is the banana version of the snack "ants on a log." Give each student a banana that is halved lengthwise. Pass out a small sample cup filled with peanut butter and another sample cup with raisins. For the activity, have preschoolers paint the peanut butter onto the smooth side of the banana using their finger. Then, tell preschoolers to decorate the top of the peanut butter with ants. Have them think about whether the ants should be clustered together on one side of the banana boat, or scattered equally around the banana boat in a single-file line. Always have preschoolers wash their hands before playing with food that will be eaten. It is also critical that you make sure nobody in the classroom has a peanut allergy. If so, substitute their peanut butter with something else, like cream cheese.
B for Banana
This "B-for-banana" activity allows kids to use real bananas to construct the capital letter B. Put preschoolers into teams of two and give each team two bananas. The preschoolers shall peel the bananas and design the letter B out of them. It will take some creativity and strategy to figure out do this. Prepare ahead by making a laminated letter B for kids to use as a template. They may use one whole banana for the straight edge of the capital letter B, and cut up the second banana to make the rounded parts of the B. Help your students figure out ways to round the banana, such as by creating the round edges out of slices.
Tags: peanut butter, banana boat, banana from, banana slices, pass banana from, their hands
