Build around a story.

Today, in our "preschool time" with my four year old son we built our activities around a book. We read the Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein. We have some magnetic letters and a magnet tray. We used those materials to spell out "tree" and "boy." If you don't have magnetic refrigerator letters, you can just spell them on a piece of paper. I then read the book to him. Every time "tree" or "boy" showed up in the story I would point to the words we had spelled and had him recite them.

When we were done reading the book we colored a picture of the boy and the tree. We used torn pieces of green contruction paper for the leaves and glued them on. It took no prior preparation on my part because he could do all the tearing.

Try it out and use your child's favorite book to build around. You can make a food that is mentioned in the book, sculpt the characters out of playdough...the possibilities are endless! Have FUN!