Preschool teacher in charge of the summer program.Need as many ideas for "in center" visitors as possible. ?

Question

Our children are too young to travel outside the Center, so we need special visitors to come to us. I have a limited budget, so "free" or close to free is best, but not a must. There can be some splurges if there are enough free guests. I've just started my project in collecting ideas so every idea is welcome !

Answer 1

Pet or Animal Day. Invite the kids in the neighborhood to bring their pets to school. Hold a pet fashion show? Or invite someone to talk about different animals and how to take care of them.

Answer 2

Water Day, Cook Out Day,Making pudding. Theses are some of my daughters favorite things at preschool.  She comes home really excited about the stuff they did and at the same time they are learning.

Answer 3

How about a policeman to take about safety... not getting into strangers cars... going to a policeman if they are afraid.  Maybe the town would help if you contact the mayors office or something.

Actually, retired people like firemen and business owners might be a good source.

Answer 4

Call your local Lowes or Home Depot. They've got all sorts of great things they can do for kids, from painting little bird houses to planting little petunias in cups. It's a great PR thing for them, especially if you do something like a grandparents day or bring your auntie to school day.

You can also often get people from your local park district to come in and teach them something fun, like square dancing (ok..not-so-square squares) or invite the local rhythmic gymnastic class to come do a little show for your students. You can also call the local high schools to invite their drama club to come in and do improvs for the kids.

I also used to have a dentist or dental assistant come in with the little red chewy tablets to teach the kids how to properly floss and brush. That was always a great hit. The local school district used to send in an audiologist to do preschool hearing screenings and she made the day really fun for the kids.

You could invite a musician from a local church to come in and perform for the kids...especially those who play the guitar and sing. I've never had one charge when they know it's for a bunch of captive kids.

For a small charge, you can get someone from one of those do-it-yourself pottery shops to come in and do a tile or a mug for each kid (usually $5 each). They bring in all of the materials and in a couple of days return with the finished piece.

I've also found that local kindergarten teachers love coming in for a meet-and-greet with the kids. It gives them a chance to get kids psyched up for the school year and to find out how much fun they'll have in school.

One other fun idea is to invite a local DJ in (especially if you have a kids program locally or a local religious music station) and have them play songs for the kids and do little interviews with them that they can use on-the-air (yes, with permission slips). We had a DJ from Radio Disney come in about 7 years ago and it was such a blast.