Examples of group learning in early years

The reasons to send your child to preschool are plentiful but most likely, the top of your list includes encouraging your child’s cognitive and social development. Small group activities are one of the most important ways preschool can help children develop.

In preschool, small group activities, instead of free play or engaging with the whole class, are typically multiple learning stations in the classroom featuring fun and engaging learning activities suited for five to six children. Some of the most notable benefits of small group activities in preschool include:

1. Cognitive and social developmental growth
2. Peer cooperation
3. Interaction with peers
4. Teacher observation
5. Interest, abilities, and support

Cognitive and Social Development in Small Group Activities

Children are still very young in preschool, and they are still very much developing socially and cognitively. Most children function best in a small group environment, as they are less overwhelmed by all the children and all the things to explore.

Small group activities create a more approachable way for all children to interact with one another and the teacher. These activities present an opportunity for preschoolers to use language skills to interact and accomplish a task with their peers.

Peer Cooperation in Small Group Activities

By working in small group activities, children work with their peers towards a common goal. Preschool-age children will inevitably run into hurdles working with each other. By overcoming these bumps with the teacher’s help, they will be developing cooperation skills, conversation skills, learning how to work as a team, and work on sharing and compromising.

Interaction with Peers in Small Group Activities

Preschoolers sometimes struggle with making friends, but children are encouraged to play and interact with kids whom they do not typically interact with by working in small groups. This structured interaction creates a more inclusive environment in the preschool classroom and further encourages children’s social skills by encouraging them to work with different people.

Teacher Observation in Small Group Activities

Preschool teachers are more easily able to observe children during small group activities. By working with each small group, teachers can observe a child’s development and behavior while working with peers more closely. This observation allows for better fine-tuning and adjusting an individual’s preschool education to best support them in their unique needs.

Encouraging Children’s Interest, Abilities, and Offering Support in Small Group Activities

By strategically separating preschool children by groups, teachers can allow children to do an activity they’re particularly interested in – trains and transportation, for example. Or, children who are developmentally lagging can be paired together and offered the most support. On the flip side, more advanced children can be together so everyone can receive the support they need.

Small Group Activities at Breakie Bunch

Small group activities are essential to our preschool curriculum at Breakie Bunch because of the plentiful benefits they offer.

By breaking our preschoolers into small groups, we can better observe and encourage children to develop in many ways, most notably socially and cognitively. For more on your preschooler’s development, check out our blog series on developmental milestones for preschoolers.

Building a strong classroom community is at the top of most teachers' lists, but doing that can sometimes be quite tricky. Especially when you find yourself leading quite a large classroom. But, no worries! Bring in, small groups. Although small groups can be a bit challenging at first, once teachers and students get a grasp on them, they will be a necessity.

Being able to both assess and work with individual students will provide a much longer list of opportunities for children. It's also an excellent opportunity for teachers to get one-on-one time with their sweet little students. Therefore, enjoy these 20 fun ideas and bring small groups into your classroom today.

1. Addition Cookie Jar

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This super simple math craft activity will be great for preschoolers learning simple addition problems. Use this during your center time in order to work with individual children. Assess students' knowledge and understanding of addition.

Learn more: Wawasan School

2. Small Group Oral Language

Working with students in small groups on oral language is essential in preschool. Preschools should be obtaining somewhere around 2,500 new words per year. This means that working with students individually is vital to key learning outcomes.

Learn more: APS Colorado

3. Small Group Phonics

Literacy in preschool is becoming more and more important. Using that knowledge, it's important to have literacy centers that can support a growing phonics vocabulary in students. This small group phonics game is great and can be used at any learning level.

Learn more: Lucia Parry

4. Small Group Science Activity

With this activity, it's important to make sure that students not in this center have something very engaging to work with. For students at your teacher's table, this is a great way to interact in small groups and instill classroom rules.

Learn more: Bright Horizons

5. Roll and Color

This is a great activity that students can work on individually. During those times that you're working hard with students on an activity, have the other students work with something like this. It will be both engaging and fun!

Learn more: Modern Preschool

6. Emotional Learning Small Groups

Activity ideas that support emotional learning aren't normally focused on small group activities. This bracelet-making center will not only foster emotional learning but also motor skills development. It might be a challenge at first, but once students get the hang of it, they'll be super excited to show off their bracelets.

Learn more: Engaging Littles

7. Circle Time Board

Understanding concepts at circle time is often much more intimate than any other time during the day. Which makes it an essential time for all students in the class. Providing students with visuals like this will help to make circle time successful for students on any part of the learning path.

Learn more: Geneva Centre for Autism

8. Small Group Bang

Support any learning style with this interactive letter sound activity. This is surprisingly one of those extremely efficient assessment tools to better understand your students' grasp of phonological awareness.

Learn more: Tonya Freeman

9. Small Group Story Telling

Students love telling stories! It's essential to use this to your advantage in the classroom. Working in small groups, students will be able to create and tell stories confidently, building their literacy skills. A perfect literacy lesson for any preschool classroom.

Learn more: CECE Early Childhood Videos at Eastern CT State U

10. Small Group Math Activities

Reach math goals but teach in small groups. Teaching math in small groups will help students to reach deeper learning in counting and other preschool math curriculum. Bring these math groups into your classroom and enjoy the journey of learning.

Learn more: Toni Osterbuhr

11. Preschool Color Mixes

This small group activity will focus on making color-coordinated necklaces. This can be either student or teacher-led activity. Using different colored noodles, this is a super fun preschool learning activity focused on using different colors and mixing them.

Learn more: Heartfelt Impressions

12. Small Group Science Activity

Using this ocean-themed activity can be a great addition to your science literacy centers. This lesson could begin with an ocean-themed story read as a whole class or in small groups. Then have students complete the Venn Diagram with the preschool teacher.

Learn more: Heartfelt Impressions

13. Little Mouse Small Group Game

This color recognition game is perfect for any preschool classroom. In the video, the preschool teacher uses colors on the cup, but this can be changed to fit the needs of your learning curriculum! Make them into letter cups, shape cups, or any other cups.

Learn more: Preschool Learning Online

14. Green Eggs and Ham Literacy Practice

Matching often acts as a perfect literacy tool in the preschool classroom. It's especially great because it's one of those customizable literacy tools that can really be used for anything. This Green Eggs and Ham activity will be great for your small group center time.

Learn more: Hannah's Teaching Videos

15. Me Puzzles

Me puzzles are a great all about me activity for students to practice math skills. It can be challenging to engage students in small groups and try to run a teacher table with such young ages. This engaging activity will be great for students to complete independently.

Learn more: NYC Department of Education

16. Small Group Letter Activity

This is a super simple preschool activity that focuses on individual letters. Help your students build connections to a bunch of letters that can be printed and matched up. You can use both magnet letters or just regular old alphabet letters.

Learn more: Turner Tots

17. Pipe Cleaner Colors

Use this activity during small groups focusing on colors. Students will organize the pipe cleaners by color. It provides students with an intro to color theory and enormously helps to improve motor skill development.

Learn more: Teaching 2 and 3 Year Olds

18. Shape and Color Exploration

Activities for preschoolers should both engage and challenge their minds. This activity includes individual letters and a variety of different shapes. Have students work together to separate the different shapes and letters into categories.

Learn more: S&S Blog

19. Giant Letter Activities

Use this activity to keep students engaged and working on their letter recognition skills. Students will love to use different shapes to outline the letters in front of them. Allow students to work together in order to understand and talk about letter recognition and letter shapes.

Learn more: Early Learning Ideas

20. Number Recognition Center

This is a great math center for any PreK classroom. Students will appreciate the one-on-one with teachers, and teachers will be able to quickly assess and determine students learning levels. With small group math activities like this, students will grasp the concept of identifying numbers.

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