Teaching a preschooler the concept of opposites is so much fun! One of the best parts is that they already know some and start off feeling so good about what they know. These are just a some of the preschool opposites activities I have used over the years.
Please take these ideas and then add your own. Once you start this for your day or week's activity, the children will learn so much and have fun doing so! This is how preschoolers learn the best--by doing! 
Some of the easiest to start with are big and little, cold and hot, front and back, over and under, in and out, wide and narrow, day and night, on and off.
Circle Time Idea
When I use this concept for the week, I start each day's circle time with one of the concepts I am teaching. One day I will wear shoes that are much too big for me. I ask their help on what the problem is with my shoes. After they point out that my shoes are too big, I ask them if I can borrow one of their shoes. This leads them to say they are too small. How better to start off the idea of big and little!
Another day, I will wear my shirt or smock backwards. I engage them to ask what is the problem and they tell me that the shirt is on backwards and that I need to put it on frontwards. They love this. We talk about front and back in terms of clothing, classroom, etc.
One day you can start off with a very serious facial expression and then change to a smile or broad grin. See if they notice that your face is changing throughout the circle time. Ask them for other ways we have opposite facial expressions such as laughing and crying, happy and sad, peaceful and surprised.
You get the idea. Encourage them to come up with ideas for opposites and write these on the whiteboard. You can then use these for other activities.
General Activities
Beads--Provide them with large beads and small beads. Ask them to string them with different patterns of beads to learn about large and small.
Sorting--You can use all of your recycling items such as boxes, cans, paper tubes, styrofoam pieces, blocks, etc and ask your students to sort according to size. They learn big and little, large and small, soft and hard. Ask them if there are other ways to sort.
Gross Motor Play--Design a maze through the classroom or circle time area with yarn, sheets, furniture and then talk with your preschoolers about going over and under the obstacle. Have them tell you the direction they will be using to see if they really understand.
Fine Motor--Provide them with magazines and have an "eye scavenger hunt" to find different opposite ideas. For example: can they find pictures of things to do inside and then pictures of things to do outside; search for winter pictures and summer pictures; search for pictures of front and back.
Opposite Day--Send home a note to parents and ask them to have their child come to school on the last day of the week with something opposite from usual. They can come with their shirt on backwards, with a breakfast food rather than a typical lunch food, pajamas rather than day clothes, etc. They can choose what the "opposite" will be and at circle time we all try to guess the concept and review how much they have learned during Opposite WEEK!
If you like these preschool opposites activities, check out the other ideas in the Preschool Planner.
http://www.preschoolplanner.com/thefullstory.html
There are Two Editions now for the Preschool Planner: Basic or Platinum.
Send me any ideas you would like to share and I will post them on my Blog.
Mary
marys.plans@gmail.com
P.S. If you would like to receive my free newsletters for ideas for your preschool class, enter your name and address at the site below:
http://preschoolplanner.com/preschool-activities.html
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