These activities will take a little planning and creative work to prepair, but if you laminate or use clear contact paper on your finished work you and your children can enjoy them for years.
Mixed up pictures: use clip art or graphics from your computer and print out similar sized pictures of human or animal faces (store human and animal faces seperately.) Cut each face picture horizontally into three sections, hair and eyes on the top section, nose and ears on the middle section and mouth and chin on the bottom section. Lamenate the sections and lay them out on the table for the children to mix and match up all new faces using the features you have provided. Use the animal faces to create strange new silly creatures, have you ever seen a creature with cat ears, a piggy nose and a chin that looks like it belongs on a monkey? Another fun veriation on this activity would be to take pictures of the children in your class and yourself and use those photographs to make a special group of cards for mix and match up fun.
MATCHING CARD GAMES
Search for photographs of real animals for themes like our world, wildlife and endangered species, dinosaurs reptiles and amphibians ect...print out 2 pictures of each animal in your theme, say about five or ten different creatures. Cut out the pictures and laminate them, lay them out on the table for matching fun, or lay them upside down on the table for a game of concentration that fits into the theme you are working with.
Use pictures of real people or natural objects like trees, bees and butterflies. Create the cards the same way and use them in the same manner as above. Store the cards in envelopes with rubber bands to seperate the groups of cards you will create. Before you know it you will have an extensive collection of matching card games to use with the children.
BINGO
Create your own bingo cards using the themes you are working with for example creat a holiday bingo game for use in the month of December using symbols from various holidays celebrated in your multicultural child care center. If your an artist draw them yourself if not use a graphics program like print artist or search the internet for holiday graphics sites. I just made a set of six bingo cards for holiday fun using a tic tac toe design on a plain sheet of white paper, I used 9 holiday symbols including a menora and dreidel for Hanuka, a kinara for Kwanzaa and a christmas tree, a santa face, stocking, a red christmas ball ornament, an elf and a picture of the Grinch for Christmas. Make matching cards with all the pictures you used to draw from during the game. Make sure the placement of the pictures on each card varies so that someone can win at the end of the game instead of everyone getting the same three in a row at the same time. Have the children try to get three in a row any direction. You can use holiday M&Ms, popcorn, candy corn if you are working with an October theme. The children can play bingo and eat their game peices when they are done (and most likely during the game as well.)
Kids enjoy playing bingo games, create a variety of bingo game sets and store them in large envelopes or folders for future use. They are easy to make and with a little care will last a long time.
CONCEPT CAKE WALK
Create large laminated cards in whatever concept you are working with, such as shapes, colors, number, letter ect...don't bother cutting out the shapes or letter, ect. leave them on the thick paper you printed or drew them on. Cover each card with clear contact paper or laminate. When you are ready to play lay an appropriate number of cards on the floor in a circle, gather the children and have each child stand on a card (you might want to tape the cards to the carpet to keep from slipping on them) Play music and have the children walk in a circle, hop like bunnies in a circle, crawl like catterpilars in a circle however you get them to move and when the music stops each child freezes on the card they are standing on. Call out a color if you are working with color concepts and whoever is standing on that color wins-a grab bag prize, a sticker, a loud "good job" from you, you can also pick a child and ask what is on their card and let them answer. This is a fun way to learn simple concepts, also teaches following the directions of the game. Important note: Make sure each child has the opportunity to be called on and win in this game...everybody should be a winner, not just for getting the right answer but for learning while they are having fun, if someone is standing on a blue dot and they tell you it's orange let the other children help them figure out what color it is and once they realize what color the dot really was-HEY they are right and they win. This is about learning concepts in a fun way not about being right or wrong and winning or loosing in that way...everybody wins while they are learning.
Again, store these calk walk games someplace safe so you can enjoy them frequently. By the way, this fits into activities for music and movement and large motor as well.