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If the month of August is known for anything, it’s being the unofficial start of the back to school season!
Whether you’re a preschool teacher, a daycare provider, or even a homeschool parent, August is all about planning and getting back into a routine.
Now, when it comes to planning out a new preschool year, our favorite way, of course, is with theme units and these August preschool themes are the perfect place to start!
These theme ideas, in particular, take you back to the basics of theme units, the ones that nearly everyone thinks of when they’re naming off preschool themes, because they are some of the best theme ideas for the beginning of a new school year!
Our Favorite August Preschool Themes
From the days of the week to colors and shapes, these August themes for preschool cover so many amazing basic concepts and topics and will keep your students engaged, entertained, and excited for the brand new year!
All About Me
This is definitely a favorite theme of ours and one that we like to plan for the very beginning of the school year.
An all about me theme easily allows me to work in some fun activities for teaching my kids the letters in their names, their addresses, phone numbers, etc. and they’re always so excited to start learning because they are learning all about themselves and naturally, their new friends as well.
Emotions
Teaching young children to handle big emotions is never an easy task, but during an emotions themed unit, we can cover a vast array of different emotions and strategies for dealing with them.
We can talk about different types of feelings and what they look like while reading some books about emotions during circle time or we can even make some fun crafts or games that can help us identify different emotions.
Regardless of what we decide to include in a theme like this, I’ve always found it helpful to cover this one at the beginning of the year so that we can then practice and work through a few of the strategies that we’ve learned as the year progresses.
5 Senses
This is another one of our favorite themes! The five senses unit is always so much fun as we learn all about our senses and what each one is used for through a variety of hands-on activities!
Taste tests with different foods at snack time give us the opportunity to test our senses, fun sensory bins give us the chance to try out some new textures, and we’ve even got some fun coloring and sorting resources to help us review what we’ve learned making this August theme unit a student favorite as well!
Colors
I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a preschool that doesn’t include a colors theme in their lesson plans.
It’s such an easy theme to put together and your toddlers and preschoolers are going to have a blast with it!
There are so many amazing children’s books about colors that you can incorporate into a theme like this like Brown Bear, Brown Bear or Mouse Paint and your activities can be as simple as having your students sort out their toys by color.
Of course, there are plenty of other color themed activities out there, but it doesn’t have to be super complex to engage your little learners!
Shapes
Much like colors, knowing basic shapes is an essential skill for preschoolers.
This early math skill will make learning more complex math concepts possible in the future as they build on their knowledge.
And not only can you introduce different shapes in a theme unit like this, you can add to the learning by talking about how many sides and corners each shape has, working on those fine motor skills while painting some of those shapes, reading some silly shape themed stories, and even finding some real life objects that look like the shapes you’re learning about!
Planning ahead? Make sure you check out these September preschool themes as well!
My Body
From the head, shoulders, knees, and toes dance, to the fact that bones and muscles make our bodies work, there is so much learning that you can pack into a human body theme unit for preschoolers.
They don’t need the full anatomy lesson at this age, obviously, but it is still a ton of fun to introduce them to fun learning activities that teach them how our bodies work and how best to care for them.
Germs
Practicing good hygiene is an excellent skill to have, but small children don’t always understand why and honestly, more often than not, as far as toddlers and preschoolers are concerned, the messier the better.
While getting messy and dirty certainly has its place, it’s a good idea to teach your little ones about germs, the impact they can have on the people around us, and how to avoid spreading them.
Now, this is obviously something that you and your little learners will work on on a daily basis, but having activities built around teaching basic hygiene skills, like a file folder game that covers the steps to handwashing for example, can make learning and remembering those steps a whole lot easier!
Back to School
There’s no better time for a back to school theme than the beginning of a new year! In fact, it’s one that we typically kick off on our first day of school!
Build this August preschool theme around all of those new school supplies that your students are excited to use and use this as an opportunity to introduce your little learners to their new classroom and the routines and schedule that will now fill their days.
Days and Months
One of the first things that we cover in our preschool is how to read and use a calendar.
With a few fun songs or stories, it’s easy to introduce your preschoolers to the concept of days, months, and years. With a little prep work, you could even create a portable calendar board that can be used every single day to introduce and reinforce those calendar skills.
Airplanes
With the 19th of August being National Aviation Day in the United States, it makes sense to spend some time learning all about the vehicles that make air travel possible.
Whether you’re making and flying a few of your own paper airplanes to opening up a pretend play airport in the dramatic play center, there is plenty of learning to be had with this theme.
Community Helpers – Pilots
An extension of the previous theme, a theme unit all about airplanes just wouldn’t be complete with learning all about the men and women that fly them as well.
These people not only fly the aircraft that move people and cargo all over the world, but they’re also members of the community.
This provides multiple learning opportunities for your preschoolers as it allows you to introduce them to different countries around the world while also teaching them about some of the community helpers that they’ll find in their own neighborhood at the same time!
