Over 80 short activity ideas covering many areas of the curriculum are compiled for teachers of preschool, kindergarten, and the early grades. Six "readiness roundup" sections, which feature ideas for use in classroom learning centers, give activities for teaching: (1) likenesses and differences; (2) direction; (3) letter and sound recognition; (4) auditory discrimination; (5) sight vocabulary and (6) gross-motor skills. Numerous additional activities involve finger plays, games, cooking, songs, art projects, role playing or creative dramatics, water and block play, classifying and counting, eye-hand coordination, motor development, and music and poetry appreciation. Several activities involve making a variety of puppets and using them to teach science topics such as the seasons, the weather, and the solar system. This compilation also provides brief activities on learning colors, shapes, the alphabet, graphing, and good manners. Several holiday and rainy day activity ideas are also included. (JH)