Preschool Activities

About Preschool Activities

The preschool years are a fun and exciting time. Preschoolers love to explore and examine the world around them. They love to make crafts and do activities with Mom and Dad. They are developing eye-hand coordination and small muscle control, which allow them to do more things on their own. Their attention spans are now long enough to complete an activity that takes about a half hour. Here are some preschool activities to do with your busy preschooler that will entertain as well as strengthen development.

Fun with Stories

Preschool children love stories. A great picture book can be a springboard for all kinds of fun projects.

Puppet Play

Choose a picture book to read aloud to your preschooler. Read Kids' Book Recommendations: Preschool to help you choose age appropriate picture books. After reading the story with your child, help her to act out the story using hand puppets. You can even make simple hand puppets together using brown lunch bags and crayons. When your preschooler re-tells a story, she is developing her listening comprehension and her understanding of story elements.

Story Writing

Children love to tell their own stories. After reading a great story with your preschooler, ask him to write his own story. Often a preschooler will borrow some of the elements from the story he just heard to build his own. While your child is telling the story, write it down on plain sheets of paper putting the words at the bottom of the pages. Now your preschooler can illustrate his own story. Together make a front cover, staple the pages together to create a book. Your child can now read his story back to you or to others. This is an excellent reading-readiness activity.

Homemade Concept Books

Read a concept book introducing the numbers one to ten. Usually these books have a page for each number and a corresponding amount of an object for little one’s to count on each page. Preschool children can make their own counting books using construction paper and every day objects found around the house. Use one page for each number from one to ten. Allow your child to collect objects to glue on the appropriate pages. Use things like buttons, stickers, pennies, popcorn, leaves, flowers, tooth picks, and candies. This preschool activity will help develop your child’s understanding of one-to-one correspondence and numbers 1 to 10. You can make a similar book to reinforce each letter of the alphabet. This preschool activity should be completed in a number of sittings over many days.

Fun in the Kitchen

Preschool-aged children love to help Mom in the kitchen. Activities they will think of as chores in a few years, excite them at this age. Let them help set the table for dinner. Purchase a child-sized broom so they can help sweep the floor. Give them a cleaning cloth and a squirt bottle with water and a little white vinegar in it and let them wipe down the cabinets and the front of the refrigerator.

Pudding painting

This is an excellent preschool activity for young children who want to cook with Mom. Together, make instant vanilla pudding. Make two boxes so you have plenty for eating and painting. Put pudding in four cereal bowls and mix a few drops of food coloring in each. Now your child can use the pudding to finger paint on large sheets of butcher paper. The pudding is non-toxic and washes off surfaces and out of clothing. It tastes great too!

Seeds and Plants

Preschool-aged children love to see how the world works. They love to experiment and to observe. Growing seeds indoors can be a fun way to conduct simple experiments with young children. You can buy seeds from a gardening store or, even better, collect them from fruits and vegetables you eat with your child. Apple seeds work great. Use an empty egg carton to plant seeds in potting soil. Allow your child to sprinkle the dirt with water every day. Keep the seeds in a window. Children will delight in the results in only a few days. Use the plants to conduct simple experiments. What will happen if we cover one plant with a paper cup? What will happen if we water one plant with apple juice? Have your child draw a picture of what the plant looks like on each day of growth to create a simple chart.

Celery and Water

Children will understand how plants collect and move water through this simple experiment. Place a stick of celery with a leafy top in a glass of water half full. Put red food color into the water. Watch together as the celery stick turns red. See if your child can guess why this happens. Preschoolers will be able to observe and discuss the results of this simple experiment.

Bowls and Beans

You can create simple preschool activities in the kitchen with plastic bowls, measuring cups, spoons and dried beans. Young children love to pour, measure, pile, and scoop. Use two or three different types of beans so children can classify and compare. Practice concepts like opposites and more and less. Count the beans; describe the beans; wash, cook and eat the beans too!

Preschool Activities Summary

These simple preschool activities will help to keep little fingers and little minds busy for hours. To find more projects, visit PBS Kids. Here you will find preschool games and printables. You can also find great activities at Enchanted Learning for the cost of a yearly subscription.