Gathered over the years from a variety of sources:

 

 

Preschool Activities

 

For more preschooler ideas, see these sites:
Linda Coyle's page
Abecedarian Academy Homepreschool
Homeschoolchristian.Com Preschoolers
101 Activities to Do With Your Toddler
Michelle's Preschooler Activities

102 I-Can-Do-It-Myself Activities is a book with more ideas for homeschoolers. Shekinah Curriculum Cellar and Hewitt Homeschooling carry it for $14.95.

What can I do with my preschooler now, to make sure she's ready for kindergarten? There's a good essay on the subject, at Eclectic Homeschool. What if my 3- or 4-year-old is ready to start school? Read Homeschooling 3 and 4 Year Olds.

Activity Ideas for Preschoolers
From: MrsD

These are things we have done at one time or another. OBVIOUSLY, some require more supervision than others. Many are intended for when the child is near you as you work with other children on their lessons. These are in no particular order. If nothing else, maybe reading this list will get your own creative juices flowing!

·         Plastic (or cardboard) coins and a piggy bank - bought or home-made (Pringles can, slit cut in top).

·         Playdoh with a plastic knife, rolling pin, cookie cutters, etc.

·         Painting: watercolors, paint books, or food coloring in water with a Q-tip.

·         Chalk on dark construction paper.

·         Scissors and paper (no other objective in mind!)

·         Easy-to-use paper punch and strips of paper.

·         Stencils, paper, colored pencils.

·         Lacing cards: Cardboard shape with holes punched around it. Attach yarn, wrap masking tape around the end.

·         Plastic canvas with yarn attached, wrap end in masking tape.

·         Poke holes in thick cardboard with a tack.

·         Shallow bucket on a towel on the floor. Add water, boats, plastic fish, measuring cups, etc.

·         Writing tray: Put a layer of rice or cornmeal in a cookie sheet. Good for spelling practice or picture-drawing or practicing ABC's.

·         Mini-sandbox: Put a layer of sand in a box the size of a banana box. Add trucks, cars, popsicle sticks. Throw a blanket over a card table or a couple of chairs. Offer clothes pins. They'll know what to do next!

·         Make a tunnel of kitchen chairs.

·         Give them a crochet hook and a length of yarn. Demonstrate chain stitch a few times. This is not for everyone, but if you refuse to do it for them, you'll be surprised at what they figure out.

·         Stack cups or containers of different sizes.

·         Nuts and bolts, same or different sizes.

·         Scrap wood, hammer, nails.

·         Bucket of water and a paintbrush-for outside painting. Works best on wood or concrete.

·         Chalk on sidewalk or steps.

·         Let them "wash" a few plastic dishes. Put an egg beater and baster in the water.

·         A cup with non-toxic soapy water and a straw to blow bubbles. You may put it on a sheet of paper and add food coloring to the water.

·         A retractable measuring tape to measure with.

·         Make a necklace or snack chain with yarn (masking tape on end) and any cereal with holes: Froot Loops, Cheerios, etc.

·         Arrange blocks by size, color, or shape.

·         Dip string pieces in thinned poster paint. Fold a paper in half. Lay string on one side and fold over to create designs.

·         Flash cards: ABC's or whatever you may have.

·         Pictures with colored glue. If you put these on a smooth plastic sheet, it can be peeled off when dry.

·         Superball or small car and a paper towel or wrapping paper tube.

·         Tops - bought or made with ½ toothpick and cardboard disk.

·         Draw roads, houses, etc. on large paper or cardboard. Use cars and trucks on it.

·         Look through the button box.

·         Watch a bug! At the table, at an anthill, wherever.

·         Water color with food coloring, eye dropper or paint brush, coffee filter. Once this is dry, you can iron it. Then cut the center out of a paper plate. Glue filter to it for a sun catcher.

·         Pins and pin cushion.

·         Beanbags and a bucket.

·         Magnet and paperclips, washers, a nail, etc.

·         A large box.

Preschool Ziploc Bag Activities
From: Dolly M

Here are some of my activity bag ideas. Once you get started I'm sure you'll come up with other ideas, too. Try to focus on self-directed, self-correcting activities that are keyed to specific concepts you want the child to master, such as counting to 10, beginning consonant sounds, learning to use scissors, etc.

Usually I'd present each new activity bag to the younger child in a 3-5 minute one-on-one time. That should be sufficient for that bag to turn into a self-directed activity from then on. As bags became "boring" I'd remove them, or alter them to make the activity harder. I try to use really cheap or free things to create the activity bags. If I HAD to buy something it usually came from Wal-Mart (stickers, counters, index cards etc.) or a yard sale :-)

I think our biggest expense for our activity BOX was in the Gallon-Size Freezer Ziploc bags. You need them because: 1) child can see through and identify the activity without disturbing contents; 2) child can easily get out and put away the items himself; 3) bags "file away" nicely in a milk crate or standard cardboard box; 4) large white plastic zipper is easy for the child to manipulate (don't use the kind that must be pressed together with color change - little kids can't do that successfully).

I recently did a workshop about the PreK ZipLoc Activity Bags. On their own the moms came up with a great idea: They formed a "club" of twenty moms where each mom was assigned one kind of bag. She then went home and made 20 copies of that bag. They all swapped so every mom had a box of 20 different bags.

MATH:

1. Counting. Label 10 index cards with numerals 1-10 (or 10-20 whatever level suits your child). On the back of each card stick on the appropriate number of stickers, i.e., 6 stickers on back of the card labeled "6." I bought a large set of mini-stickers for this purpose. Check the stationary aisle at Wal-Mart - look for stickers that are dime-sized or smaller. Anyway, provide a supply of counters that are small enough to barely cover the stickers. I used transparent plastic bingo markers in different colors from Wal-Mart, but you could also use beads, beans etc. Have the child 1) place a card numeral side up, 2) count out the correct number of counters, 3) turn the card over and match up counters & stickers in one-to-one correspondence. This is a self checking activity. If the stickers and counters don't match up something is wrong. He can repeat with additional cards until bored, or have a "rule" like "choose and do 4 cards then stop."

2. Pattern matching / recognition. String some plastic pony beads onto a plastic drinking straw in an easy pattern of alternating colors. Hot glue the first & last beads so they are permanent and won't come off. Provide child with another plastic drinking straw and supply of pony beads in various colors. Have the child attempt to create string(s) of beads to match your sample(s). The straws are easier to thread than string and the samples lay flat on the table. I used colored straws for my samples and provided white straws for the child's use so he knew right away which ones where the samples (and wouldn't try to pull off the glued ones.) You can make this easier/harder by making more complicated patterns, ask "what comes next in the pattern," and so on.

3. Sorting. Provide a supply of nuts & bolts OR different kinds of pasta shapes OR different colors/types of paper clips OR something else that is small and can be sorted. Glue ONE of each major "type" onto an index card (I sometimes use wide clear packing tape to affix items to the card - you can see through it & its more permanent than glue.) Have the child sort the items by matching them up to the "type cards." Make this harder by requiring the sorts to be "by size only" or "by size AND type" etc.

For variety I sometimes would glue the "item" onto a spring clothes pin. I'd clip the pin onto the edge of a small plastic oleo dish - then when he picked an item from the "supply" bucket he was to drop it into the right dish. It's still a sorting activity, but the variety of manipulating the clothes pin was interesting to him ??. We stored the oleo dishes in our Activity Box because we used them for a variety of different bag activities (counting, etc.).

FINE MOTOR

1. Cutting. Provide ½ sheets of paper onto which you have drawn simple wavy lines with a wide black marker. I used to put stickers at the ends of the lines (birds, butterflies, bugs, cars, space ships - something interesting to "go for." Draw 2 or 3 lines on each ½ sheet - the lines should be roughly parallel, not intersecting. Provide scissors and say "Can you cut along the line to all the way to the bird (or whatever.) Graduate to simple closed shapes instead of lines.

2. Toothpick Punched Art. Layer a folded tea towel or face cloth, blank ½ sheet of black construction paper, ½ sheet of paper with simple "pattern" (heart, star, circle, square, etc.) drawn in heavy black marker (or print from computer). Layer so that towel is on table, pattern sheet is on top. Provide tooth pick and tell child to poke holes in the white pattern paper along the edges of the heart (circle, star, etc.). When done he'll like to hold his black punched piece up to the window to see the shape he made. I put lots of pattern pieces, lots of black construction pages and one face cloth in the activity bag along with 2 wooden clothes pins to hold the "sandwich" together while the child worked. He'd pick a different shape each time. We displayed the results by taping the black punched pages on the sliding glass door (sun shines through the holes).

3. Tweezers & pony beads. I had a supply (6-8) of medicine dose cups that come off the top of cough syrup bottles. I glued a different colored bead into the bottom of each cup. Then I provided a supply of beads (in those colors) and a pair of tweezers. Say, "can you use only the tweezers to move the beads to the right (matching) colored cups?" Let the child work for 5 or so minutes then count the beads before putting them back in the "supply" - sort of a cross-over counting, sorting, fine motor activity.

4. Tracing. Provide ½ sheets with simple shapes (similar to the ones from the toothpick art activity) and ½ sheets of tracing paper. I put a small clip board in this bag to hold the two pages together while the child worked - along with a marker or crayon.

LANGUAGE ARTS

All my activity bags for this subject shared the same goal - to teach DS beginning consonant sounds. I mainly used a variety of pictures clear-taped onto index cards and a set of plastic letters (like the magnet type used on ‘fridge.) Then I'd have him do matching activities. The reverse of the card always had the correct letter so this was self correcting. The best place to get lots of pictures (you need LOTS for this) is to buy alphabet books from yard sales at 10c to 20c each, then just cut them up! I got some from magazines but that's harder and more work! He especially liked to "work on the fridge" for this, so I had a bunch of plain magnets to attach the index cards to the fridge. I'd stick up the "B" magnet and have him go through the cards finding all the pictures that start with "buh, buh, buh."

Make it harder by making cards for consonant blends, ending consonants, etc.

COLORS.

Before you cut up those alphabet books take some BLACK & WHITE Xeroxes of various pages. Try to get pictures of items that are USUALLY one color (fruits, veggies & food items are good for this - i.e. bananas are always yellow, broccoli always green, etc.). Cut up the Xeroxed pictures, clear-taping one per index card. Have the child match the item with something else that shows the right color (crayons, colors on another index card, paint chips, whatever - or make a game board with different colored spaces for the item cards). The idea is to match the item with the appropriate color. Make lots of item cards (25-30). (This is probably only for 3 year olds ?)

LISTENING.

I visited the library weekly to have a rotating supply of cassette tapes and read-along books. I'd change the book/tape bag after each use so there was always something different. He used this activity bag every day. We used a player with earphones so the older kid wasn't disturbed.

JUST FOR FUN

Once in a while I'd include a Ziploc Bag with a can of shaving cream. We'd spray a big glop onto the kitchen counter and he was allowed to draw letters or numbers into the shaving cream until he got bored with that. Sometimes it was good for a half hour! Other times I'd whip up ½ cup of Ivory Liquid in a small bowl. Set the bowl in the sink, push a kitchen chair up to the sink and let him have at it. After a few minutes turn on a trickle of water from the faucet and provide a bunch of plastic measuring cups. This could be good for 40 minutes!!!

Hopefully these ideas will get you started. I bet I spent two whole days one summer coming up with ideas and getting bags ready. Those were the best two days of preparation I ever spent. It literally saved us countless times during the years that our son was 3-4 and our daughter was in 1st & 2nd grades. We still use many of the bags this year (he's K, she's 3rd). Have fun and God bless.

Mary Beth's I Spy Bottle
From: Mary Beth

Into a 2-liter soda bottle, insert several small I-Spy type items (Barbie shoe, key, dime, marble, Cootie leg, Lego brick, paper clip, etc.) Make an I spy list, and tape it (folded shut) to the side of the bottle. Fill the bottle half to three-fourths full with bird seed. The kids have to turn the bottle to find the items. My kids loved this!!!

Sherry's Additional Activities
From: Sherry Bowlsby

Here's some ideas for your 3-year-old tornado:

·         Make some fish out of construction paper. Put paperclips on them. Make a fishing pole with a stick, string & magnet. It may keep him busy for awhile.

·         Let him "WASH" the windows. This one can keep a small, wild child busy for hours. Simply give him a squirt bottle with water and a dishtowel. This is not pretty for your windows, but this can buy a lot of time!

·         Let him "PAINT" the house. Bucket of water & paintbrush. He may decide to paint the cars & the sidewalks, too.

·         Make him a mailbox (tissue box works well). Put all that unwanted junk mail into his mailbox, for him to go through in the morning.

·         Paint a plate with whipped cream or pudding, or both!

Don't do any activity more than once each week; rotate them.


Some Additional Activities
From: various sources

This is my 2 year old's favorite: We have a Tupperware filled with different colors and shapes of dry beans. I put a tablecloth on the floor and put the beans and an empty bowl on a cookie sheet. I give her a couple of measuring cups and a tablespoon and she will spend more than an hour transfering beans from the big bowl to the little one, then dumps them back in the big and starts over. She also has a bowl of rice and she does the same thing with the rice. She loves to use a funnel with this. -Mom9x

This one is from Donna in NC. To keep my 3yods occupied this morning I drew a shape (triangle) and let him fill it in with stickers. Not big stickers, little ones, it takes MUCH longer to fill it up this way! I bought a pack of 3,350 stickers on a roll at Wal-Mart for about $3. I thought this was a good way to reinforce shapes too. Now, if I could only find a good way to occupy my 1yods!

Brenda in MA suggested the following. This is working with my 18 month old. I created a "bean box" for her. I purchased a plastic box with a lid that is just big enough for her to sit in and several pounds of pinto beans. Set her in it with some nesting/stacking cups and she has a BLAST! Also, my 7yo ds made Heidi a "tent" from a blanket draped over a couple chairs and put some toys in it for her. She LOVED it and played happily in there while we got some school work done.

Birgit's Shoeboxes
From: Birgit

My children are 4, 8, and 10. We do different activities in plastic shoeboxes, and the 4yo can only play with them during school time.

·         Lace up box: Shapes cut from old bleach bottles and cardboard, with holes cut around them with a hole punch; colored laces, big wooden beads, spools, stringing foam shapes I found at a garage sale.

·         Doll box: a small doll with clothes, a bottle, pacifiers, bibs, a baby spoon, a baby dish, etc. (a lot of it recycled from her own baby stuff).

·         Magnet box: several magnets, paper clips, coins, a piece of iron ore, screws, etc.

·         Art box: construction paper, scissors, gluestick, dot painters, rubber stamps, washable inkpad.

·         Math box: homemade fishing game with numbers on it with fishing pole, cuisinaire rods (left over from sons), pattern blocks.

·         Button box: variety of old buttons to sort.

·         Just use your imagination! These can be put together to fit any age's interests and abilities.

Increase Their Attention Span
From: Lisa in CA

Let's work on his attention span a bit and help him grow in this area. Give your little guy a planned activity and require him to stay with it for a fixed period of time. Set the timer. Start with 10 or 15 minutes. Do 2 of these times per day to begin with, one in the morning, one in the afternoon, and not when they're hungry or tired. Build up the time gradually. Stick to your guns about waiting for the timer when they say they're all done in 5 minutes. Focusing is a skill and like any skill, some people find it easier than others, but everyone can learn.

Homeschooling 3 and 4 Year Olds

You may have noticed that this page quotes heavily from Cathi in Hawaii. Cathi has nine children and has homeschooled for 16 years. Three of her children have graduated. Many of us from the homeschooling boards have come to value her advice, for the wisdom and experience always contained therein.

School Readiness Revisited
(or, Big Bird’s Got it All Wrong!)
Posted by Billie in CT

Big Bird conscientiously recites the alphabet every day so that he won’t forget it. And like him, most of us have been taught that knowing letters, numbers, shapes and colors are the keys to being ready to begin school. Mothers often speak of their child’s school readiness, saying, "She knows the alphabet and most letter sounds and can count to twenty." But actually, children don’t need academic knowledge before they start school - they really need listening skills, a good attention span, and fine motor skills.

I read an article recently, in which someone had asked a bunch of kindergarten teachers, and a bunch of mothers of preschoolers, what skills children needed before they started kindergarten. There was no overlap at all between the answers of the two groups! The mothers all mentioned academic things, like letters and numbers. The teachers said listening skills, fine motor skills, and another foundational skill (which I forget at the moment).

Sonlight K requires good listening skills for Bible, history, read-alouds, and science. (There’s no point in beginning Sonlight K before a child can comprehend and enjoy chapter books.) K is a very relaxed year compared with subsequent years, but it still requires a longer attention span than preschoolers usually have. The handwriting and science activities require good fine motor skills. So does math - both for writing in workbooks and working with math manipulatives.

So, there’s nothing wrong with letters and numbers. But all the non-academic activities that people recommend for preschoolers are actually better preparation for school. Reading to your child develops listening skills and attention span. Projects like putting together puzzles, stringing beads, and cutting construction paper all develop fine motor skills and attention span. So does participating in household chores and cooking. There’s a lot of learning in sweeping a floor, planting a garden, or baking a batch of cookies - don’t sell them short! And of course, nature walks and trips to the zoo or train station or children’s museum develop curiosity and a love of learning. That’s probably the best school preparation of all.

What I Learned in Kindergarten
Posted by Ginny

In September when we started this grand adventure, I thought I was the teacher, my child the student. This year has proven me wrong. My little girl has taught me . . . that math can be learned while taking out the trash or making cookies or planning how to spend an allowance; and that the best craft projects happen with hours to play, lots of rainy days, a mess of crayons, scissors, and scraps of all sorts, and a great chunk of imagination thrown in. She has taught me to relax, to step back and watch, to let her lead.

Even though I gave up on formal handwriting, feeling that she wasn't ready, her writing improved. Her "work"? On her own initiative, she wrote notes to friends, copied words from junk mail, and invented all kinds of projects involving printing. I watched in awe, sometimes supplying the right shape of a new letter, sometimes writing out names she'd asked me to demonstrate. She directed, I helped, she taught, I learned. I thought we would "do school" this year, instead we "did life" and somehow school happened anyway.

My goals for this year, oh, gee, what were they? Somehow they don't seem all that important. She didn't learn to read, but she discovered the joy of chapter books. She fell in love with Ramona Quimby.

We talked, and talked; in the car, in the grocery line, over the dishes. We talked about volcanoes and states and relationships and frogs. We found out that frogs caught in the wild rather prefer their old residence, and they will almost starve themselves to prove it. Letting a frog go in a nearby pond, and the sad feelings it evoked, started a conversation about how real love means doing what is best for someone, even when it hurts.

At the end of this wonderful, funny, not-what-I-expected year, I have come to some important conclusions. That Sonlight, even when used as loosely as we used it, is wonderful. That preschool and kindergarten as we know them are really about preparing kids for school. But since we are already "schooling" and have been right along, why prepare for what we are already doing?

My 3yo and 4yo, will get to benefit from this last lesson. I have decided that they will not "do" school until 1st grade. So for two and three more years they get to play and talk and go to the grocery store and the park and church. They get to play and listen to great books and go to the library and come home with books of their own. They get to build forts in the living room and watch ducks at the pond and go to the zoo with Mommy and Daddy. They get to be little, they get to have fun. They are not in a hurry and neither am I. The time for first grade will come, and all those wonderful learning times that go along with stepping into the next level.

I look forward to this next year with my 5 yo. We both are excited about the new things to learn in her first official school time. It will still be only a small piece of each day; just adding the framing on the foundation. I know she will have lots to teach me still. I wonder what I'll learn in 1st grade?

Don't Miss These Precious Years
Posted by Julie B

You want your 4-1/2 year old to be more interested in learning? I'll tell you what...you will be home educating for at least 15 more years. Do you really want to get started right now? These young years are so fleeting.

I skipped kindergarten for my kids. Instead we went to the park, listened to stories on tape, read books, went to the library, baked cookies, read books, planted seeds, read books, wrestled on the carpet, made dorky crafts, did I mention reading books?

Pace yourself. Structure for a 4.5 may undermine his ability to learn to read when the time actually comes--intimidation because of repeated failures or the association with it being drudgery. My two oldest didn't really "get it" about reading until they were eight. They now read constantly and well (several grade levels above their current grades).

So relax and continue to enjoy that "light of your life." Don't be so eager for the carefree years to end. You will wistfully look back on them as some of the freshest, most delightful times of your life.

Schooling...the rigorous part...well, that seems to go on and on and on. But once you start in earnest, you will truly be ready for it and so will your boy.

Last little note: I have noticed that moms who have researched homeschooling and have committed to it before their kids are old enough, want to start too soon. What you can do during this waiting period (since you are the one who is ready for more structure and a sense of achievement) is to continue your own education. Start reading the classics for yourself (Jane Austen, Dickens, Hemmingway, etc.) or pick a period of history and dive in. Go to an art museum, listen to classical music.

If you are growing as a person and are engaged in learning, it will spill over into your child's life, AND you won't feel like a race horse at the gate waiting for the gun to go off.

They Never Believe Me, Until Later
Posted by Cathi in Hawaii

. . . You're so right, especially the part about mothers who have been researching home schooling wanting to start WAY too early. I have been counseling mothers for many years on this, and almost no one ever listens to me ("but you don't understand--MY child is really ready") and almost everyone comes back a year or two later and tells me I was right, and these moms don't usually make the same decision again. My own daughters, who have preschoolers now, are facing this same question, and feeling pressure from other almost-homeschooling friends. Thankfully, I have a little guy who will be three in October, whom I wouldn't dream of starting for two more years, and that gives them some perspective and some resolve. PLEASE wait. I know there's a lot of good stuff out there, but the really "good stuff" is the time your child has left to be carefree and to soak up the richness of your home before he needs to sit at the books.

Benefits of Early Academics
Posted by Cathi in Hawaii

Some say, "But my preschoolers are so much happier if they have workbooks to do." Regarding early academics, just make sure that through the preschool years, child training comes first! Remember, it's not a readiness issue. The child may be developmentally capable of doing something; but the important question, in light of all the research which shows that an early start does not translate into anything except possible burnout, is "What else can my child be doing with his time that is more valuable at 3, 4, and 5 that WILL translate into a richer life?"

If your child needs several hours of academic activities or even constant input from you during the day in order to keep him from being bored and whiney, then this is a much bigger problem than whether to teach him to read and write at 3 or 4. Providing schoolwork may just be masking character issues which need to be addressed before school age. This is one of the reasons I am against early schoolwork--it gives the child and parent something to focus on other than those things which should properly be taught during those years. When a child is whiney and bored, he needs to be taught how to find acceptable activities, how to entertain a younger child, how to wait for Mom's attention, etc. Am I making sense? Providing structure can be helpful, but not if it is a "remedy" for character problems. Schoolwork is the easy way out.

Ready for Reading
Posted by Paula H

I know you're eager for your five-year-old to learn to read. And I know you're frustrated because she's just not catching on. It's like trying to teach her to climb a certain tree, before she's tall enough to reach the first branch. She'll try, get frustrated, fall, and cut her knee. And 6 months from now, when she is tall enough, she'll feel uncomfortable trying, because she'll remember that cut on her knee. Maybe the neighbor who's the same age can climb that tree, but he's also 2 inches taller. Wait a few months, and check again to see whether she's ready. If it doesn't come easy, back off again. Personally, I wouldn't even TRY until she's six, unless you saw some clear readiness signs.

What to do in the meantime? Work on letter sounds. Get some ABC books, I like Usborne's, but it's exclusively available from an Usborne rep. In addition to the 4-5 objects mentioned in the text, there are many, many more hidden in the picture; each time you go through, you find more. Find words that begin with the P sound. Point to the letter P. What sound does this word begin with? What letter does this word begin with? What sound does "hat" end with? Does "house" end in a T sound? Then what sound? How many T words can you think of? (Notice the emphasis on sounds. C doesn't have its own sound, so don't work on it until you start reading.)

I suspect the maturity just isn't there for putting letters together. So in the meantime, get her real, real strong on knowing those letter sounds. That way, when the maturity is there for combining, she'll have all the tools easily available.