If you’re like me, ideas to keep preschoolers entertained are always helpful, and especially so now that we are all staying at home more. Many of these ideas came from my aunt who taught kindergarten for 38 years. (Thanks Aunt Patty!)
I hope you get some good ideas to keep your young children busy and happy.
- Do math with raisins. This is a great way to teach the concept of addition and subtraction. My 3 and 4 year old loved this. Use raisins to make small math problems on the table. For the younger ones, keep the sum to five or less. One raisin plus two raisins, etc. For the older ones do larger sums. Have the children count up the raisins and then repeat the problem and the answer (one plus two is three!) and then they get to eat the raisins.
2. Play I spy with things you can actually see.
3. Play where is it? Choose an object (like a measuring cup), show it to your child, have him close his eyes, and you put it somewhere in the room in plain sight. Tell him to open his eyes and he has to find it. You have to be careful that he doesn’t hear which way you went to
“hide” it. To make it more exciting you can set a timer and he has to
find it before the timer goes off.
4. Write a diary with your children every night about what you did that day. Have them tell you what to write.
5. Write a story together and make it into a book.
6. Sort things. Buttons can be sorted by color, size, number of holes. Collections of nuts, bolts, screws can be sorted as well as coins, mixed beans/pasta, etc.
7. Measure things. If you don’t have a ruler you can make one – all
you need is the inches at this point anyway. First, show your child how to
measure (end of ruler must be at end of object) then make a list of
things to measure and go do it. Second way is to list 1 inch, 2
inches, 3 inches, etc. and he has to find someething that is only one
inch long, then something that is two inches long, etc.
8. Make cards to play go fish (colors, or shapes, or pics of
objects). The same cards can be used to play memory.
9. Make cards to play dominoes – again colors, shapes, numbers, etc.
10. Make Bingo cards. Cut an 8.5×11 piece of paper into fourths. The easiest way to do it is to have 3 columns and 3 rows for a total of 9 spaces. Instead of having BINGO across the top, you have nothing across the top. Here’s an example: the first column would have a red circle, then a red triangle, then a red square. The second column would have a blue triangle, a blue square and a blue circle. The third column would have a green square, then a green circle, then a green triangle (or whatever you’re trying to teach). Each card must have the shapes in different positions or eveyone would win at the same time. You win by getting 3 in a row either vertically, horizontally or diagonally. You need to cut one card apart and put the pieces into a bag. You can use beans or macaroni for markers. To play, someone reaches into the bag and announces what they pulled out and everyone marks it on their card. Keep pulling pieces out of the bag until someone has three in a row and says BINGO!
When your child gets really good at it, you can make a card the same size, but
with 4 rows and 4 columns for 16 squares. You can put shapes,
numbers, letters, whatever in the rows.
11. Build with toothpicks and mini marshmallows. You can make flat, 2-dimensional shapes (square
with a triangle roof = a house) or 3-D (a house made with a cube, or
any abstract form). It would be sort of like tinkertoys.
12. Finger-paint on the kitchen table (depending on the surface) with
pudding or shaving cream or whipped cream, etc.
13. String beads into necklaces or bracelets. Encourage making patterns.
14. Make a picture book. Have the children cut pictures out of magazines or seed catalogs. Help them paste them onto a paper folded in half to make a “book”.
15. Use cracker boxes to make houses. Cut out windows and doors, or get more creative and make furniture inside.
16. Plant something. Get out some seeds and containers or planters. Help the children plant some seeds, then water and set in a window to watch it grow.
17. Find free printables online for coloring or activity pages. I found several kindergarten style printables I could print free and my children loved them.
18. Make a tent in the living room using chairs, a sheet, and books or clothespins to keep it in place.
19. Play Boss. This game serves several purposes as it teaches the children to obey commands while keeping them entertained and also cleaning the house! When we play Boss, I give commands – Pick up that book, hop to the door, come to me, stop!, stick out your tongue, pick up three toys, etc. You can give the children turns to be the Boss and give commands and that makes it even more fun for them.
20. Play games. Even if your children are too young to understand how to play games, with some creativity on your part they can still have fun. Mine enjoy lining up Scrabble tiles or even lining up the ABC’s and their names. They also enjoy pretending to play card games even if they really don’t understand how to do it correctly.
I hope this gives you some good ideas for the days ahead! How are you keeping yourself (and your children) busy these days?
Great ideas! May I share them with a group I’m a part of? I would name you as the writter. ( :