Simple Activities for Preschoolers - Week 5

Looking to enjoy some creative activities with your preschooler? Here are five easy-to-follow ideas for the week ahead.

A few tips...

It can be pretty overwhelming to feel the need to constantly entertain or offer structured activities for your preschooler. Remember that they need ample time to enjoy free play, whether that be indoors or outdoors. Use these activities as a secret weapon for those times when you feel you need to shift gears. For us that is often mid-morning. We enjoy very relaxed and slow mornings as big bro gets settled into his homeschooling. After a while 3 year old baby sis is ready for something engaging so I will set an activity up and be sure to engage with her.

1. Plant a Garden

What you need: play dirt (you can also use real soil, sand, play dough or anything similar), toy flowers (we used Safari Toobs flowers but you could also use real ones), small pots and then a mini shovel or spoon.

How to set up: fill a small container or tray with the play dirt and spread out the flowers. Also add the pots and shovel.

How it works: this is a very open-ended invitation to create. Let your preschooler enjoy exploring the sensory materials and be sure to chat about the different types and colors of flowers as you use them. Transfer the play dirt into the pots and create a mini garden.

For younger kids: younger kids will have lots of fun simply transferring a sensory base like play dirt into different containers. Be sure to set it up on a mat or in a large container to catch the mess. Provide a variety of transfer scoops and spoons to peak engagement.

For older kids: this could be turned into a fun numeracy game. Roll a dice to see how many flowers you have to plant in each pot. You could also color sort in a similar way.

2. Pom Pom Water Play

What you need: pom poms, container and water (kitchen utensils and pans can also be fun).

How to set up: it was a gorgeous day so we decided to set this up in our mud kitchen outside. I also added some kitchen utensils and cooking pans.

How it works: pom poms work as the most fabulous sponges when placed in water. Simply let your preschooler explore soaking them in water and then squeezing them. My toddler loved trying to squeeze them dry! She also turned her set up into a little pom pom soup kitchen as well.

For younger kids: if you have a real little one you will obviously want to be careful about them mouthing pom poms. If that's the case some shops do sell jumbo pom poms (we got some in Michaels a while back), or you can just use large sponges. Provide two bowls, one empty and one with water, and see if your little one can transfer the water across.

For older kids: older kids will have just as much fun with this set up as younger ones (there's something ageless about water play!). If you want to take it a step further you can introduce some volume concepts. For example, how many pom pom squeezes does it take to fill the cup?

3. Rolling Paintings

What you need: a box or container, white paper or card, tape, acrylic paints and something to roll.

How to set up: tape the piece of white card to the bottom of the box or container. You can make the card into a specific shape if you wish to do so. Set out the paints.

How it works: before getting creative with the paints, go on a nature walk and look for some fun small natural loose parts which will roll around in the box. We found lots of acorns! Ask your child to add blobs of paint onto the white card and then place the acorns in the box. Let them tip the box from side to side and marvel as the acorns create tracks of paint all over the card. Let the paint dry and then remove the card from the box.

For younger kids: a great way for younger kids to enjoy this one is to use a Tupperware container with a lid. Tape the card to the bottom, add the paint and acorns, and then let your little go wild shaking and tipping the container. This makes a really fun sound and some cool art too.

For older kids: older kids can explore creating blobs of two colors of paint next to each other and seeing if they can mix them by making their loose parts roll through the paints. This is great for their fine and gross motor skills.

4. Loose Parts Trays

What you need: a selection of loose parts (we used wooden ones but literally anything small and interesting will do, eg. pom poms, buttons, building bricks, nature hunt finds etc.), small trays or containers, some form of transfer tools.

How to set up: this one is as simple as putting the loose parts on the trays!

How it works: kids instinctively love to tinker with loose parts. Simply let them explore the materials, and as they do encourage them to engage in conversations about the different shapes, colors, sizes etc. of the loose parts. Naturally your preschooler will start to play with the loose parts. This might be in the form of sorting, building or even role play with some loose part soup!

For younger kids: ensuring that the loose parts are big enough to be safe, allow your little one to touch and analyze the loose parts. Encourage them to transfer them from one tray to another, exposing them to key descriptive vocabulary as they do so.

For older kids: a loose parts set up like this has many numeracy uses (e.g. counting, addition, size ordering, grouping etc.) but the best way to play here is simply to encourage open-ended play, regardless of the child's age. See what they can create using all of the loose parts. Is it a balanced tower? Or perhaps an artistic masterpiece?

5. Scale Play

What you need: set of scales (we used our Learning Resources ones but just regular kitchen scales also work), and a set of small toys or a small loose part such as buttons.

How to set up: set out the scales along with the toys in a bowl (make sure the scales are approx. calibrated).

How it works: simply invite your child to experiment with using the scales. My 3 year old has always been fascinated with putting things in our regular one bucket kitchen scale and now she loves trying to get her toy scales to balance. Here she experimented by carefully adding the people counting figures to the buckets to see if she could balance the scales. This is great for introducing the concept of weight and the key words of heavy and light.

For younger kids: younger kids will simply enjoy the movement associated with using a scale. They will be working their fine motor skills hard placing the items into the bucket and out of the bucket.

For older kids: if you are doing this with an older child, you can start to introduce numbers and weights. Ask prompt questions such as 'how much will five toys weigh' or 'do these buttons weigh more than 50g'. You can also record how many toys are needed in each bucket to balance the scale if you are using one with two buckets.

Happy playing and learning for another week! Remember to head to @findthelittlemind over on Instagram for more details and pictures of these activities throughout the week.