Out Of Ideas? Here Are 15 Preschool Activities You Can Do At Home With Materials You Already Have

Keeping our toddlers and little ones busy while reducing screen time can sometimes be an overwhelming task. Their average attention span is between 3-6 minutes, while those ages 4-5 clock in 8-10 minutes. Parents often run out of ideas of what else to we can do to keep them engaged in learning besides storytelling, free drawing, free play, stacking toys or building blocks.

We can help you with that, moms and dads.

We’ve managed to pull a few more tricks up our sleeve to keep your little ones engaged with preschooler activities you can do at home!

Here are 15 activities to help improve and develop your child's fine motor skills, cognitive skills, and art skills. 

Related: Bored, Hindi Mapakali? These Preschool Activities At Home Will Keep Kids Busy And HappyYour preschooler will learn a lot, too.

Fine Motor Skills Activities

1. Cut straw threading

Materials: colorful straw or large paper straw (intended for milk tea), yarn

What to do: Cut the straws into smaller portions, probably around 2-inches each and insert the yarn in each straw piece to create a necklace!

Safety Reminder: Supervise the use of scissors 

2. Painting with cotton buds

Materials: cotton buds, poster paint, craft paper or ordinary paper

What to do: dip the tip of the cotton buds into the paint and paint away!

Safety Reminder: use non-toxic paint

3. Paper pizza making

Materials: cardboard for pizza base, colored paper for toppings, scissors, and glue

What to do: cut the cardboard into a circle and paint it with red marker or cover it with red art paper, allow your kids to cut pizza toppings and glue them down

Safety Reminder: supervise the use of scissors

4. Car paper tunnels

Materials: assorted cartolina, masking tape, toy cars

What to do: cut the cartolina into rectangular pieces (big enough to fit a toy car and your child's arm when folded) and then fold them to make tunnels, stick them to a solid base like a coffee table with the use of masking tape--and let the cars pass through each tunnel!

Safety Reminder: Remove clutter at the base of the the table since your child will be moving around it, keep the toy cars on the table (can't step on it and slip!)  

5. Drop the beads

Materials: colorful beads, empty jar, paper

What to do: cut the paper to fit the opening lid of the jar and create holes small enough for the beads to fit. Fill the jar with colorful beads!

Safety Reminder: supervise the use of beads--these can be a choking hazard

Cognitive Skills Activities

6. Carpark numbers

Materials: used cardboard, markers, toy cars, number stickers for toy cars (colored paper and scotch tape)

What to do: cut the cardboard to simulate a parking lot and label each parking slot with numbers. Let your child match the cars with parking numbers.

Safety Reminder: Keep the cars nearby (can't step on it and slip!) 

7. Matching paper cups

Materials: colorful paper cups, marker, colored paper

What to do: Use the base of the paper cup to trace and create circles (with corresponding smaller circles inside) to match the number at the base of each cup. example: three small circles should match cup with number 3

Safety Reminder: Can be addicting!

8. Sort and count bottles

Materials: clean plastic bottles, pompom balls or pebbles, marker, paint

What to do: paint the bottle and match the pompom balls with the assigned color of each bottle (example: red painted bottle with red pompom balls) or mark the bottles with a number and fill it with pebbles with the corresponding number (example: bottle number 4 must be filled with 4 pebbles)

Safety Reminder: Supervise the use of pompom balls and pebbles: can be a choking hazard 

9. Color sorting train

Materials: colored paper, colored blocks or any colored items available at home

What to do: cut the colored paper to make circles (wheels) and rectangles (wagons) and then sort colored blocks/items according to wagon color. Choochoo! 

Safety Reminder: Supervise the use of small blocks or toys--can be a choking hazard

10. Popsicle Stick Puzzle

Materials: popsicle and markers

What to do: mark the popsicle sticks with shapes and let your child piece the puzzle together!

Safety Reminder: Supervise the use of popsicle sticks--can poke the eye!

Art Skills Activities

11. Sponge rainbow art

Materials: colorful paint, used sponge, easel paper or manila paper

What to do: layer the sponge with streaks of paint and simply slide them onto easel/manila paper to make a rainbow art

Safety Reminder: Use non-toxic paint

12. Blow art

Materials: watercolor, paper, straw

What to do: dab the paper with watercolor and blow through the straw while the watercolor is still wet

Safety Reminder: Supervise the use of straw 

13. Citrus Paint Stamps

Materials: citrus fruits like lemon, orange, calamansi, poster paint or watercolor, paper

What to do: lightly press the citrus fruits against the paint and stamp away on paper

Safety Reminder: Use non-toxic paint

14. DIY paintbrush

Materials: household items that can be used as paintbrush like foil, plastic, piece of rug, etc, clothespin, paint, easel paper or cartolina

What to do: clip preferred DIY paintbrush at the bottom of the clothespin and dip into paint to create free art on easel paper or cartolina

Safety Reminder: Use non-toxic paint

15. Alphabet handprint

Materials: easel paper / cartolina, washable paint, markers

What to do: use washable paint to mark your children's hands and let them press their palm against easel paper or cartolina paper and make designs in reference to each letter of the alphabet

Safety Reminder: Wash hands thoroughly after use of paint!

 

Importance of early childhood activity

Children learn through play and experience. Through activities that enhace their motor skills, cognitive skills, language skills, and art skills, they learn to observe, manage their time, improve hand-eye coordination, think and reason, develop muscle control and make sense of patterns and colors. They also learn to express themselves and use their senses. These are part of developmental skills that are vital for your preschoolers to have a well-rounded education.  

Ideas from teaching2and3yearolds.com and teachingexpertise.com