How to entertain preschoolers at home.
Preschoolers are one of my favorite ages! They are full of so much curiosity and innocence. I honestly miss having my little ones home with me (they all grew up!). One thing about preschoolers is that they are a bundle of energy, always wanting to be kept busy and entertained. Fortunately, there are many cheap at home preschool activities to keep their busy bodies active and engaged. Here are a few of our favorites!
At Home Preschool Activities
Here are a few of my easy at home preschool activities. I hope your kids love them as much as my kids did!
1. Build A Fort
A fort can be a fun place for preschoolers to hide out, read books, and play.
You can easily build a fort by putting a few blankets over the kitchen table. Or, push some chairs together and drape them with blankets.
Don’t forget to fill the fort with pillows, stuffed animals and a few books for reading. Enjoy snuggling together inside your newly built fort!
2. Make White Dirt
My son loved making “white dirt” when he was a preschooler. This was a simple activity that kept him entertained for hours.
To make white dirt just mix together four cups of flour, 1 cup of brown sugar, and 1 cup of rice together in a 9X13 inch baking pan.
This white dirt is perfect for your preschooler to use for digging and playing with their small toy tractors.
3. Play In Bubbles
Fill your sink up with water and dish soap to form a bubbly sink. Let your preschooler play in the sink with plastic cups, spoons, and bowls.
This might make a bit of a watery mess, but it’s so fun for the little ones and a great at home preschool activity.
4. Make Playdough
It’s so easy to make homemade playdough. All you need is a few ingredients, and preschoolers can be the best helpers! I’ve tried many (seriously, MANY) playdough recipes over the years. This playdough recipe is the very best out there!
5. Have A Teddy Bear Picnic
Preschoolers love teddy bear picnics! To host a teddy bear picnic just lay a blanket on the floor and gather all of the teddy bears and stuffed animals in the house to set on the blanket.
Next, prepare a few simple treats or snacks to bring to the picnic.
Now, all you have to do is enjoy a picnic with your preschooler and favorite teddys.
6. Play Hide And Seek
Preschoolers love to play hide and seek, and it requires zero materials or planning, which makes it a quick and easy activity for a parent to throw together.
To play hide and seek, one person will close their eyes and count to twenty. While counting the hiders must quickly try to conceal themselves in a hiding place.
Once the seeker reaches twenty they will search and to try to find the hiders. It’s so fun to see where kids decide to hide. Let everyone have a turn being the “seeker” and “hider”.
7. Paper Bag Puppets
Another fun at home preschool activity is to make paper bag puppets. Turn a brown paper bag into a puppet by coloring a face on the flap. Make a few different puppets and then put on a puppet show with your preschooler!
8. Magic Toothpick Science Experiment
This magic toothpick science experiment is another easy at home preschool activity. All you need is a few ingredients and 5 minutes to prepare this experiment. Your preschooler will love watching the pretty colors form!
9. Caterpillar Soup
Mix up some caterpillar soup with your kiddo by pouring some water into a bowl and then letting your preschooler shake in a few spices. I try to pick spices with different colors to help give the “soup” some variety and color.
Give the soup a few stirs with the spoon and then set it outside for the “caterpillars” to enjoy. My kids always figured out this wasn’t really for caterpillars, but they still enjoyed pretending!
10. Have A Dance Party
Turn on some fun Disney tunes and have a dance party. Kids love showing off their newest moves!
11. Form A Marching Band
Form a marching band as a family using items around the house. Someone can shake spices, another bang two pot lids together, and someone else could use a pot and spoon as a drum.
Use your “instruments” to march around the house like a marching band. (pro tip: you might want to wear ear plugs for this activity! 😉 )
12. Make A Road Out Of Tape
Use painters tape to form a road over the carpet, stairs, couches, everywhere you want! Let your preschooler drive their matchbox cars over the road.
You can even add a town to your roads by using the tape to make a few houses, supermarket, school, church, etc.
13. Make Ice Cream
Make homemade ice cream in a bag. It only takes a few ingredients and Preschoolers love helping to shake the bag and of course try the ice cream! We love this ice cream in a bag recipe.
14. Indoor Scavenger Hunt
Set up an indoor scavenger hunt for your preschooler to enjoy. Make a list (don’t forget to include pictures) of items for your preschooler to find around the house.
Give them the list and let them find each item. Give a snack or small price to them once the list has been completed.
15. Peanut Butter Play Dough
A fun twist on the the original play dough is this easy peanut butter play dough recipe. My kids love helping me make it, probably because they love getting to eat some of it!
This is a great activity for teaching the 5 senses to preschoolers. They can taste, touch, smell, see, and even hear the play dough being squished.
16. Play Library
Have fun pretending to have a library at home. Set up a few books around the house and let your preschooler pick out a few to “check out”. Pretend to be the librarian and let your child come to you to check out each book.
Then, switch places! Allow your preschooler a chance to be the librarian while you check out books.
17. Finger Paint
Mix up some finger paint for your child to paint with. Give them some white papers and let them create a masterpiece! Don’t forget to hang the painting on the fridge once it’s done!
18. Send Letters
Teach your child to serve and send love to others by making a few cards or letters for grandparents or other loved ones.
Your preschooler can draw a cute picture inside and then sign their name if they are able to. Not only is this a fun at home preschool activity, it’s also a great way to put a smile on someone’s face.
19. Make Cereal Necklaces
Help your preschooler develop their fine motor skills by making cereal necklaces together.
Use some yarn or string and thread it with cheerios or fruit loop cereal until the necklace is the right size.
20. Cut Up Magazines
Get out a few magazines for your preschooler to look through. Let them cup out their favorite pictures. After you have a pile of pictures use them to tell each other stories.
This is a great activity for developing fine motor skills and imagination!
21. Play Dress Up
Let your preschooler pretend to be someone else for a day by playing dress up. I always kept a big box of fun dress up clothes for the kids to play with. These were usually items I collected from the thrift store, like pirate, princess, or super hero costumes.
If you don’t have a dress up box you could lend some of your clothes to your child to dress in for the day. They would have so much fun pretending to be mom or dad for a few hours!
22. Cosmic Kids Yoga
My preschoolers all loved Cosmic Kids Yoga. Its a fun YouTube channel that teaches kids how to do yoga, by telling a story. There are many different stories and videos to choose from. This is a great way to keep your kids active and their bodies moving.
23. Build An Obstacle Course
Another fun activity to keep your kids moving is to make an obstacle course for them to go through. This can be done in your backyard or wherever you happen to have some large space to run.
Here is an example of what your obstacle course might look like:
- Do 5 jumping jacks.
- Kick a ball.
- Crawl under the trampoline.
- Walk backyards 20 feet.
- Swing for 1 minute.
- Hop on one foot.
- Carry a ball to another part of the yard.
After you make up the obstacle course for your child, let them then make up a course for you to complete!
24. Have A Pillow Fight
Grab a few pillows and have an old fashioned pillow fight! It’s always fun to let loose with your kids! A pillow fight is sure to bring a lot of laughter and giggles.
25. Art Hub For Kids
Try the fun YouTube channel Art Hub for Kids for some fun drawing lessons. This is a great resource for making drawing easy and FUN for kids. They even have an entire series of drawings for preschoolers.
26. Bake Cookies
I’ve never met a preschooler who didn’t love baking cookies! Let them choose their favorite kind (chocolate chip is always a first choice at our house) and then spend an hour baking together, and of course eating!
- Make sure to grab my recipe ebook for a few of our favorite recipes!
27. Play Simon Says
My preschoolers always loved to play Simon Says.
Choose one person to stand on one side of the room, this person is “Simon.” Have everyone else stand on the other side of the room.
Simon will then instruct the other players to do an activity by using the phrase, “Simon Says.” For example: “Charly, Simon says to hop up and down three times.”
The person who was instructed to do the activity then must do what was instructed of them.
If Simon does not use the phrase, “Simon Says” before giving the command, then the player should not complete the activity. If they do the activity without the phrase “Simon Says” used then that player is then out of the game.
Make sure to give everyone a chance to be Simon, kids love that job!
28. Make Ooblek
Ooblek is a fun, slimy activity for preschoolers. It only takes two cheap ingredients and can entertain your little one for hours.
To make ooblek just mix 2 cups of cornstarch and 1 cup of water together in a bowl.
That’s it! Now, just let them squish and play with the ooblek.
29. Color Hot Rocks
Collect a few rocks from outside for this fun Hot Rocks activity. This is a fun twist on the typical painting rocks activity that you and your child are sure to love!
30. Play Store
Another fun pretend play for at home preschool activity is to play store. We like to play this activity by setting out a few toys and other objects around the room, this is our “store.”
Next, get out some play money (or make some with paper) and put it in one section of the room for the cash register. Make sure to give some money to the shopper too!
Now, let your little one “shop” at the store, including checking out with the play money at the cash register.
This is a fun activity to let them get some practice at being a grown up.
31. Make a Sun Catcher
Crafts always make for fun at home preschool activities. You will need a few supplies for these easy sun catchers, but if you happen to have them around the house it is a great craft projects for little ones!
32. Play Balloon Volleyball
Blow up a few balloons and play balloon volleyball with your preschooler. There aren’t any rules to this volleyball game! Just enjoy tossing the balloons to each other and having fun with your kids.
33. Play Red Light, Green Light
Red Light, Green Light is another fun game to play with preschoolers. To play this game have one person stand on one end of the room, this will be the “caller”, and the other players stand in a line at the other end of the room.
The caller will then start calling out commands. Commands for this game will be “Red Light” or “Green Light.” When “Green Light” is called the players can walk as quickly as they can towards the caller. But, when “Red Light” is called the players must stop moving.
The point of this game is to be the first person to reach the caller.
34. Matchbox Car Wash
Preschoolers love playing in water. One fun activity is to set up a Matchbox Car Wash.
Get out a few matchbox cars, a cake pan, bowl of water, and a pastry brush.
One at a time put a matchbox car in the cake pan and wash it using the pastry brush. This activity is so simple, but kids love it!
35. Make Hand Shadows
Find a dark place in your house and use a flashlight to light up one wall. Use your hands to make shadows on the wall. It’s so fun to see what shadows each of you can come up with.
If you are needing some hand shadow inspiration, check out this fun YouTube video!
36. Play Will It Float
Will It Float is a fun, easy activity for preschoolers to help learn about what items float and what items sink.
To play this game let your preschooler gather a few small objects around the house, make sure to only let them choose items that are water proof.
Then fill up the sink with water.
Have your preschooler guess which items they think will sink in the water and which ones will float. Last, drop each of the objects into the sink of water one by one. It’s so fun to see which items float!
37. Make a Paper Quilt
Cut up small squares of paper and let your preschooler glue them onto a large piece of paper. They have then made their very own paper quilt! It’s so fun to let them choose their colors and patterns and use some creativity.
In Conclusion
There are so many cheap at home preschool activities. I hope you and your little ones enjoy some of these activities on my list.
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