10 Fun Ways For Preschoolers To Learn At Home
The preschool years are a fun and engaging time for every child and one of the best times to nurture your child’s natural desire to learn and grow. Providing a range of activities and experiences in and around the home is a great way to combine fun with learning!
Focusing on the development of cognitive and motor skills, encouraging social interaction and fostering an appreciation for different cultures, the right educational games can be the perfect way to engage with your toddler at home. Here are our top 7 ways to build fun learning experiences into your child's home life.
1. Enjoy Puzzle Time
Even adults love a good puzzle! Puzzles are a great way to develop problem-solving skills while improving hand-eye coordination and spatial awareness. Puzzles are the perfect ‘calm’ activity promoting mindfulness and perseverance, useful life skills for all ages!
Plus, there are numerous memory-boosting benefits, along with the opportunity to delve into discussions around many different subjects depending on what the puzzle depicts, such as cultural, historical, geographical and nature-based topics.
2. Play Counting And Sorting Games
Pattern recognition and learning to count are the fundamentals of basic math. Introducing these concepts into their early years will make the transition to school much easier while also building a foundational belief that maths can be fun!
You don’t need special equipment for this one. It can be as simple as sorting toys by colour or type, counting the number of red cars that go past, singing a counting song or asking your child to sort different coloured fruits. Using your fingers is always a good way to help provide visual cues.
3. Read Some Books
An oldie but a goodie, reading books to your child is one of the best ways to actively build early literacy and imagination skills and while fostering a love of reading! Keep in mind it's ok to read books of all kinds to your child, including picture books, words and pictures, poetry, fiction and nonfiction – ebooks are fine too!
If you don’t have many books at home, a trip to your local library will be a fun and exciting day, especially if you let your child choose their own books to take home. Keep an eye out for preschool groups and activity sessions for some additional reading-based activities.
4. Cut Some Stuff Up!
Using scissors is an important skill for developing hand coordination, control and strength. Scissors are commonly used within the classroom environment, so mastering this skill early on will help when starting school, especially when many children find they need quite a bit of practice to get it right.
Some good ideas are to fold up some paper and cut out shapes, then unfold to form ‘snowflakes’ or paper chains. Or go through some old magazines and cut out pictures to form a collage, cut out shapes such as triangles and circles for a wee bit of maths thrown in, or just freestyle it and let them cut up paper and see what they come up with - it's all good fun!
5. Dance Dance Dance!
Music and dance appeal to almost every child in some way shape or form - the combination of the two being a big favourite with preschoolers. Dance is especially good for enhancing auditory and motor skills and it's also great for fitness and getting everybody moving.
Expose your children to your favourite music, introduce new styles and genres, encourage them to sing along, or play musical chairs - there are endless possibilities on this one. You could even join a preschool dance class at your local community centre or get together with other parents and children for a fun Sunday afternoon.
6. Explore Nature And All Its Wonders
Whether it's nature walks, a stroll through the park or weekend hiking expeditions - getting out in nature has so many benefits for the whole family. The fresh air, exercise and abundance of learning opportunities will leave everyone feeling refreshed and ready to tackle the week ahead.
Depending on the age of your child, you could try discussing various plants and animals you might come across, collecting rocks, leaves, or flowers, explaining how rivers and waterways are formed, or even delve into environmental discussions - there is a lot to learn!
7. Get Messy!
While it can be a bit daunting, messy play is one of the best immersive play options for encouraging children to play independently. There is no right or wrong way to engage in messy play - let the child simply explore the sensory environment you have provided in a way that feels natural to them - whether it be food, sand, water, goop, paint or whatever you have available.
This type of hands-on play is great for children who prefer a more physical approach to play, helping them to build spatial awareness and develop fine motor skills. Children will also often automatically describe their sensations during messy play, for example, it's cold, slimy or squishy, which enables them to develop their communication and language skills further.
8. Dress Ups And Role-Playing
Dressing up in costumes doesn’t just have to be for children—your child would love it if you joined in, too! Encourage imaginative play by having your child create stories or scenes from their favourite cartoon to act out or just dance around the living room, enjoying the moment.
This kind of impromptu imaginative play fosters creativity and confidence while helping build language skills. If you like, you can incorporate different cultural aspects to enrich your child's understanding of the world and appreciation for diversity. As a bonus, on a more practical level, dressing up can be a great way to teach children how to dress themselves, navigating the likes of zips, buttons, and arm/leg holes.
9. Do Some Baking
Cooking is one of those activities that all kids enjoy - probably because they get to eat the results! Whether you choose to bake cookies, cake, sausage rolls, healthy snacks or even meals, allowing children to participate in cooking activities can foster a love of cooking and aid in developing healthy eating habits for future years.
Cooking is also an excellent way to sneak in some maths. Measuring ingredients and counting things is made fun - plus cutting, pouring and stirring all work to develop hand-eye coordination with an added touch of messy play. Best of all, when cooking together you all get to enjoy a tasty treat at the end!
10. Create An Art Corner
As parents, we tend to want to tidy up after activities, but how about having a dedicated space where writing and arts and crafts resources are left out to encourage spontaneous creativity?
Complete your set-up with different coloured blank paper, stencils, whiteboards, coloured markers, crayons, pencils, scissors, glue sticks and whatever else you can think of to make the area interesting and engaging. With a variety of readily available materials, children will more likely initiate self-directed projects.
Incorporating educational play into your daily or weekly routine, not only supports your child’s learning but also builds on quality family time, creating memories and experiences that will remain with your child for years to come. Most importantly though - it's fun!