Those who are parents and teachers of preschoolers will know that one of the most challenging aspects of the role is coming up with fun and engaging activities.
This is especially true if your children are at this age group, as it means that they’ll require more things to fill up their time and keep them occupied.
As a result, this can be incredibly demanding for parents and teachers alike, and sometimes, you just find yourself running out of ideas completely.
We all know the classic potato stamping and coloring in based activities can be a lifesaver, but eventually these can become boring if done too repetitively.
This is why it’s important to keep things fresh, and find some fun projects that can help to stimulate your children’s imaginations.
Below, we’ve compiled a long list of what we believe to be some of the very best preschool activities tailored towards 4 year olds.
If this is something that you’re interested in, then we’d suggest that you keep reading to find some much needed inspiration.
Making gloop has surged in popularity during the past decade, and it’s really not too hard to see why.
This one is a great one for stimulating your child’s imagination, and is one of the best sensory based activities out there.
There’s all sorts of things that you can do with gloop, and you can make it into different colors using dyes, and you can also add in items such as glitter, or even make it scented!
The possibilities are truly endless, and although it can get a little bit messy sometimes, it’s totally worth it, and it’s a very fun one for parents too.
This tutorial above is one of the very best that we found, and as well as providing you with instructions of how to make your own gloop, it also suggests some things that you can talk to your kids about whilst making this project.
If you’re looking for a fun activity that you can do with your kids when the weather gets warmer outside, then we’d recommend taking part in this squirt gun painting project. This one is super easy to set up, and just involves putting up a canvas outdoors.
After you’ve done this, you and your child can have fun filling up their squirt guns with a variety of different water colors, that they can then shoot and splatter on the page. If you don’t have a squirt gun, then you can use a simple spray bottle instead.
Your kids can make all manner of different creations using this particular medium.
If you want to find a preschool activity that’s really good in terms of helping your child’s fine motor skills, then we recommend that you take a look at this size sorting rainbow necklace.
This project is one of the best that we’ve found for children up to five years old, and can help to engage them mentally, as well as providing them with a pretty and satisfying creation once they’re done.
All you’ll need for this project is some thread, as well as some different sized beads to thread through. Instruct your child to sift through the beads, and thread them on to the string based on their size alone.
After they’re done, they’ll be left with a fun necklace to wear.
This is a really fun and engaging activity for children, and is also super easy for you to set up as a parent.
All you’ll require is some card paper in a variety of different colors, that you can place next to one another on the floor.
In order to make the activity more fun and engaging, you can also cut out black pieces of card paper to act as wheels, so that you have a train.
After you’ve done this, you can go ahead and find a range of different items that can be matched with the card paper.
These can include anything from scrunchies, to coloring pencils, essentially whatever you can get your hands on.
Place them all on the surface of the floor near the color train, then have your kids sift and sort through each of the different items, and put them in the appropriate place on the train.
If you’re looking for something your child can fill in each day as part of a routine, then we’d recommend that you take a look at these fill in one question a day journals.
These are great for parents to purchase for their children, and are great resources for preschools too.
They’re really simple, and each page requires your child to fill in a different question each day. These can range from who their best friend is, to what their favorite color is.
Each one will help to stimulate your child’s imagination, and will inspire them to think about different topics too.
This one is a great project in terms of creating memories, as it’s great to look back at once the one year period is over.
If you’re looking for a Halloween themed preschool activity for your children to take part in during the spooky season, then we’d recommend that you take a look at this skeleton sensory activity.
It involves placing a skeleton in a tray, then covering it with a sand based mixture that their hands can dig through.
This makes a great activity for science based lessons, as each of the different parts of the skeleton they take out of the tray can teach them about one of their bones.
You can ask them to try and identify which body part it belongs to, and the sensory aspect of this activity makes it super engaging for children.
If you’re looking for a preschool activity that’s perfect for the summertime, then we think we’ve found the one for you.
This one is actually super pretty, and gives your children the opportunity to use natural elements from their environment.
It’s also super easy to put together, and doesn’t take much time to set up. In order to get started with this project, you’ll need a large piece of contact paper that you can either stick to the wall or to a fence.
After you’ve done this, you can then help your child to draw a large turtle on the surface of the paper.
Make sure that the body is large enough so that you can attach things to it. You can then have fun taking part in a nature walk, where your kids will have the opportunity to choose various items from the natural environment in order to fill in the body of their turtle.
They can choose leaves from various colors, and this can help to make the project as exciting to look at as possible.
This is a great activity for when you haven’t got much time to prepare, but still want to do something enjoyable and educational with your preschooler. In order to do this activity, all you really need to do is go out of doors!
Pick a spot that has lots of little flowers growing on the grass, and have your child pick them, and then count the petals.
This is great for developing your child’s numeracy skills, and also will keep them preoccupied for a long while too!
It’s a fun opportunity to get out in nature, as well as being a great learning experience.
We all know how difficult it can be to come up with fun and interesting sensory based activities that will help to stimulate your child’s imagination, especially when it comes to taste.
This can be a particularly tricky one, but we think we’ve found a super fun activity that you can prepare.
This one is one of the simplest projects on our list, and just involves acquiring some ice cube trays, and a couple of different things to put in them.
In the example above, one of their ice cubes contained a sprig of mint, and another one was filled with orange segments.
The children can enjoy looking at the contents within, and trying each of the different flavors in their mouths as they melt.
You can get as creative as you like with this activity, and it’s fun trying out different flavors that will tingle their senses!
This is a super fun All About Me activity for children and gives them the chance to learn more about their family and subsequent genetic history. Children often have questions that concern why they look the way they do.
By exploring things such as eye color, and taking a look at photos of their parents and grandparents eye colors, children can discover more about how these things work.
You can use this as an opportunity to talk about all things genetics related, and teach children about all of the different varieties of eye color there are.
If you’re looking for a super fun activity that you can put together for your kids that only involves using the objects around you, then we think that we’ve come up with the perfect one.
If you want to find an interesting puzzle for your preschoolers to put together, all you’re going to need are a few small, random objects, as well as a piece of paper and a pen.
Take these objects, and draw around them on the surface of the paper with different colored pens.
After you’ve done this, lay the objects around on the table, and allow your child the opportunity to match each object to the correct space on the paper.
You can really go wild with this one and use pretty much anything, even some kitchen utensils!
This is an activity that many of us are likely to remember doing in our youth, and is a super fun way to stimulate your child’s imagination.
Leaf rubbing can be an incredibly fun activity, and you can even go so far as to make it into a little event, where you actually go out of doors together to find all the leaves you’d like to transform into works of art.
After you’ve collected a few, you can arrange them as you’d like on the paper, and then go ahead and start rubbing over the surface with some crayons. Watch as it works its magic, and you’re left with an amazing work of leaf art.
This is a really fun seasonal activity that’s great for doing during the Autumnal months. Your children can choose their colors with intent, and pick oranges and yellows so that they’re in keeping with the spirit of fall.
After your child has finished their leaf art, they can then go ahead and either keep it as it is, or cut out the leaves and make it into a festive garland. Either way, they’re sure to adore this activity.
If you’re looking for another activity that’s excellent for the development of fine motor skills, then please allow us to introduce you to sticker lines.
Sticker lines are a super easy activity to prepare, and in order to do it, you’re just going to need either a large piece of paper, or a whiteboard.
On the surface of your paper or whiteboard, you’re going to draw several lines, all of which span across the length of the page. You can make these zig zagged, looped, or in any kind of pattern you can think of.
Your children’s task will be to take their multi-colored stickers, and place them all on the line, following the shape you’ve created along the way.
After they’ve managed to complete one line, you can make things a little tricker, and tell them to put their stickers down in a particular color order.
This one is great for helping your kids concentrate on detailed tasks that require concentration.
It’s true that you don’t need a great deal of resources in order to make a super fun and interesting activity for your kids. If you want to prepare something using simple materials, then take a look at this activity.
For this one, you and your children can venture outside in search of some flat pebbles in different sizes. Make sure that you’ve collected enough to stack them later, and that they’re not all the same.
After you’ve done this, when you return home, the kids can have fun sifting through the pebbles, and choosing a color for each based on their particular size. Perhaps you can make them each a different color in the rainbow.
After they’re done painting the pebbles, your children can then enjoy trying to stack each of them on top of one another.
There you have it! A three step activity requiring just a few key items.
Final Thoughts
To sum up, there are a whole bunch of different activities that you can take part in with your preschooler.
It can be difficult to come up with new and interesting ideas that will be both fun and challenging for younger children.
Sometimes, coloring in books just isn’t enough, and you need something a little more immersive in order to engage them.
In our list above, we’ve compiled some more intricate activities requiring lots of materials, as well as some which only require minimal effort on your part in order to organize.
Either way, we sincerely hope that we’ve managed to provide you with some much needed inspiration today.
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