Much of the information that your preschool kid will learn in her first years of schooling will come from game play and interactive activity. By engaging your child in educational games, you can help her develop the academic skills necessary for later life. Not only are many games intellectually enriching, they also provide a productive way for you to help your kid pass some time.
Color Sort
Practice color identification with your kid with a simple color sort game. To prepare for this easy game, pick up a laundry basket and go about the house selecting monochromatic objects for your kid to sort. Borrow some crayons from your kid’s collection, and lay them out on your table or floor. Place out crayons that match the colors of the objects you collected. Place your laundry basket full of colored objects across the room from the crayon. Ask your preschooler to help you out by sorting the objects in the basket. Allow your tot to run back and forth from the basket to the crayon display, picking up one object at a time and laying it next to the appropriate crayon. Praise your kid as he properly matches objects to crayons and correct him gently if he makes any errors.
Grocery Count-Up
Give your preschool student something productive to do while he helps you put away your groceries by engaging him in a grocery count-up. Sit your preschooler at your kitchen table, and unpack your bags in front of him. Seek grocery buys that contain countable quantities, such as bananas or a bakery’s container of cupcakes. As you come across these countable objects, place them, one at a time, in front of your child, asking her how many of each object the container holds. For example, you could say, “How many carrots are in this bag?” Praise the child for her correct answers.
Shape Game
Get your kid moving while he studies shapes with a “Bring Me Something” game. To prepare for this game, teach your kid some basic shapes including circle, square and triangle. If your child is still early in the shape-learning process, create index cards with the shape name and a picture of the shape to use for this game. If he is capable of identifying shapes with just orally presented words, forgo the cards. To play, present your kid with a shape challenge and ask him to run about the house finding an object that is that shape. For example, if you said, “Bring me something that is a square,” he could grab the tissue box from the coffee table and bring it to you. Similarly, if you said, “Bring me something that is a circle,” he could grab a mixing bowl from the kitchen. Because this game requires so little preparation, you can play it any time you find yourself in need of filling up some downtime and occupying your high-energy preschooler.
