The best preschool curriculum is the one that keeps preschoolers entertained, engaged, and most importantly, learning. At this critical stage of development, children learn largely through play and by observing the world around them. With these fun activities you can do in the comfort of your own home, you can bring the preschool curriculum to them.
Exploring Science: Magic Milk Experiment
This is a classic science experiment that almost everyone can remember seeing at least once, and it’s simple enough to do at home. All you need is:
- A shallow baking pan
- Milk
- Liquid food coloring
- Cotton swabs
Pour out the milk to cover the bottom of the shallow baking pan and throw in a few drops of different colored food coloring. Make sure not to stir it too early! To make the colors swirl like magic, all you need to do is gently hold a cotton swab on each dot of food coloring. Although it doesn’t last as long as a painting, your child can watch how the dyes interact with each other to form new colors where they meet.
Christmas Math: Matching & Counting
As the days get shorter and the temperatures drop lower, Christmas ends up on everyone’s minds. This fun Christmas-themed game can fit right in with a day of baking gingerbread cookies and decorating a tree and can easily be adjusted to turn into an arts and crafts activity. For this math game, you will need:
- Green card stock
- Wooden pegs
- Plain round stickers
- A permanent marker
Start off by cutting some Christmas tree shaped triangles from the green card stock- these will be the base to decorate! Feel free to let your child decorate a few of these paper trees with their own crayons or art supplies while you set up the rest, it’s a wonderful way to keep them involved and entertained. Place a few round stickers on each paper tree, making sure not to overlap any circles. Next, write out numbers on the wooden pegs that correspond to the number of dots you placed.
The aim of the game is for your child to count how many dots (or baubles!) are on a Christmas tree, and then add a wooden peg with the correct number on it to make a tree trunk. This activity teaches two essential early math lessons: counting out how many stickers there are and matching that count to a written number.
Learning Literacy: Connect The Letters
Thus, educational game is perfect for children at all stages of early literacy, whether they’re just starting out with letters, matching sounds to words, or getting confident with the alphabet. All you’ll need for this activity is a stretch of art paper and a few colored markers, and there’s virtually no set up required!
Take a marker and write out a few letters over a length of art paper, spreading each letter out and repeating each one more than once. It’s important to only choose a few key letters for this activity — too many can be overwhelming. For the beginner reader, we suggest choosing simple letters that are easily differentiable and using a different colored marker for each letter. This way, the colors can act as a helping hand while they’re getting used to recognizing the letter shapes. If you’ve had some literacy practice time with your child already, you can pepper in a few letters that your child is still learning.
With that, you’re set to get started. The aim of the game is to join every matching letter with a long-drawn line. This is a wonderful game for working on the new letters that your child is still learning, and it also helps with fine motor skills as they do it!
Providence Children’s Academy: The Best Preschool Curriculum
If you want to see how we make sure your child has the best preschool environment, don’t hesitate to contact us to learn how we keep the curriculum fun and children engaged.