Early Childhood Activities

Hands-On Fun

Children in preschool learn primarily through action and doing things which means that early childhood activities are among the most important aspects of a young child’s education.  When planning a preschool curriculum, it’s best to include a variety of early childhood activities since some children learn better from specific types of play or actions.  Every day should include at least one or two activities, since children have a short attention span and won’t be able to do one thing for very long.    

These early childhood activities fall into different theme categories, making them easy to organize and implement.  Remember that the sky is pretty much the limit with these kids, and as long as they’re having fun they’ll be well on their way towards the path to a fulfilling and educational experience.

Food Activities

These early childhood activities are centered around one of everyone’s favorite preschool themes: food.  Children love to play with their food.  While that behavior may be discouraged at the dinner table, at the preschool art table it’s encouraged as long as the food is healthy and non-toxic. 

This activity, called “Bread Art”, requires one piece of bread per child, butter, food coloring and sugar.  Soften the butter and divide it into a number of small dishes.  Mix the food coloring in with the butter to create spreadable colors.  Let the children choose their favorite colors to spread on their piece of bread.  For added yumminess, sprinkle the bread with sugar before popping it in the toaster.    

While children do loving playing with their often, sometimes they love wearing it even more!  Try this “Pasta Necklace” craft when learning about shapes, or different cultures like Italy.  This craft requires dried pasta with a tube through it like macaroni or rigatoni.  Before the class, color the pasta using a solution of rubbing alcohol and food coloring.  Bring the different-colored pasta into class along with yarn.  

Cut a length of yarn for each child and tape it to the table.  This allows children to string the pasta onto the yarn to make a necklace.  Alternately, this craft can be used at Christmas time to create a pretty decoration for the Christmas tree. 

Winter Activities 

The changing of the seasons provides many opportunities for crafts and activities at the preschool level.  For early childhood activities that involve snow, be creative!  Egg shells, sugar, laundry soap, flour, cotton balls, whipped cream, shaving cream or dried mashed potato flakes all provide excellent representations of snow for crafting purposes. 

For this preschool craft, “Glittering Snowballs”, each child will need a balloon, and some glue, yarn cut into small piece and glitter.  To begin, blow up a small balloon for each child.  Dip the pieces of yarn into the glue and use the yarn to cover the surface of the balloon.  Before the glue dried, pour glitter all over the balloon.  

Once the glue has dried, pop the balloon using a safety pin and remove the piece of balloon from inside the snowball.  Use the snowballs to decorate the classroom for a winter wonderland.