Play activities for preschoolers?

Question

Any interesting, fun play activities for preschoolers? Include the materials needed for each activity and oh I want it to be less structured... :) Thanks.

Answer 1

Any Dr. Jean CD is great for educational songs.  Music and movement is ALWAYS good.  Craft wise: http://www.dltk-kids.com/ is GREAT.  Easy materials that you can find around the house.  www.abcteach.com is good too.  For a list of all of these resources, visit

www.sitesforteachers.com and

www.songsforteachers.com

Answer 2

Sing songs and use your body to act it out...things like "itsy bitsy spider", and "Little Bunny Foo Foo", etc.  

That way the kids can all play together without having to fight over toys.  And, they are always proud to be able to go home and show their parents...I know mine is!

Answer 3

you could do a furit loop necklace. little kids always love thoes and you just need three chices of yarn and furit loops. It is easy and fun for them. neat you could bring paper and coulded pencials and have tehm practic writing there name in different coulers, or you could bring a book and read to them. Hope this helped if you nedd anymore Ideas you can email me at [e-mail]

Answer 4

movement to music. Put on a cd (anything will do to begin with) and let them dance to it. The stronger the beat, the better the result. Try some ballet music too and world music

Answer 5

Water play is good if you've got a tray.  There are so many things you can do

1. Pouring - eg put in a toy tea set, spoons, cups, jugs, teacups

2. Toy animals, fish, reptiles etc

3.  Make a big ice cube (massive) and add some toy polar bears etch and let them watch it melt during the session

4. Filling plastic bottles of different sizes - lids to put on and off

5. Straws to blow bubbles

Answer 6

So glad you're looking for open-ended activities!  Kids this age need a lot of unstructured activities.  Put out a variety of materials like feather, seeds, pipe cleaners, drinking straws cut into small (1") lengths, small snippets of colored paper, etc.  Teach the children how to use little dots of glue on a larger piece of paper and glue the assorted bits and pieces on to make collages.  The short lengths of straws can also be strung on yarn to make necklaces.  Cut the yarn into appropriate lengths and wrap a small piece of masking tape around one end.  The tape the other end to the table to make it easier for the kids to string the straws or fruit loops.  My kids have always enjoyed making "hats."  One very simple hat they like to do is really more of a head band.  Cut construction paper strip about 2 inches wide and staple them together to make a length long enough to wrap around their heads.  (You'll want to cover the ends of the staples with a small piece of masking tape so it won't scratch skin or catch hair.)  Then they can decorate it however they want:  strips of crepe paper or construction paper, draw on it with crayons, snip little bits of paper to glue on (again, teach little dots of glue!) feathers.  I LOVE the music and movement activities, and so do the kids!  And a sand table or sand box with cups, buckets shovels, trucks, etc. is always fun.   Oh, and don't forget to let them help you make play dough and then play with it!

Answer 7

Sing songs that have motions. These are also called finger songs or finger play. There are huge books and web sites dedicated to this topic.