Preschool ideas

Looking for alternatives for TV for your one- to five-year-old for these cold, wet days? Got a kid who's over the usual coloring books and fort-building? Here are some ideas to get you started! You might keep some of these things grouped together as workboxes or busy boxes.

1. Pouring and transferring: Gather up assorted little containers, and little items to play with-- craft pom poms, beans or lentils, uncooked rice, or water (if you're brave enough, get out the food coloring). Set them on a table and let your little one try it out. Little tongs, tweezers, spoons, or scoops add to the fun. Make sure your child helps you clean up!
2. Magnets: Do you have little alphabet magnets and/or magnetic trains? Paperclips? A cookie sheet? There you go.
3. Lacing: Punch several holes in a piece of heavy paper. Provide a length of yarn with a button tied at one end or a child's shoelace with a knot in one end and show him/her how to "sew."
4. Stick stuff into things (yeah, technical educational term): Raw spaghetti through the holes of a spice jar, pipe cleaners or straws into a colander or through toilet paper tubes, etc.
5. Make sock puppets.
6. Find a dance or yoga video you can do together. I do recommend previewing and bookmarking any YouTube video before showing it to kids, or you may already have a DVD that will work.
7. Make playdough or slime together. Google for easy recipes.
8. Write a letter to send to a friend or family member.
9. Try order games. Cut out the letters in your child's name or the numbers in your phone number and have your child unscramble them. Play Simon Says with a whole sequence of actions. ("Simon says hop twice on one foot, tickle someone, and then touch your chin.")
10. Bake something together. Muffins are easy for a young child to help with.
11. Drive the alphabet. Use a Matchbox-sized car or truck. Help your child learn the correct way to form letters by driving the correct path--on big foam letters if you have them, or with the letter just written on paper on the floor. Use alphabet printables to save time if you want to do all fifty-two (uppercase and lowercase).
12. Play with light and dark. Do you have a flashlight? Maybe a glow bracelet left from Halloween? What about a prism, suncatcher, or LED candles? A hand mirror?
13. Read a big ol' stack of books together. Go to the library if you're tired of the same old stories.
14. Make a yarn maze by running yarn around and through furniture.
15. Make music. Put beans into plastic Easter eggs or empty jars. Let your kid try blowing into the empty teakettle. Pretend the flyswatter is an electric guitar. Set out assorted pans, lids, and wooden spoons.