With preschoolers, nearly everything can be turned into an educational opportunity, and most new things are fun, too. Most of the time, these activities happen spontaneously and you may not even know that your preschooler is in the process of acquiring important life skills when he's imitating you cutting vegetables or drying your hair. But even besides the enormous amount of natural learning that occurs in the preschool stage, there are still plenty of activities parents can set up to help their child have fun and learn something new. We have some tips for you!
Guess what?
One fun game we have done a lot in our family is hiding small items in a cloth, non-see through bag and letting them guess what items they are dealing with. Parents can put, let's say, five toys in a bag and ask their child to find their toy car from among them. The alternative is placing one item in a bag, and simply asking the child what it is. This game helps develop a preschooler's sensory skills, as well as his creativity.
Doctor
My daughter loves to play doctor, and the great thing is that she learns all about human anatomy and illnesses as she pretends that I am her patient. When I was suffering from pregnancy signs (http://www.trying-to-conceive.com/pregnancy-signs/) and symptoms, she learned all about gestation. Just now, she pretended to test my eyes to see whether I needed glasses – of course, an "eye test" with words also helps beginning readers along. And she even learned the names of major bones in the human body by playing doctor.
Cooking
In my family, we love spices! We found that recognizing various spices or spice mixtures (like Garam Masala) by color and smell is a fun game that is very educational as well. My children also love learning what ingredients are needed for a certain dish, and helping as much as they can to make it. Cooking with children teaches them basic skills like smell recognition, and mathematical basics (we count how many of something we are using) as well as as life skills – everyone needs to learn how to cook, right?
Hide and seek with toys
Everyone knows about the game "hide and seek". Why not make it more interesting by hiding a small toy or other object? You can do one of two things. Get post-it notes that are arrow shaped, and make a trail leading toward the item they are looking for. Or, draw a map of your home, and mark the spot where the object is located. This game teaches children about navigation and map reading.
This is a Guest Post:
You can find Olivia at Trying To Conceive, where she writes about fertility, trying to get pregnant (http://www.trying-to-conceive.com/), the prenatal stage, and babies.
