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Pre-K Learning Activities
Below you will find engaging Pre-K learning activities to help make learning fun for your preschooler! I used these when I taught a homeschool preschool class and they were a hit!
Most of these can be used to learn Letters, Numbers, Shapes, and even the preschooler’s Name!
You can use these activities as part of a “letter of the week” or just randomly when you feel your preschooler needs some fun!
Also Check out:
Favorite Learning Manipulatives for ages 2-5
Montessori Toys and Manipulatives
Teaching notes
I believe for the early years of learning parents should be helping and encouraging their children during learning activities. At least for the first several times until the activity becomes more of a review tool.
Here is what your involvement could look like: sitting by your child as they work through these activities saying things along the lines of ” Wow! What letter is that?! Hmm, that’s the letter C! C says /K/ as in Cat /K/ /K/ /K/. C says /K/!”
I have found these early years to being fundamental to fostering a love of learning in my kids. Most young children aged 2-6 are usually thrilled to learn new things, conduct new activities, and spend extra time engaging with their parents. Kids love to have achievable goals set for them and they love to be celebrated when they meet those goals. All of this makes teaching pretty easy and fun!
If you have a learner that gets frustrated easily, it might be worth it to have a brief conversation before you begin. You should encourage your child to just do their best and remind them that it’s okay if they don’t know the answers, that’s why we’re learning together!
Balloon Pop
Fill balloons with either water or air and write letters/numbers/shapes/etc. on them. Have the child say the letter/number name or sound before they pop it!
Quick Tips:
Number recognition – have the child say the number
Counting – either have the child identify the number and count up to that number OR Draw dots on the balloon and have the child count how many.
Letter recognition, simply have the child say the letter name
Letter Sound recognition – Have the child say the sound
Shape – Have the child name the shape. You can also ask how many sides that shape has if your child is ready for that!
Magnetic Letters
These are by far one of my kids’ favorite manipulatives. I’ve had these magnet letters for several years now and they’ve held up great! We use the on a white board usually where I’ve written corresponding letters and they have to match them! It really helps them identify and recognize the letter shapes!
Here are the magnet letters we have! I love that the vowels are different than the consonants as I use these during higher grades too when we learn the difference between vowel and consonant as well as for spelling practice!
Water Color Reveal
This is a huge favorite in my house! We use this water color reveal activity at all elementary grade levels because it’s just so fun! For preschool we use this for letters, numbers, shapes, and even learning to recognize/spell their name!
Simply write your design on white paper with a white crayon and allow your preschooler to reveal what you wrote! I have a whole article on this activity as well as another article that has a bunch of great letter matching lesson extensions using the art the child creates!
Dot Markers!
You can use these dot markers for so much more than just coloring! One of my favorite ways to use these for learning is pairing them with these free dot marker worksheets I made! My preschooler learns so much when we pull these out and she doesn’t even know it!
I like to incorporate this as one of our letter of the week activities.
Glitter Glue Trace
Try mixing up the typical pencil on paper tracing, with this glitter glue activity instead! This activity works on learning the material as well as hand strength and fine-motor skills.
Letter Eggs
These are another favorite manipulative here. There are so many different things you could do with these letter eggs, from pretending to cook the letters to having a scavenger hunt.
I like to leave half of each egg in the container and spread the other half on the floor for my preschooler to sort through and match up. As they get better at this you can pull all the eggs out of the carton and lay them out. OR you could even have a little scavenger hunt where you hide one half of each egg around the room and your preschooler must find and match the eggs! So many options!
Here is a link to these awesome eggs!
Playdoh!
Playdoh is a great sensory item to use for learning in your homeschool! You can use these free letter tracing worksheets, (the big letter in the middle is perfect for forming the letter with playdoh)! Or you can simply have the child make the letter without the worksheets. This is yet another favorite letter-of-the-week activity!
Sticker Tracing
Draw the Letter/Number/Shape/Name on a piece of paper, (the bigger the better), and have your preschooler “trace” it with their stickers! This is a great introduction to tracing objects!
Here is a huge pack of awesome stickers!
Bean glue
Draw the Letter/Number/Shape/Name on a piece of paper, have your child (or you) trace it with liquid glue. Then have them place beans, (or whatever you’d like), along the glue line.
Other material ideas:
- Beads
- Sequins
- Pompoms
- Paper pieces
- Cereal
- Whatever you can think of!
Sticker Dot Match
There are so many different ways you could use these dot stickers! You could write letters on a large piece of paper and have the child match them up. OR my favorite way is using these worksheets I made specifically for these stickers.
Pre-K Learning Activities
I hope you found a few pre-k learning activities that you can incorporate in teaching your student through play-based learning!
Check out these other articles:
Favorite Learning Manipulatives for ages 2-5
Montessori Toys and Manipulatives
Join our brand new Facebook group!
Help build and become part of a community of homeschoolers where you can share resources, ideas, and advice!
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