With schools out and summer in full swing, it’s time to start planning how to keep your young ones entertained as the heat starts rising. Luckily, there are plenty of summer preschool activities that keep your kids busy as well as improving their gross and fine motor skills. Just because schools are out, it doesn’t mean it’s time to stop learning!
Make Shell Art
For this simple activity, all you’ll need is some craft paper, glue, some paints, and a day trip to the beach. A beach day is a wonderful opportunity to teach your preschooler about nature and marine life. As you walk along the beach, make sure to pick up a bunch of interesting shells — these will be the centerpiece of the art your kid makes!
At home, rinse off the shells and set up a painting area. As with any craft activity, this can get a little messy, so lay out some old newspapers if you’re worried about paint ending up where it shouldn’t be. Let your kid take the reins with their art: they can stick shells onto the craft paper with glue, paint in many different colors, and they’ll be working on their fine motor skills as they craft.
Soap Boat Racing
This is a great activity for the days when the temperature just keeps rising and your kids are clamoring for some time outdoors. You’ll need a length of a PVC gutter, some bars of soap, toothpicks, a garden hose, and a small square of scrap fabric. Each bar of soap can be decorated and turned into a mini boat, with a toothpick sticking up from the middle as a mast. Cut small triangles out of the scrap fabric and glue them in place around the toothpick, making a colorful sail.
Set the PVC gutter up in the yard with the garden hose at one end and let water flow slowly from one side to the other. With that, you’re ready to go! Have your kids place their soap boats at the top end of the stream and let them watch as they sail and race down towards the bottom.
Water Balloon Target Practice
There’s nothing quite like throwing water balloons on a hot summer day, so this game will keep the fun flowing and help keep the temperature down. Use some brightly colored chalk to mark out circles on the sidewalk that will serve as targets; don’t be afraid to get creative here! You can have all the circles within a larger circle, or you can spread them out at varying distances. When you have your targets marked out, fill up some water balloons and let your child throw them to their heart’s content.
Pool Noodle Painting
By the end of summer, it’s a miracle if a pool noodle is still in one piece. Instead of throwing the well-loved pool toy to the trash, you can use it to be creative with your preschooler. Cut up an old pool noodle into sections a few inches thick and set them out with paints in a craft area. This is a great time to let your kids explore and think outside the box — they might want to use the noodle as stamp, they might want to create a certain image. Either way, they’re working on their fine motor skills and exploring their creativity.
Bowling With Coconuts
Bowling is a fun game for everyone, but for preschoolers, it can be even more exciting to knock down the pins. In the spirit of summer, this game is best played with coconuts. In place of pins, you can use water bottles with a few drops of food coloring for decoration. If you’ve got the paints lying around, feel free to decorate your coconut, too! Start with setting up the pins in the regular triangle, but as you play you can let your preschooler create new designs to knock down.
Summer At Parkland Children’s Academy
Looking for something else to keep your children occupied during summer? At Parkland, we run both a summer camp and a summer term VPK program, which help your child prepare for the coming school years and form strong bonds with their classmates. Contact us today to learn more about Parkland Children’s Academy.