Creative Pre School Activities

It can be a challenge to constantly come up with new ways to entertain young children while keeping them fit and healthy. Here are three creative pre school activities that will appeal to all pre schoolers and are guaranteed to keep them moving.

Activity 1: Run Around the Numbers

This fun activity, for three or more children, requires nothing more than a decent amount of outside space and a piece of chalk. As with any activity involving running, a warm up session, incorporating some simple stretches, is vital to prevent any injuries.

The play area needs to be marked with numbers from one up to the total number of children playing. Aim to keep the numbers as evenly spaced as possible. Next, give each child a number to remember and begin by asking them to find and run to their own ‘home’ number. Once all the children are in place, explain that you will shout out a number and all children must run to the appropriate number.

Repeat until you are confident all children know what they are doing and then tell them you will sometimes shout ‘home’ and they will have to return to their own number (remind them what it is if they’ve forgotten it).

Continue to alternate between shouting out numbers and ‘home’ until children become tired out.

 Top Tip: If you use chalk of different colours you could alternate numbers and colours along with ‘home.’ For grass surfaces you may want to use coloured cones if you are unable to mark the surface.

Activity 2: Animal Musical Chairs

Musical chairs is one of Britain’s most popular pre school activities, particularly at birthday parties! Animal Musical Chairs adds a fun twist and avoids the pitfall of being ‘first out.’

As with the other pre school activities you should start by leading a gentle warm up, including some stretching. To ease children into the activity, start by putting out the same number of chairs as there are children, lined up in two back-to-back rows (a minimum number of six children is recommended for this activity). Ask the children to run around the chairs, in the same direction, and when you stop the music (or shout a signal) they must find the nearest chair and sit down as quickly as possible.

After a couple of repetitions, tell the children that you will remove a chair so that there will be one child left over after the next round. Instead of that child being out, he or she gets to nominate an animal. The remaining children then have to imitate that animal during the next round. This sequence is repeated until one child remains.

Activity 3: Hip Hop Tots®

Hip hop dance is becoming increasingly popular with the younger generations, and Hip Hop Tots® have created a formula that is tailored for pre school and reception age children. Hip Hop Tots® build sessions around the concept of ‘maximum fun overload’ and combine the dancing with a range of exciting pre school activities – from puppetry and singing to children’s stories.

About Author

Paula Sampson Lawrence

Hip Hop Tots® is a parent-child activity suitable for both boys and girls from 18 months to 6 years of age; sessions can run all the year round and are guaranteed to appeal to every child – because all children love to move.