20 Games for Preschoolers, Explained

The boys and girls who go to daycare may be too young for certain things, but of course you are never too young or old to have fun.

Leisure is a fundamental aspect of the growth of every person, that is why here you will find 20 Preschool Games to Help Little Ones Have Fun While They’re Learning

Fun games for preschoolers

Below we will see 20 games for preschool children, very fun, economical and easy to prepare, which are sure to amuse children and also adults.

1. Musical chairs

The game of musical chairs helps children resolve, peacefully, a problematic situation and, to a certain extent, it is unfair, although always friendly.

The game is simple to prepare: chairs are placed in a circle, facing outwards. The number of chairs there must be less than the number of participants. For example, if there are 8 children playing, there should be a maximum of 7 chairs.

Music starts playing and, meanwhile, the children have to circle around the chairs. Once the music stops playing, all the children must try to sit down.

The boy or girl who has been left without a chair is discarded and, after that, another chair is removed. This is done until there is only one chair and two participants left. Whoever is the last to have a place wins the game.

This game is ideal for teaching children how to deal with the frustration of having lost, which nothing happens for not having managed to win and that, sometimes, life is a little unfair, but that doesn’t mean it’s the end of the world.

2. Simon says…

The Simon Says game is ideal for helping children pay attention and take certain instructions into account. The game is quite simple, although its difficulty increases as the game progresses. A person, who could be the teacher or one of the children, orders a gesture to be made, which can be either very everyday or very crazy.

But beware, Children should pay attention to what is said as long as the instruction begins with “Simon says…” If the person in charge of ordering the instructions begins by saying the order without using that filler and someone does what he has said, it is ruled out.

For example, if you say ‘Simon says touch your nose’, the children have to touch their nose, on the other hand, if the order is ‘Kick the air’ and one of them does, they have lost. But not only doing something when the filler is not used is penalized by declassification. Also not paying attention and not obeying when a “Simon says…” is ordered means losing.

It is ideal for working on mobility in addition to encouraging children to be quieter and more attentive to whoever is directing the activity, without wanting to miss a single detail.

3. Row the boat!

Motor skills are a crucial aspect that must be developed correctly during early childhood. When they are still very young, they gradually become self-aware of their movements

Learning how to manage motor skills is very important, since through movement they are able to move and establish contact with the world around them, in addition to increasing their mobility, which they will use in sports when they are older.

The activity consists of putting the children in pairs, facing each other, getting on their knees It is preferable that they have a cushion underneath so they are comfortable.

The teacher imitates the movements of a person rowing, and the children who look in his direction must imitate him. The other one, who looks in the other direction, must say all the time ‘row the boat, row the boat!’. Then the roles are changed.

With this they learn synchronization, improve their mobility and self-control, in addition to learning how to encourage others.

4. Hideout

A classic but ideal for making preschool children have a great time. This is an ideal game for problem solving.

One or more children are in charge of catching while the rest have to hide. The child whose turn it is to look for the others has to count from one to ten. During that time, children who are hiding must look for good places so as not to be found. This makes the brain work for both those who catch and those who have to be caught The one who catches must make the effort to think about where the rest of his friends may have gone, while the other children have to make an effort to find a good hiding place.

As they play more times, their imagination will grow, in addition to gaining experience hiding and looking for more innovative, less predictable places.

5. Games with parachutes

Let’s not get confused. These types of games do not involve the savagery of throwing a child out of a plane and skydiving. Games with parachutes These are activities that use large blankets that children can put under

These types of activities are ideal for learning to work as a team. Children stand around a circle, holding the parachute or a large sheet in the center.

When a ball, or any other type of playful object, is placed on the parachute, the children have to synchronize themselves to make it move along the sheet. If they don’t time it right, the ball can go out and then the game is over.

This game is ideal for children to learn to work together, to take actions with a common goal and, of course, to have fun without fighting. They learn that to be successful, it is best to collaborate as a team.

6. Chained words

This game It is more geared toward five-year-olds than younger ones It’s simple, and cheap. Basically the children have to say words and the next one has to say one that begins with the last syllable or letter of the previous word.

Although five-year-olds may not have much problem with this game, since it is necessary to have a certain relationship with the letters, it is better to use the last syllable as a criterion.

For example: “house” – “sack” – “food – “given”…

7. Sleeping lions

The sleeping lions game is ideal for teaching the little ones to stay focused even when there are distractions

Children should lie down and pretend to sleep. So, a person walks among them, be it a child or an adult. This person, without touching the sleeping lions, must try to convince them to open their eyes. Thus, the children who believe what they are being told and wake up will lose, with the winner being the last one who is still asleep.

This game encourages, on the one hand, the child who tries to wake up the lions to be original, imagining things so surprising that he forces his sleeping companions to wake up

On the other hand, children who act as sleeping lions must make a great effort not to open their eyes, no matter how briefly they open and close them.

8. Little Blind Hen

The blind chicken It is another classic among games for preschool children And, also, very easy to make, since it requires little material. All you need is a bandage or handkerchief and a space large enough to avoid any accidents.

One of the children has to blindfold himself with the aforementioned handkerchief. Once he can’t see, he has to turn around (preferably with the help of an adult) so that it is more difficult for him to orient himself later. The handkerchief cannot be removed.

When it has stopped spinning, He has to go look for his companions while they are scattered around him The other children can touch him and call him, but they must always avoid letting him catch them.

If the child with the handkerchief catches a classmate, he must identify him with his sense of touch. If she succeeds, the roles are changed.

9. Catch the ball

For this game you need balls, which can be of any size, and which will be distributed throughout the space. The children are scattered.

The teacher must shout ‘balls!’ and say what type, if they are big or if they are small. Children will have to go for those of the size that has been ordered. The child who does not get the ball of the correct size is eliminated.

The objective of this activity is to work on visual discrimination A tip for doing this activity is that the balls are well scattered around the place, and that there are fewer than participants, so some of the children will be left without, and that is the beauty of the game.

10. Handkerchief game

For this fun game you need scarves of various colors. The children are divided into two groups: one with scarves and the other without. Those who do not have a scarf will have to try to take it from their classmates who do have one Those who wear the scarf must have it hanging and clearly visible.

The funny thing is that all the handkerchiefs have been taken by the group that does not have them, and thus the game is over. The child who had a handkerchief at the beginning but has lost it is eliminated.

11. Someone like me

This game, although it is not so classic, is ideal for facilitating a good atmosphere of camaraderie in the classroom, in addition to facilitate the integration of boys and girls and get to know each other better

To do this activity it is necessary that the children be in a large enough room, where they can move freely. The necessary material will be sheets of paper and pencils for each boy and girl.

It is ideal to be used at the beginning of the school year, when the classroom has just been formed and the children, who until recently only had contact with their parents, feel very uncomfortable meeting new people, even if they are the same age.

The teacher or facilitator will ask them to try to draw a drawing of something that they really like whether it’s food, a place, a cartoon character… It’s important to give them time to draw whatever they want.

Next, they must get up and compare the drawings of the rest of their classmates, to see if anyone has done the same as them. It’s about seeing if there is someone who shares your same tastes, and trying to talk about it.

The adult should be aware of who the children hang out with, so that after the activity, they can comment on what they have seen, for example: ‘I’ve seen that Jorge and Pablo like Pokémon, which one do you like the most?’ or ‘Ana and María like to dance, can you teach us?’.

12. Let’s sing good morning!

This game aims to teach good manners to children, from an early age. Manners are something that, the sooner you can acquire them, the better. To teach them to greet when they enter the house or class, and also to say goodbye and ask permission to speak, these types of activities are essential already in their earliest childhood.

It is because of that This song is perfect for getting them used to saying good morning when they enter kindergarten making them acquire the routine of being polite and cordial when entering a place, in addition to showing affection and respect for their colleagues.

During the first days, the teacher can be in charge of singing the song completely, making sure that his students repeat it, but when he sees that they have learned it, to make it more dynamic, he can have them sing it.

The song is the following:

Teacher: Good morning! Children, how are you? Children: Very good Very good! Children: We will do our best to make more friends. Good morning! Teacher, how are you? Teacher: Very good

13. World of colors

This game It is basic for every boy and girl to learn the names of colors To do this we need toys, balls and other various objects, as well as cardboard, baskets and colored pencils.

The cards are placed on the table and various objects scattered around the room. The teacher says ‘what is green?’ and the children have to find and paint the object that is that color and is in the room.

In addition, they must take the object of the color in question and put it in one of the baskets that will be found on the table, each of which will have a piece of cardboard of a different color attached to it.

14. Making the five senses work

Children at such an early age must learn what the senses are, and become familiar with each of them and what they are used for. This activity is a bit complex, since All types of stimuli will be needed that involve activating the five most prototypical senses: taste, touch, smell, sight and hearing.

All types of objects can be used as materials: candies of different flavors, jars of different smells, aromatic candles, fabrics of different colors, cardboard with different roughness, various instruments…

Each sense is assigned a station, which can be a table with a small sign and the objects associated with the sense in question: the taste station, the touch station…

The children are given bandages and made to go through each of the stations, manipulating all types of stimuli to find out what it is and what emotion it evokes It can be a pleasant sensation, like candy, or something they don’t like, like a lemon.

For the viewing station, it is clear that the eyes should not be blindfolded. They will see the silhouettes of different objects and have to indicate what they are, or they can also associate a color with something in the room.

15. Learn numbers with balls and popsicles

To encourage children’s numerical skills, we can use balls and popsicles, a game that will make them count and gain some familiarity with calculation. The material to do this activity are wooden pallets, plasticine and tables. On the top of the popsicles we will put a number from 1 to 10 and we will give them to the children.

Children They will have to put on the paddles the number of balls indicated by the number written on them This way they will learn, in a more applied way, the physical representation of each value.

Once they are familiar with the first ten, you can try to do it with higher numbers, but without forgetting that they are still children between the ages of 3 and 5.

16. Memory with numbers

Related to the previous activity, we have a game in which mnemonic abilities and counting numbers are improved. They learn how to put into practice a cognitive capacity as important as memory in a fun way.

To do this activity you will need colored cardboard, scissors, markers and a table We will divide the cardboard in half, putting numbers on the left side from top to bottom.

On the right side we will draw the number of objects that would correspond to the number in the row on the other side. For example, a 4 on the left side and four balls on the right side. Then, each pair of numbers and objects are cut, until forming pieces of two and having the finished memory. The children will have to uncover each pair of numbers and objects, until they form two pieces and complete the activity. If they reveal two pieces that are not the same, they go to the next turn. The objective is to uncover the maximum number of pairs of tiles possible

17. Assemble the human body

So that at an early age they become familiar with the parts of the human body we have this interesting activity.

The necessary material is cardboard, scissors and glue or something that can be used to stick. The idea is to assemble a drawing human body, more or less life-size, in which the children will place different parts These parts must be according to your level of knowledge, that is, basic parts such as the mouth, ears, head, arms…

While they assemble each part, the activity coordinator will indicate what each part is for or, to spark the children’s interest, ask if they know what it is for and have them show it to the rest of their classmates.

18. The search for the lost treasure

This game is similar to hide and seek. Children are always curious to discover things, and what more surprising object to discover than a real pirate treasure.

The adult must prepare, with rolls of toilet paper, boxes, cardboard tokens and various objects, the sarcophagus of a treasure that will be hidden somewhere in the classroom or playground. Throughout the space, the activity coordinator will place the instructions on cards (preferably in the form of drawings rather than writing) from which the following cardboard is found.

Each card will lead to another until you reach where the lost treasure is.

The key to this is that the children learn to collaborate together, deciphering the hieroglyphs that the adult has drawn on the papers, so that, using their intelligence and agreeing on what they mean, they end up managing to find the treasure.

19. Alphabet on cards

Children from 3 to 5 years old do not yet know how to read. They will begin to master this from the age of 6, when they complete their first year of primary education. However, They must become familiar with the letters of the alphabet, and this activity is ideal for this

As material, we need cardboard of different colors, scissors, markers and pencils. The activity must be done in a table room. Chips are made by cutting the cardboard and the letters of the alphabet are placed on each one, while drawings of animals, food or things in general that begin with that letter are placed on the other half.

The funny thing is that each child has their turn to take a token, say the name of the animal or thing that is represented and try to think which letter it starts with This way they will become phonologically aware of the sounds of their language and the letters that represent them.

20. I am a cup

Very simple, but at the same time very dynamic. It is about singing the string of “I am a cup.” The ideal thing about this little song is that you can make the children move while singing it making gestures as if they were a cup, making figures with his body.

Children can try to coordinate while imitating the gestures of the teacher or adult in charge of the activity. Then, when they have learned them, one of them is asked to try to direct the rest, and so on… We simply have to know the lyrics of the song:

I am a cup, a teapot, a spoon, a fork.

I am a knife, a deep plate, a flat plate, a ladle.

I am a salt shaker, a sugar bowl, a mixer, a pressure cooker chu, chu, chu.