10 Cheap & Fun Learning Activities You Can Use When Homeschooling A Preschooler Or A Kindergartner

Hey everybody! I am so excited because today I'm going to show you 10 of our family's favorite preschool and kindergarten learning activities. Let's get started! Hi, my name is Emily and welcome back to my channel, Loving My Littles. If you're new here, I'm a homeschooling mom who taught at a private school for five years and now I'm at home teaching my own three kiddos. You know, I don't know about you, but sometimes we like to set the books aside and do games or other fun activities for learning. And so, these activities I'm going to show you today are ways that you can keep your kids busy, but they're still learning and they're having fun. And all these activities are either really inexpensive, only a couple dollars to put together, or a lot of them, to be honest, are things you probably already have sitting around your house. So, I'm going to show you our top 10 and then hopefully you can find something that you can use for one of your kiddos. All right, let's get started. All right, so the first activity I'm going to show you is matching capital letters and lowercase letters. So, we used these building blocks and we have this one right here. We put these stickers on. You can also write on them, but we just wanted to be able to take the stickers off and use them for something else if we needed to. And so, we used these color coding labels and they're normally in the office supply section for a couple dollars. And we put them here on the blocks and we got the lower down there and then the capital letters are each on these individual blocks. And so, they just find it. They look through all the blocks and find out which ones go together and then they match them and they do that for the entire alphabet. And so, it definitely helps with letter recognition and really it just takes building blocks and some dot stickers and you have an activity that kids seem to love. All right, activity number two also uses blocks, but we used a different kind on this one. They are the smaller building blocks and they have all these different colors, which is important because we made pattern cards on cardstock. Now, I am not an artist. I'm far from an artist and I'm not very creative. You'll see that on some of these, but thankfully it's for my kids and so they're happy with what mama can do. But, I went through and I made different pattern cards that have the different colors on them. And so, they will go through and stack in order what I have here and kind of lay it beside and go to the next one. And at the end, I'll come and make sure that they all match up. And so, I normally put just enough blocks for all the pattern cards in our bag that we keep together. So, it's for patterns, but then also I did write on these because they're older blocks and we have lots of them. But, you can use those color coding labels, the stickers again if you don't want to write on them. But, I did one through ten. I actually have ten more. That's eleven through twenty. And so, I have my kids put the numbers in order and so they're working on their number recognition and their patterns all just through blocks and a few pieces of paper. And so, they really seem to like this activity too. All right, next we have an activity where they're starting again to learn numbers in order and number recognition. You probably have craft sticks at your house. And even if you don't have craft sticks, they're at the Dollar Tree. So, they're not very expensive. But, I have these craft sticks here and on each one, I put one through nine. And each one has a different number that's missing. As you can see on this one, number four is missing. Number one's missing. I mean, just different ones has different numbers missing. And so, on this particular one, we took the craft sticks. Then, we took clothespins and on the clothespin, we put the different numbers. So, they have to look through the clothespins to find out which one has the number that is missing. And then, they take that clothespin and they put it in the right spot to fill in the missing number. So, this not only works with, again, number recognition and knowing their correct order and what's missing. But also, using clothespins, we use those on three or four of these activities because it helps with their strengthening their muscles and getting them ready for those fine motor skills. So, clothespins, popsicle sticks, it's a great activity for your kids to use. All right. So, for our next activity, I made these kites. Now, I just got some free clip art off of the computer and I put them on cardstock. You can freehand it if you want. And then, I put a number in the center. And then, we used these. We poked a hole and we used these pipe cleaners as the tail of the kite. And so, what they do is they look at this number and then I have this bag of pony beads and they would look and say seven. So, they would put seven beads on the tail of the kite. And so, not only does this help with recognizing the number, but it also helps with counting objects. And then, threading the bead onto the pipe cleaner is, again, fine motor development. So, why not have them work on something that helps their development while they're learning? It's kind of like a double win. So, my daughter really liked this one and it's definitely helping her with her number recognition. And so, we really like it. All right. So, the next one is probably one of my favorites and it might just be because I think it's really cute. I have these ice cream cards. And so, what it is is I went and I got some clip art, again, off the computer, put it on this piece of card stock. I also made these pattern cards. And so, it's just an ice cream cone with the scoops and they have to look at these cards. And again, it's more patterns and putting them in the right order. But this one also uses these clothespins because I took the clothespins and I cut out circles of construction paper and put them on the back of the clothespins. And so, you can look and see what color you need for what flavor of ice cream and they try to match the pattern. And so, they put them on here like this. And so, not only is it, again, working on patterns and colors, if they're still needing to recognize their colors, but then also it's, again, that practicing the fine motor development and strengthening your fingers. And to be honest, I think it looks really cute. So, this one's definitely a win for us. All right. This next activity involves cups. And specifically, I like to use different colored cups. Now, I'm going to be honest. When we were planning on starting this activity, I went out to Walmart and I specifically bought these cups just for this activity. And I got them because they were all these different colors. If you already have cups at your house or even bowls that are different colors, then I would say go ahead and use those. But what I did is I went and I made these pattern cards. And so, some of them, some of the harder ones are even stacking the cups in a certain order. So, it's not even just patterns. It's also hand-eye coordination. It's kind of a spatial awareness, you know, knowing where to put them. And then, some of our cards even have where some of the cups are up facing up. Some of the cards are facing down. We have some where they're stacked inside each other. So, that one actually gets my daughter's mind really thinking because she's only four, but she really likes this one. And so, trying to decide, okay, what cup is supposed to be on the inside or what cup is supposed to be on the outside? So, it's patterns, but kind of even a little more in detail. And so, it's a lot of fun for them to do. And both of my kids seem to really like it. All right. So, this next activity also involves a cup, but these are clear cups. And the reason they're clear is because we made these cards and they have different patterns of circles on them. And so, what they are is we got these pom-pom balls. If you have kids and you do crafts at all, you probably have these in abundance. And so, I personally like to use the larger ones for this activity. And so, they look at the card and they place the pom-pom balls in the cup and they try to make it look exactly like the card. And so, it helps with color. It helps with that spatial awareness because they're trying to find out which ones go which way, which ones go on top. And then also, I use different sizes. I have some that have the big white ones, some that have the medium white ones. You could even get little ones. And really, they have to use their mind to make it look exactly like this cup. And so, maybe for your three and four-year-olds, you just want them to have the right colors in the cup that are on your card. But like for my five-year or six-year-old now, getting ready to go into first grade, I challenge them to make it look exactly like this. And so, it helps them with a lot of things that they're trying to figure out in their mind. And it just gets their mind really working. And it's also a fun activity. So, for a few pom-pom balls and a cup, I think it's a pretty cheap and fun activity for your kids to use. Okay. So, this next activity is probably one of my kids' favorite. I mean, seriously, the last time we did it, they were begging me. My son, because I was letting my daughter do it. My son was begging me to let him do it next because it's a sensory activity. And who doesn't like a sensory activity? For this one, we personally use a big tub of rice. You don't have to use rice. You probably use sand, other things that kids like to dig around in. We use rice for a lot of our things. But we use it for a couple different things. First of all, if you watched my essentials video, I have a part one and a part two for essentials for preschoolers and kindergartners. If you haven't watched it, I'd check it out. But in one of those, I mentioned how much I love puzzles. I really like watching my kids do puzzles, finding neat puzzles to do. And so, one of the things that you can add to puzzles is you can take the pieces from the puzzle. It doesn't even have to be... We personally did a letter puzzle where my daughter had to go through and dig and find the letters and put them in the right spot. It can honestly be any puzzle. You can hide them. And so, it's all the different things that you get from doing a puzzle. Like I've said before, hand-eye coordination, attention span, working on their attention span. This one was learning their letters, letter identification. But also, it just makes it more fun when they're trying to find it. Then also, we have... These are a little bit harder to find. So, to me, they're more fun. They were from the Dollar Spot at Target. They're little erasers. And so, they're just little letters that are just, again, rubber erasers. We found them at Target. And so, I hide these in the rice as well. And then, we have phonics cards with our curriculum that we use. We use ACE for reading. And so, I lay out those phonics cards. Normally, I only do like six to eight cards at a time. And so, that's the letters I hide. But I hide multiple of each letter. And so, they have to go through and find a letter. And so, when they find a letter, whether I just want her to match them up because maybe I need her to do that while I'm working with her brother, she'll just lay it on the card and go to the next one. Or if I'm working with her, I'll have her find it. Then we'll say, okay, what letter is that? B. So, what does B read? B reads buh, buh, buh. Buffalo reads buh, buh, buh. And then, she'll set it on the card. And so, it's a fun way because she has to find them. So, it makes it more fun, you know, more of a challenge. But then, it's also finding those letters, making the sound, and matching them up. So, this is something that both of my kids really, really like. Now, it can be a little messy. I'm not going to lie. But to me, it's worth it because they really enjoy it. Okay, we're getting close to the end. But this is one that I think is fun to tell you about. I have this where I just put my daughter's name. I put each letter on a piece of construction paper. You could do regular paper. And then, again, we use these color coding labels. I use these for a lot of different activities. But I use it for this activity where on each sticker, I put the letters of her name. So, I just, you know, write just randomly. I don't have certain colors. But each one of these stickers will have a letter from her name. And so, I will have these on the wall. And she has to find all the L's and put it on this paper. And so, if they're just starting out, they can put it anywhere on the paper. I challenged her to put it on the actual letter. And so, she has to go through and find every sticker and put whatever letter that sticker says onto the page with the letter of her name. And so, it's recognizing the letter. She's learning to recognize her name. Something about it, you could do it with just any letters. But I personally like to do the name when they're learning how to spell and write their name. And then also, again, fine motor development. Like I mentioned in that essentials video, peeling off the sticker is using that pincer grasp. And so, it really is helping them with that development. And so, using the stickers where they peel them off, put them on the right page. It sounds simple, but she really liked it. And it's a fun activity. Our final learning activity, again, involves these wooden clothes pins. And it also involves these cute little spiders. That's what it's supposed to be. It's supposed to be a spider. But I just took black construction paper. I cut out this shape. Then I laminated them because you can also maybe use black cardstock. But you want something that's going to be a little more durable so that way when you're putting the clothes pins on it, it's not bending really easy. And then I added the googly eyes at the end and put the number on top because they're going to see the number. And for number four, they're going to take four of these clothes pins and they're going to make them be his legs. And so, again, it's number recognition, being able to make sure they have the right amount. So, counting. And then you're using these fine motor skills again, working on strengthening the muscles in your hands and your fingers, that pincer grasp. And so, while you're learning your numbers, you're also developing that as well. And so, it's definitely a win. And it's just a cute, fun way to work on your numbers without having just to do book work. It's something different and the kids seem to really like it. So, it's definitely a win in our house. Well, there you have it. That's 10 of our family's favorite preschool and kindergarten learning activities. I hope through this list, maybe you were able to find something that you can incorporate and use in your own homeschool. It's a great way to help kids learn. Something that's inexpensive, hopefully. It was something that you already have the resources on hand at your house. If not, it's just a couple dollars at the store that you can put these together. And it's another way for your kids to learn that's not just book work. And so, it makes it fun and it gives them something different to do to learn and to develop more techniques. And so, we really like using them at our house and I hope you like using them too. If you would, would you hit like on this video and would you maybe consider subscribing to my channel? I would really appreciate it. And I would really appreciate if you would join us on our next video as well. We'll see you soon. Bye.