My 3 year old started preschool two days a week this year. Now when I'm home with her on M/W/F I feel like she is bored.
Does anyone have any great ideas for activities, crafts, or other stimulating activities that you do with your kids during the day? I want to set up some kind of daily routine that keeps me from simply letting her watch tv or play with the same old toys!
Any ideas would be great!
Thanks,
D.
I did a google search for kids crafts by age and found a great website, www.familyfun.com it has crafts, recipes and games! I remember baking with my mom when I was little, maybe she could help you make muffins or cookies or something, pouring the ingredients into the bowl, and helping to stir.
My 3 1/2 yr old enjoys pens/pencils/markers/crayons and any pad of paper. Throw in a sheet of stickers and she's utterly delighted for a solid half hour or more. She does this "work" at the table, or in her room with the door closed so her little brother doesn't sabotage it. She's also big enough now to glue things. I used my scrapbooking tools to cut various shapes (usually use leftover paper after a night of scrapbooking, so I have a good stash of these little shapes) and put a little elmer's glue in a bowl for her to dip the paper in and glue shapes all over construction paper. You can also find easy craft ideas with a quick Google search of whatever you want. Search for something like "preschool duck craft" and see what you get. She likes to use the computer, so we taught her how to use the mouse and she plays happily at www.starfall.com by herself. Another fun toy has been a magnet dress-up thing. It's a tin with different cards in it. Each card has a picture of a little cartoon person in underwear and the scenery is different seasons. It comes with a bunch of 2-dimensional magnetic clothes. You put the card on the tin, then the magnet clothes stick to it.
Lacing beads on a string (or on a pipe cleaner, which is easier for little hands to manipulate) is another fun thing.
Finger painting (with washable paint...on the kitchen floor) is something she can do with her baby brother (age 21 months), as well as water color (though his work is a little wetter than hers!).
there were some great ideas from the other women i think i'll be trying some of those for my 3yr old as well. i also wanted to tell you about an article i read in a newspaper about scheduling play time and how it's better for your childs learning for them to just have some unscheduled playtime. they said if everything is scheduled then the child will become dependant on someone telling them every move to make and won't have the creativity to come up with ideas on their own. even though it looks to us like they are bored they are actually learning creative thinking. the article also said that too much scheduling can become stressful to a child so they basically said as parents we need to have a balance between scheduled play and letting them just play with anytoys paper crayon ect. they want,or just spin around and act silly like my 3yr old does sometimes. the article made sense to me just thought i would pass it along. i hope this helped! God bless!!!
Your childs day care/pre-school should have a writen schedule of activities they do all day. Try to do the same things at the same time. Just an idea.
Have fun,
TLee
