Hey teachers! It’s that time of the year again when kids will soon return to school. Of course, you must be busy planning and organizing for the upcoming school year but don’t miss out on identifying a few interesting back-to-school activities for your young preschoolers. As the learning environment is important in early education, these activities help create a positive environment for kids.
Plus, they work wonders in dispersing first-day jitters and encourage kids to mingle with one another. It also helps in establishing a solid student-teacher bond right from day one! So, what are you waiting for? If you are a preschool teacher who wants her students to transition smoothly from the comforts of home to a classroom setting where kids are encouraged to explore, learn, and grow, you may want to check out our back-to-school activities that welcome kids to the world of early childhood education.
Fun-filled back-to-school activities that preschoolers will enjoy
1. Grow As You Learn
A little inspiration goes a long way. To inspire your preschoolers to begin their educational journey on a positive note, make sure you do this back-to-school activity on the first day of preschool. Buy some small plants (like marigolds) from a nursery, potting soil, and a few pots. Gather the kids and use their help to plant the saplings in pots. Place the pots in a sunny spot and let the kids water them.
Now take this opportunity to explain how these tiny plants resemble each one of them. Like water, sunlight, and an occasional dose of fertilizer will help the plant grow, learning and playing will nourish their minds and bodies so they become well-rounded individuals as they grow up. This activity can also serve as a fun Earth Day activity for preschoolers.
2. Personalized Pencil Holders
How about engaging kids in making their personalized pencil holders? Kids will need access to pencils, pens, or markers every day while they’re at school. So, organize this fun activity when kids make pencil holders using simple materials, like toilet rolls, jewels, colors, etc. Add a cardboard base at the bottom of the holder so kids can easily store things in it. Lastly, provide every child with letter stickers so they can add their name to the pencil holder to give it a personal touch.
3. Colorful Bookmarks
Your preschoolers will be browsing (if not reading!) a lot of books this school year. So, why not set up a bookmark-making activity to build their back-to-school enthusiasm? Kids can prepare a set of cool bookmarks for their classroom using colorful sheets, paper clips, popsicle sticks, and more! As preschoolers are a little too young to envision a bookmark, make this a guided activity where you show kids how to make a bookmark in a stepwise wise manner so they can follow you to make their own.
4. School Bus Tour
Little kids are fascinated by big vehicles, especially school buses. For the first time, many must have taken a ride to school by bus. Others may not have had the opportunity to experience what sitting on a school bus feels like. Therefore, take your class for a school bus exploration session where they see a bus and sit on it for real.
No, you don’t have to take them for a real ride. Just a few minutes on the bus is enough to experience it. Finish off the session by singing the “Wheels on the bus…” song, one of the children’s favorites, and see those little faces beaming with happiness and laughter.
5. Get to Know Me
Initial preschool days can feel a bit lonely as kids are not acquainted with each other. To build your classroom community and help kids mingle, you can conduct this “get to know me” activity. Prepare a set of Q-cards with one question on each. Questions must be such that they help others know more about the child answering the question. A few examples are:
- When is your birthday?
- Which place were you born?
- Do you have siblings? How many?
- What’s your favorite color?
- Do you have a pet?
- What’s your favorite book?
- What’s your favorite game?
Call students individually and ask them to pick a card and answer the question before their peers. Ask them to introduce themselves before answering so others can know their name. This activity can bring out commonalities, spark conversations and mark the beginning of new friendships among kids.
6. Unwind and Relax
Kids can feel a little stressed in the first few days of preschool. New classrooms, new teachers, and new rules can trigger anxiety and worries in many children. To ease their fears and help them calm down, teachers can conduct a session on mindfulness and meditation.
A few minutes of silence amidst the chaos of a regular school day can give a break to little minds and help them relax. You may even teach your preschoolers some deep breathing and mindfulness exercises so they can utilize them whenever they feel overwhelmed and need to settle down.
7. Self-Portraits and Goals for the Year
Begin the new school year with this fun activity of creating self-portraits. Prepare cutouts of bodies, faces, arms, and legs so kids can assemble them to make their unique portraits. They can glue eyes, add hair color, and draw accessories to complete their look.
Give them a colored sheet to stick to their portraits. You can then ask each student what their goal is for this school year. Be ready to receive some wacky answers from your preschoolers, as they are still too young to give an appropriate response to this question. But this is how they will take their first step toward goal setting.
8. My Family Photo Frame
For many kids, starting preschool means they are away from their parents for the first time. So it is obvious to see many sad faces as parents leave behind their kids at school. One way to ensure kids feel safe and close to their parents is to create a ‘my family’ wall.
Have your preschoolers bring their family photos on the first day of school. They can embellish a photo frame with decorative materials to fix their family picture. Put up all the photo frames on the ‘my family’ wall so kids don’t miss their families as much and can feel at home even in school.
9. School Supplies Scavenger Hunt
Organize an exciting scavenger hunt for your preschoolers as a fun back-to-school activity. Hide school supplies in different places around the classroom. Things like pencils, erasers, crayons, and markers will suffice. You don’t need to print a list for the hunt, as little kids may not be able to read it yet.
Instead, say out loud things they need to look for. Set a time limit of 10-15 minutes for the hunt. Instruct kids that all collected items must be placed in dedicated bins. This way, they will also get to practice their time-management skills and perform an engaging sorting and classifying activity.
10. My Name is…
Give a twist to the game “pass the ball” to help kids know one another. Ask the children to stand in a circle. Hand over a softball to one of the kids and tell them the rules of the activity. One kid randomly throws the ball to another kid standing in the circle. The other kid must catch the ball and say, “My name is….” Now, they can throw the ball to another child who will follow the same pattern and introduce themselves to the class.
As the activity continues, make sure every kid gets a chance to make an introduction. This great icebreaker activity allows kids to know their peers by their names so they can feel more comfortable starting conversations with one another.
11. Read Aloud Books
Small kids enjoy it when grown-ups read books to them. As book read-aloud are common in preschool classrooms, you can turn it into an engaging back-to-school activity. Keeping in mind that this is just the beginning of the school year, pick out some awesome read-aloud chapter books based on the back-to-school theme so kids can relate to these stories and transition smoothly into the new academic session. Some books you can read during these read-aloud sessions are:
- My First Day at Nursery School by Becky Edwards
- Will I Have a Friend? by Miriam Cohen
- David Goes to School by David Shannon
- Mouse’s First Day of School by Lauren Thompson
- School Bus by Donald Crews
12. Paper Crowns
Little kids love making and wearing paper crowns. This makes it a nice choice for back-to-school activities. Consider making crowns with a back-to-school theme, like crowns saying “First day of preschool”, “I am …” or “Back to school.” You can get ample templates from the internet. Simply print them out and let kids fill them with colors or decorate them with sparkly items. Use a stapler to pin the end of the paper crowns, and there you have it! Beautiful crowns for kids to bring back home.
Final thoughts
Back-to-school activities are more than just playful engagements for little learners. They act as stepping stones that help kids transition into the world of learning and education. The time you spend on these activities is as important as the time you will spend on lessons because it helps kids get used to their new environment and feel at ease as a member of a new classroom community.
So, pick your favorites from our list of back-to-school activities and celebrate being back at school with your little learners. They will surely enjoy the activities and simultaneously develop essential skills necessary to prepare them for life.
I am Priyanka Sonkushre, a writer and blogger. I am the person behind “One Loving Mama,” a mom blog. Equipped with a Bachelor’s degree along with an MBA, my healthcare background helps me deeply understand learning difficulties. I know how challenging it can be for parents to find the right resources to help their children excel in life. So, here I am to blend my healthcare expertise with my parenting experience to create valuable and helpful resources for parents and teachers supporting children with learning differences. If you wish, you can follow me on Facebook and LinkedIn.