Preschool Games for Kids
When children reach preschool, education consists of developing a world of new skills through seemingly simple games and activities. Games for preschoolers tend to focus on developing cognitive skills and on topics like reasoning, classification, memory and attentiveness. When looking for fun activities for your preschooler, use the following free game options as a means of helping them with their early childhood growth and development.
- Hot and Cold: This game can help kids learn to listen carefully and process auditory directions. When playing in groups, it can also give kids the chance to work together as team for a common goal. To get started, simply hide an object and have your kids start searching for it. When they get closer to the hidden object in the game, alert them by saying that they are getting “hot”. Say "cold” when they are moving further from it.
- Matching: Matching games for kids can help better develop memory and recognition skills. Using two identical sets of cards, mix up the items and have your preschooler organize and match the pairs as a fun game. As a free alternative to buying premade card sets, consider creating your own or using items that already have their own pairs, like socks.
- Storytelling: Between reading to your preschooler and having them retell a favorite story or memory, storytelling focused games for kids can help preschoolers improve their abilities to communicate and utilize basic language skills. Fun and free, storytelling can be a great means of getting your little learners to articulate their more abstract thoughts and ideas.
- Building with Blocks: Having kids play games with building blocks is a great way to encourage preschoolers to get creative and use their imaginations. To make these games more challenging for kids, have them verbally explain what they are building and try and ask them questions about what inspired them to play this game.
At the preschool level, it can also be beneficial for parents and educators to encourage kids to play unstructured or imaginative games in their free time. These types of kids’ games can help players learn to express themselves verbally as they create their own unique game constructs.
There are always many beneficial preschool games, worksheets and activities right here at JumpStart! JumpStart World has games for both boys and girls that engage your child and offer a variety of activities with different difficulty settings. All of the options available, from the different types of games to the difficulty settings, help focus on a wider variety of preschoolers - from those who are still learning the basics to kids who are on the brink of kindergarten. Preschool is the time to start building important skills in children and there are so many tools out there to help parents. Get started immediately and watch your preschooler’s learning curve go up!
