At a preschool level, boys and girls tend to have different styles of play. Outside, boys tend to spread out over larger areas and run a lot more and are generally more boisterous. Girls tend to congregate in smaller groups. In the classroom, girls have a tendency to head for arts and crafts related activities whereas boys will head for the building blocks. When using building blocks, boys will tend to build tall structures that topple over while girls will build lower more spread out structures.
Both boys and girls tend to pick out friends from their peer groups from the same gender. Boys can be more disruptive when bored while girls will usually quietly entertain themselves. When emotionally upset, girls are often more forthcoming in discussing their problems with an adult while boys are less open and may manifest their negative emotions with negative behavior.
Young preschool boys and girls learn in different ways such as in the way they react to a teacher or adult. When being read to, boys may like it when the teacher is moving about and using gestures and actions, where girls may prefer a more restrained style. Boys tend to like stories about action while girls tend to like stories more focused on feelings and emotions. Boys tend to be messier and more disorganized and have messier handwriting than girls. Boys tend to do better spatially, come to conclusions quickly, and prefer facts and figures, whereas girls tend to gather more facts and talk more before coming to conclusions.
It is thought that young girls may actually hear better than young boys and as a result girls may be startled by loud voices and prefer a softer level of volume. Boys prefer louder noises and lots of action. Girls tend to be better listeners than boys at this age while boys may respond more rapidly to smaller pieces of information.