When choosing subjects from which to create a guessing game for preschoolers, choose things with plenty of detail. Ideal subjects contain detail that you don't notice until you get very close. Take pictures of tree bark, a flower petal or a pine cone. Choose items that children are familiar with and recognize from the classroom or playground, or use everyday objects like kitchen utensils, toothbrushes, piano keys or book spines.
If you use a digital camera and choose to print the pictures yourself, be sure to crop the pictures as closely as you can. Trim the edges and only include the very detailed center of the object in your print. For matching games, take pictures of the close up, or magnified, view as well as a normal view of the object. Also combine these for memory games.
As a large group activity, show the pictures to the children and allow them to study the detail. Allow children to make guesses as to what they think the object is. If children have trouble making guesses, provide them with clues such as, "This is something that is on our playground." Allow all children a chance to guess before revealing what the object is by showing them the normal view photo.
Laminate or cover the photos in clear contact paper for increased durability. Shuffle all the photos, magnified and normal view, and flip them over so that the pictures face away from the children. Lay them down in a pattern as you would for a memory game. Give children a chance to flip over two pictures at a time. A match is made when a child finds the magnified view of an object as well as its normal view counterpart. The child with the most matches when all the pictures have been flipped is the winner.
For this game, you need laminated, magnified pictures as well as a few pieces of tape for each child. Divide the pictures between the children, making sure that each child has the same number of photos. Give the children a few pieces of tape and tell them to go on the hunt for the objects in their pictures. When they find the item (placed in the room or yard), they must tape their picture to its subject. If the items are outdoors, supervise the children when they leave the classroom. Give the students a time limit to find all the items in their picutes, such as ten minutes, and have them meet back in the classroom as soon as they find all of their items.