The Olympics are held every two years in various cities across the world, alternating between winter and summer Olympic games. Take the children outside to participate in your own preschool Olympics. Include an obstacle course, the long jump and sprinting races. Create Olympic-style games according to your students' strengths to allow all the preschoolers to feel a sense of accomplishment through participation. As an additional activity, reinforce the letter "O" and color recognition by encouraging students to recreate the Olympic symbol, which contains five rings in five colors.
Photo copy a paper listing each letter in the alphabet. Encourage students, either individually or in pairs, to find words beginning with each letter of the alphabet in or around the classroom area. Many preschools label toys, furniture and supplies to reinforce word recognition but if you do not, ask students to find letters in books, on toys or in the names on their coat cubbies. The first student, or group, to complete the list is the winner of the scavenger hunt.
Construct a game mat from a large piece of mural paper with self-adhesive letters in a path around the paper. Laminate the mat for durability and future use. Each child playing will need a game piece for play and a die. The students, on their turn, roll the die and move the playing piece the number of spaces coinciding with the number of dots on the die. When the student lands on a letter, he must find something in the room that begins with that letter. Children take turns until one player has reached the end of the ABC path.
Set out enough chairs for the number of students in the class to play musical chairs. On the back of each chair, display a sticky note with a number between zero and 10. The students move around the arranged seats until the music stops. When silence is heard, students must quickly find a seat and hold up the same number of fingers as the number on their chair. Every correct student will remain in play and those who were mistaken will sit out for one turn.