According to "Smart Start: a Parents' Guide to Preschool Education," playing with blocks helps children develop a wide variety of skills from fine motor skills to basic math.
Put a pile of blocks in front of the preschooler, along with a large die. Take turns with the child rolling the die and then taking the number of blocks shown on the die. For example, a child should take three blocks after rolling a three. Keep going until all the blocks are taken. Then you and the preschooler each build a structure. When you are both done, have the preschooler find ways your two structures are different. For example, your structure may be taller than the child's, or the child's structure may be longer.
This activity helps the child with counting, taking turns and recognizing differences.
Put 20 blocks between you and the preschooler. You should have 10 pairs of identical blocks for this activity. Tell the preschooler to pick one block and put it in front of him or her. When the child is done, take the same block and put it in front of you in the same way. Then take a block and add it to your first block. The preschooler should find the matching block and put it on or by his or her first block the exact same way. For example, if you start with a red square block, and then put a blue triangle block to the right of the red block, the child should do the same. Keep taking turns until all the blocks are gone. Ask the child if the structures are the same. This activity helps with taking turns, fine motor skills, recognizing shapes, as well as being able to imitate what someone else is creating.
Physical ability is a great skill to work on with preschoolers because they are at an age when they love being physically active and trying new things. According to the National Network of Child Care, at 3 a preschooler should be able to stand on one foot, stand on tiptoes, catch a ball and ride a tricycle. By age 4. children should be able to hop on one foot, gallop, throw a ball overhand and pump themselves on a swing.
A great activity to encourage the development of all these skills is to create an obstacle course. The obstacle course should include running, crawling under things, jumping over things and a physical activity like throwing a ball or beanbag into a net. Do the obstacle course with the child so it remains fun. As the child masters the obstacle course, switch things around or add a new skill to the course. Have the child create an obstacle course for you to try to conquer. See Resource Two, Family Fun, for specific things to include in your obstacle course.
Spend time doing simple things with the child like riding a bike, jumping rope and playing catch. All these activities help to build the skills children will need as they grow bigger and enter school.
A to Z Teacher Stuff is a resource website for teachers, and one of its suggestions for teaching the alphabet is to help the child create an alphabet book.
Lightly draw each letter of the alphabet onto a piece of construction paper. You will need one piece of construction paper for each letter to allow you to draw each letter very large. Work on one letter at a time and have the child trace over the letter you drew. Then brainstorm things that start with that letter. On the back of the construction paper, the child can either draw or glue pictures found in magazines of things that start with that letter. Once you've made it through the whole alphabet, you can put the pages together in a binder.