Hi! It’s Casey stopping by from Kidspired Creations! I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas season like we did! I say “season” because with the amount of different families that we spend Christmas with, it doesn’t just last the one day for us. My boys got way too many gifts, as usual, and so we are still trying to find spots for all of them. (Sound familiar?)
While the boys got super excited to open all of the toys at each Christmas event, I got really excited about the number of GAMES my 4-year-old son, James, received this year! This Mommy goofed and thought James’ school started today, when it actually starts tomorrow. Oops! So we had to change our plans around and instead played games all morning! (Hence my inspiration for this post.) Yes!
Here is the first of my TOP 5 (scratch that) 6! games for Pre-Schoolers:
Recommended for ages 4-8 (and Mommy and Daddy too!)
This game is amazing and so much fun for all! On each turn, a player picks 3 cards numbered 1, 2 and 3 and when you piece them together, they create a full sentence with a fun, get-up-out-of-your-chair challenge!
The first card you choose tells you to jump, walk backwards, take giant steps, skip, crawl, etc. The 2nd card asks you to grab a specific prop from the box, and the 3rd card tells you where to put that prop (between your elbows, under your chin, on your stomach, on top of your head). James was sometimes better at the challenges than his 6-month pregnant mommy (though I was pretty good at the challenges that asked me to balance things on my belly).
After all the cards are chosen, each player counts the number of stars on his/her cards. Game 1… James: 35, Mommy: 28 (and he won fair and square!)
Pre-School learning skills:
- Following 3-step directions
- Knowing right versus left
- Gross motor skills such as walking, jumping, skipping, walking backwards and balancing
- Pre-reading skills (making complete, complex sentences)
- Ordinal numbers (first, second, third)
- Number recognition (1, 2 and 3)
- Directional vocabulary (on top of, under, over, right, left, etc.)
- Counting (to at least 35… that’s the highest score any of us have gotten. Good job, James!)
