“Literacy is not a luxury, it is a right and a responsibility.” – Bill Clinton
Literacy activities are often considered as the ways to educate kids. However, there’s more to that!
Literacy activities in the best educational programs for preschoolers, which include fun and play-based learning, greatly aid in early childhood education and, most importantly, overall cognitive development.
During the preschool years (3-5 years) of a kid’s life, they are learning to read and write. Moreover, many developmental abilities become prominent at this time. Hence it is important to pay attention to the learning activities of your kids at that time.
Here’s a list of 20 fun and engaging literacy activities for the best learning programs for preschoolers. These activities not only keep children captivated but also promote effective learning.
- A STORY CIRCLE
As the little kids are developing language skills in their preschool period, it is recommended to let them engage in activities that promote talking and having effective conversations. Storytime circle is one of those engaging activities.
You can choose any story for this activity and read it to your kids. You can also make a random story out of your mind and tell your kids to make their own after yours. That’s how you can encourage thinking abilities and communication skills in preschoolers.
- LETTER TREASURE HUNT
For this activity, you can use letters of the alphabet to encourage learning. Hide colorful letters around the class or outdoors and let the kids find them. As they start finding letters, put each colored letter into the same colored box. That’s how they can learn both letters and colors simultaneously.
(you can write letters on foam and paint it any random color).
- ALPHABET SOUP
For this fun literacy activity for preschoolers, you will need to fill a bowl with water and foam letters. Now let the kids fish out any letter they can name while enjoying this fun and engaging game.
That’s a simple way they can learn letter identification while sensory play.
- RHYME TIME
It is an activity to encourage phonemic awareness among preschoolers. You can choose any rhyme game such as “rhyme bingo” or “rhyme pairs” where kids will match the words that sound alike with the help of the instructor (teacher, parents, or anyone).
- SIGHT WORD SCAVENGER HUNT
This activity encourages preschoolers to remember sight words more effectively. Hide different sight words such as I, me, you, we, big, for, the, to, is, etc. Tell the kids to find them and read aloud whatever word they find. That’s how they will learn simple words and spelling skills with this exciting sight words scavenger hunt game.
- WORD FAMILY SORT
This simple activity can encourage literacy in preschool kids as they will learn about words and sentences slowly and gradually.
In this game, introduce kids to simple word families such as -at, -op, -ig. Give them different words and ask them to group it all into their respective family. That’s how we promote phonemic awareness among preschoolers.
- CROCODILE CIRCLE
This activity counts as the most exciting and fun literacy activity for preschoolers. For this, you will need a bin or a box with a DIY crocodile head attached to it. Put lots of random letters into it and let the kids grab them one by one.
But to make it more exciting and fun, ask the kids to move in a circle and sing “Crocodile, crocodile down by the lake; I’m going to reach right in and see what (letter) you ate”. When they pick any letter, ask them to read it aloud and then another kid takes a turn to pick a letter.
- NAME WRITING PRACTICES
Kids can learn a lot of new concepts during play-based learning. And that’s what these literacy activities for preschoolers promote.
You can teach them how to write their names using different materials. They include sand trays, chalkboards, and paint.
- LITERACY OBSTACLE COURSE
It also counts among the literacy activities for preschoolers, as it involves sensory learning and physical activity for problem-solving.
Yes, we are talking about a literacy obstacle course!
You can set up a fun and exciting literacy-themed obstacle course. Assign target milestones to achieve doing a certain literacy activity such as hopping on a letter mat, or walking through the tunnel while naming letters, etc.
- ALPHABET BINGO
You can play a game of Bingo using letters instead of numbers. Children will mark off letters on their Bingo cards as they are called out, reinforcing letter recognition.
It is another fun and engaging literacy activity for preschoolers.
- LITERACY THEMED DRAMA PLAY
You can encourage kids to perform a literacy-themed drama as a fun literacy activity for preschoolers.
Set up a dramatic play area based on a favorite storybook or literacy theme. Children can role-play as characters from the story they like. This would result in enhanced comprehension and storytelling skills in preschoolers.
- SENSORY MESSY PLAY
A playful, interactive, messy, and insightful play area contributes to this activity. You can let the preschoolers learn a lot of literacy concepts while sensory play. Such as making letters with cookie dough and decorating them with sprinkles. Making different shapes, letters, numbers, etc with whipping cream on a piece of parchment paper, and many other ways.
That’s how your kids can engage in various fun and engaging literacy activities using all of their five senses.
- ENVIRONMENTAL PRINT HUNT
For this amazing activity, you should take children on a walk around the school or neighborhood to identify letters and words in signs, labels, and advertisements. It reinforces the connection between print and meaning. So that kids will learn about print media and lots of purposes it’s used for.
- COOKING WITH LETTERS
There are a lot of ways you can easily incorporate literacy into cooking activities for your preschoolers. You can do this by shaping the dough into letter cookies or using alphabet-shaped pasta to spell words while cooking.
Furthermore, teach them the names of fruits, vegetables, and other food items while playing. Help them associate fruits and vegetables with colors and name them.
- MATCHING ALPHABET BEANS
You can reinforce literacy in little preschoolers using this simple and fun activity. You will need a muffin tray and beans for this. Place the baking paper on the tray and write random letters on each. Similarly, write random letters on each bean. Now tell the kids to match the beans with tray letters.
That’s how you can easily reinforce letter literacy among preschoolers.
- MAGNETIC LETTER POETRY
Provide your preschoolers with a magnetic board and letters. Let them create words and sentences on their own using their creativity.
And here you have your kid’s letter poetry and sentences. It helps a lot to build sentence structures and experiment with language enhancing their language and literacy skills.
- PLAYDOUGH WRITING TRAY
Imagine a fun play area with soft, colorful dough where kids can get creative!
This Play-Dough Writing Tray is like a learning playground where they can use the dough to practice writing their ABCs, 123s, or even words. The dough is nice and squishy, perfect for molding into letters, numbers, or whatever their imaginations come up with.
- HANDPRINT READIN CARD
Imagine making a special card where your child gets to be the artist! For this fun literacy activity, they’ll use their handprint to be part of a picture or message. It’s a fun way to mix art and learning letters because they get to create something one-of-a-kind with their handprint as the star.
- READING HOPSCOTCH
This activity involves play-based learning. You’ll need to mention different alphabets in each box and let the kids read them as they go through each box.
- LEARNING SPELLING SKILLS WITH WATER BEADS
Picture this: little hands diving into a cool, squishy pile of colorful beads! These aren’t just any beads, though. Each one holds a letter, waiting to be discovered. As children play with these special beads, they’re not only seeing the shapes of letters but also feeling them – a double dose of learning!
Picking out the letters and putting them together to spell words makes it even more fun. This playful activity helps kids remember what they learn and become spelling superstars!
KEY TAKEAWAYS
All of these activities mentioned above promote literacy and early childhood education among kids. You can easily make your kid’s learning experience fun by incorporating play factors into their learning environment.
It’s time to promote a fun learning experience for little ones. Use these fun and engaging literacy activities for preschool with special education programs to make their learning experience more enjoyable and memorable
