Some Great Tools to Try When You’re Entertaining Preschoolers
I spend quite a bit of time with grandkids while their parents are out of town. I have learned that intentional time with my grandchildren allows me to develop a relationship with them. The very best time to soak in this opportunity is on a weekend while their parents take a “couples only” break–something that’s healthy for their marriage.
B. and I made pink play dough, danced with silk scarves to Kabalevsky, read at least 8 stories, screwed together wooden STEM toy triangles, hid from the vengeful Maleficent, glued 5 popsicle stick animals, wore 3 different princess outfits, watched Aristocats, had a pretend picnic in the living room, painted a magic wand, made a hippopotamus and a giraffe with green play sand, did our best Ariel imitation in the bathtub at bath time, and only had one meltdown over broccoli. And that was just Day One.
Suggested “Grandma Projects” for 3-Year-Old Granddaughter
My daughters-in-law have made it a practice to leave behind a few surprises when they take a trip. Sometimes these get bagged up in colorful gift bags – one to be opened each day. On this trip, the new activities were ready and waiting in the play cupboard and were the very first thing my granddaughter showed me when I arrived. I also shipped a boxful of my own projects to arrive the same day I did. I’ll share some of our most successful projects here.
Painting and Gluing
Melissa and Doug Decorate Your Own Princess Wand – You’ll need a painting surface that can be cleaned easily. The most difficult thing about this project was that I was excited to glue on all of the extra “bling” and my granddaughter opted out. I have learned not to interfere with 3-year-old creativity. The sparkles stayed in the package.
STEM Toys – Construction Set
Melissa and Doug Construction Building Set in a Box – A great beginner STEM toy for a 3-year-old. She was excited about using the wooden screwdriver (included) to tighten up toys, but it was a 2-person-job because the nuts and bolts in this set were sometimes so tight, I couldn’t turn them, even as an adult.
The cognitive skill of building from a pattern is still in its infancy with a toddler, so creating new toys like those pictured on the back of the box did not have much appeal. But she was thrilled to create triangles in several sizes.
Grandma Tip: Begin where you are, and allow the child to keep playing as long as the game is fun without expecting play to continue until a project is complete. That day will come, and when her brain is ready for it, she will create something magnificent. We had fun sorting the pieces by color, length, and shape when it was time to clean up.
Play Sand
The jury is still out on Play Sand for a 3-year-old. I have purchased it for older grandkids before and it’s a favorite, but this 3-year-old had a hard time manipulating it. We had more success with homemade playdough (see below). Still, if you’re intent on getting something stuck in the grooves of your kitchen table, play sand will do the trick!
Hands-on Craft Kits for 3-year-olds
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- I was delighted to discover several fun, colorful, toddler-friendly craft projects by Alex Discover. I ordered 3 sets from the Little Hands series since these looked age-appropriate for a 3-year-old. We enjoyed paper bag puppets, and pop stick art. I ordered the Giant Busy Box as well, not realizing that a second set of paper bag puppets was included. If you order an Alex kit, I recommend you start with one of the smaller, single-project boxes such as the puppets or stick art. This will give you the gist of how Alex packages and prepares these projects. They contain complete instructions for a non-reader.
- I was delighted to discover several fun, colorful, toddler-friendly craft projects by Alex Discover. I ordered 3 sets from the Little Hands series since these looked age-appropriate for a 3-year-old. We enjoyed paper bag puppets, and pop stick art. I ordered the Giant Busy Box as well, not realizing that a second set of paper bag puppets was included. If you order an Alex kit, I recommend you start with one of the smaller, single-project boxes such as the puppets or stick art. This will give you the gist of how Alex packages and prepares these projects. They contain complete instructions for a non-reader.
Once you dump everything out of the Giant Busy Box, you will be quickly overwhelmed with crazy mess, since this box includes a menagerie of fun art supplies – stickers, playdough, feathers, tissue squares, crayons, pom poms, googly eyes, and much, much more!
This set doesn’t include complete instructions for every project. Instead, they give you instructions for a “sample” project from each of several possible project groups (play dough animals, bag puppets, collages, tissue art, etc.) and you create using your imagination with the rest. If you are a first-time Alex user, begin with something simpler, and you’ll be hooked.
Dramatic Play – Puppet Shows with Handmade Puppets
Eye-Hand Coordination – Scissor Skills Set
The price was right for the Melissa and Doug Scissors Skills set, so I grabbed one. What you receive is a set of safety scissors and a pad of colorful images with dotted lines that will give your preschooler lots of opportunities to practice scissor skills safely. The only problem was that I didn’t pay attention to the “4-7 years” age appropriateness warning.
I’ve played with B. before and know how much she enjoys cutting (possibly because it has been a “not-until-you-are-older” activity for so long). While the safety scissors are indeed safe, we found them pretty frustrating to use. B’s parents have given her this set previously, so her excitement about being allowed to cut up paper has already been partly satisfied. There wasn’t enough adventure factor left over for her to endure the frustrating experience of not being able to get the scissors to cut with precision. We didn’t finish a single page, despite switching to metal safety scissors that did a better job of slicing than the plastic scissors. We set it aside for another day.
Reading: “I’m Not Just a Scribble”
Grandma almost always adds a book to any gift box. Since we were looking for craft projects, I’m Not Just a Scribble by Diane Alber jumped out as a book with potential to extend the fun beyond reading the book. We read the story, and then spent nearly 45 minutes afterward inventing scribble pictures of our own and taping them to the windows. The book includes a sheet of sticker eyes and mouths you can attach to your own scribbles to make delightful characters.
The story is about inclusion, but I was much less drawn in by the moral of the story as I was by the idea that we could create “drawings” even though eye-hand coordination is just developing. Again, B. wanted to do her own drawings, rather than just scribbles, and that was fine. Her little “people” had a charm all their own once we added stickers for eyes and mouths. We made many, many scribbles and stuck them to the windows so we could admire.
Music and Movement – Dancing Scarves
B. is all about princesses. She eats, sleeps, drinks princess stuff. I’ve been known to drop a sizeable budget contributing to her princess wardrobe, and own a set of my own dress-ups she can play with and borrow from when she comes to grandma’s house. But rather than a princess outfit, I decided this time to expand into new territory. Brooklyn had her first dance recital last week, so instead of sending the obligatory recital flower bouquet, I figured a 3-year-old could get more mileage out of dancing scarves.
I checked out a guide written by a preschool music and movement instructor about how to use dance scarves in a classroom setting, but it turns out Brooklyn also did not need adult interference with respect to dancing. She had her own Disney showtunes soundtrack in mind. We did test out Kabalevsky’s Galop, and Leroy Anderson’s Syncopated Clock in my effort to expand her musical horizons. Her little brother was as excited to “dance” with scarves as she was.
Eventually, she found several new ways to use the scarves, including building a “color world” (which consists of laying out the scarves in a large stack like a campfire next to her princess picnic), learning to fold (rectangle, then square, rectangle then square), and tying one around her waist, then hanging the others from it to form, yes, a new princess costume.
Baking and Shaping – Cookies and Play Dough
I like baking with kids, and whether it’s easy cupcakes or an easy package of pre-made cookie dough with pre-made frosting, eliminating a few of the steps has made the process a little easier for my preschool grandkids.
The old standby, homemade play dough also made an appearance at our play date. In the olden days, most play dough ingredients were in every kitchen cupboard, but the “secret” ingredient, Alum (also found in Cream of Tartar) isn’t common. I keep some on hand specifically for play dough. It’s fun to mix your own colors, and because it is extra soft, it works better in extrusion toys than regular play dough does. It will keep in a zip-top bag in the refrigerator for weeks. If you are feeling adventurous, try a color-mixing experiment before you make the play dough, and allow the grandkids to create their own unique play dough colors. Here’s the recipe:
Homemade Play Dough
1 cup water
1 Tablespoon vegetable oil
Mix those together in a saucepan and add desired food coloring. (Throw in an old crayon or two for really vibrant color and heat water to let the wax melt before proceeding to the next step).
Now add:
1 cup flour
2 teaspoons Cream of Tartar (find it with the spices at the grocery store)
½ cup salt
a drop or two of essential oil for fragrance, if desired
Turn on the heat and mix slowly with a wooden spoon or rubber spatula. The mixture will congeal as it cooks, eventually forming one solid lump around your spoon. Once it can be molded into a ball, you’ve cooked it enough. Turn it onto a protected surface to cool.
Note: It’s fun to work with warm play dough so I usually don’t let it cool all the way before we start playing with it.
Preserving Memories: Record a Read-Aloud
Another fun thing we tried was reading a story together. Brooklyn loves a fun book entitled, The Most Magnificent Thing by Ashley Spires:
We read through it several times until we got to the point that Brooklyn has some sections memorized, so we simply recorded ourselves reading it together. I added the recording to some photos I shot after purchasing my own copy of the book, dropped those into iMovie, synchronized our audio version with the photos, and added a music soundtrack to the background. We’ve preserved our own Reading Rainbow-style read-aloud, and now Brooklyn’s adorable three-year-old voice and infectious giggle are frozen in time for future generations of 3-year-olds who come to visit Grandma Nae.
I won’t publish our version, but you can see how one elementary school class created their own more elaborate project here:
Sincerely, this is one of the funnest, most engaging weeks I’ve had personally in a very long time. B., her brother E., Grandpa, and I have an even better relationship than we had before, her mom and dad got some quiet time together. Test our our arsenal of fun experiences and add your own.
Happy Grandparenting!
