Any ideas for preschool ziploc bags activities?

Question

I have a 3 yrd child and want to start making some ziploc bags activities to have available for those times when he gets bored. I'm interested in developing motors skills/thinking skills through them. Any ideas?

THANK YOU FOR ALL THESE WONDERFUL IDEAS! I can't wait to try them all.

Answer 1

Fill a ziploc with blue hair gel and put small sea creatures in the bag with the gel. I did this with my day care students and they loved it !

Answer 2

One activity has to do with the 5 senses (hearing, seeing, smelling, touching, tasting). For smell, choose three or four different scents: vinegar, rubbing alcohol, vanilla, chocolate, lemon juice, etc. Then, get 3 or 4 cotton balls and put a little of each of the scents on the cotton and place in a ziploc bag. Have your son try to guess what the smells are. This gets the child to discriminate what smells sweet, sour, bitter,etc.

Another activity using ziploc bags is maybe filling one with water, placing it into the freezer, and having him describe to you the difference in the water (liquid to solid- stages on matter- liquid, solid, gas)

Having you child draw a picture, cutting it up to look like a puzzle, and then putting the pieces into a ziploc bags.

These are only a few examples. One website which handy to use is www.perpetualpreschool.com, and www.lessonplans.com is another useful site. Hope this helps.

Answer 3

The other answers have been great! I am a Pre-K teacher, and I love using zip lock bags. I had the students put a Lima bean in a moist paper towel and then into the baggy. Then you tape it to a window that gets a lot of sunlight. In about 10 days, the seed will germinate into a pretty plant! It is a great activity that teaches growth as they can watch the stages. If you are religious, you can also link in how God created us and we grew, just as they did with the seed. Try it.....your child will love it! Then you can plant in the garden!

Answer 4

I'm a preschool teacher and I will post more, but off the top of my head, here's one that they love. fill a bag with shaving cream and add one of two colors. let your child mix the collors and trace on the outside of the bag to write in it. If you are brave, just put it on the table or fill the bath tub with it and let your child have at it. It cleans up effortlessly with a dry towel. To extend the interest in it, let your child play with just the shaving cream for a while and add the colors another time. The shaving cream is an experience in itself. If/ when you use colors, help the child understand that the colors mixing together is what produces the new color. i.e- red and blue= purple, red and yellow=orange

Answer 5

there are tons of things you can do with ziploc bags to include multiple topics, themes,and even according to an individual childs likes and dislikes. all subject areas can be dealt with from science,math, art,and reading, depending what size bags,where you want to do the activities. Ive personally used large ones for books and mini felt board,jigsaw puzzles, and small ones for art like playdough, and medium ones for math games, scissor activities, and beads or lacing cards. check out some books from the library and let your imagination run wild.

Answer 6

This is something I have been thinking about trying with the kids in our daycare.

You could get two ice cube trays and fill each with water and make one one color and the other another color and then freeze them, then let the child place one ice cube of each color in a ziploc bag and let them watch as it melts, the colors will mix and make a new color.

Answer 7

Here is a simple game.

Need: 3x5 index cards
small stickers
marker

mark ten cards with numerals 1 thru 10 (one numeral per card). put stickers on ten other cards to coincide with the numerals.

EXAMPLE: numeral 3 on one card and three stickers on another card.

Do this with all ten numerals.

This lets the child recognize numerals and match objects to the numerals, this also helps with rote counting.

Another game would be the alphabet game. On index cards. on 26 cards mark them with the uppercase letters
and on the other 26 cards put the lowercase letters.

EXAMPLE: On one card mark the uppercase letter A
On another card mark the lowercase letter a.

This helps the child to recognize the letters in both forms,
and out of sequence also.

Later you can add the sounds that they make.
Such as: Letter Aa ; Apple Annie, Apple Annie (the sound the letter makes) aaaa aaaa aaaa, Apple Annie says aaaa and the letter is A.

Also we use teachable moments this is easy. for example: you want to give your child cookies two for instance. Give him/her one and say one and give the other cookie and say two.

We like to use teddy bear grahams. the kids call it eatin' math.

Answer 8

large beads and a shoe string to string them on.
You can make patterns with colors like 1 red 1 blue 1 red 1 blue etc.
You can use it for counting also or simple addition 1 bead = 1 bead = 2 beads.

Answer 9

my daughter likes coloring rice in her zip lock bags all you do is buy the cheapest rice you can find and add a few drops of food coloring and your child squish the rice around and it will color it, this is a great way to teach colors and mixing colors (blue + yellow = green)

Answer 10

put finger paints inside and slide the childs hands inside and let them paint inside the bag its cool and fun