Want your kid to love reading and outdoor play more than screen time? This post is all about inspiring creativity through preschool picture books and simple play based learning activities. If you long to decrease screen time, increase your kid’s attention span, cultivate a love of reading, promote outdoor play, and encourage natural learning, these ideas are for you.
Don’t forget to read part one of this series for a list of the first ten picture books and activities I shared:
Favorite Preschool Picture Books
Must Read: Roxaboxen by Alice McLerran
This picture book is a classic! Your preschoolers and older elementary aged children will love it. It is a story about neighborhood children who make their own world playing outdoors and the creative ideas they come up with to entertain themselves.
Outdoor Play Activities:
This book has inspired my own children in hours of creative outdoor play. I have watched happily from the sidelines as my kids recreated Roxaboxen in our own backyard with sticks, stones, and other natural materials.
Inspire your children to play by reading them this book and then giving them lots of time and space in nature. Sticks will become swords and horses, old paper towel tubes will become looking glasses, acorns will become pretend scoops of ice cream, blades of grass will become currency, and rocks will become coveted jewels and treasures.
Children were not meant to sit instead for hours a day staring at technology. Eliminate screen time in the preschool years and get your precious ones outdoors so that they can do the good work of childhood and engage in developmentally appropriate play.
Must Read: Flora’s Tree House by Gabriel Alborozo
This is an adorable preschool picture book for siblings. It is about a sister and a brother who rekindle their relationship and have epic imaginary adventures together outside.
Screen Free Activities for Preschoolers:
Provide your children with paper and colored pencils. Set them free outdoors to create their own vivid scenes just like Flora did in this adorable story.
If you or your spouse are handy and up for a project, create a backyard tree house for your kids to enjoy. It can be as simple or elaborate as you choose to make it.
Outdoor Play Vs. Screen Time for Kids
When I was a young girl, my dad built me an outdoor playhouse attached to our garage. He is a skilled carpenter so the house was complete with siding, a real window, and a trap door in the ceiling that led to a second floor. I spent hours in that playhouse alone with my imagination.
Instead of investing in expensive technology, put your money into things that will promote true play. My husband recently bought a couple of hammocks, hung a new swing, and tied large knotted rope around one of our trees. Our children spend hours swinging each other in the hammock and imagining they are pirates in a ship. They soar belly-down in the swing as if they are birds in the sky. They scale the rope up the tree as if they are climbing a mountain.
All of this outdoor play has increased their creativity, endurance, and enjoyment. Ever since we eliminated excessive screen time and started making our backyard an entertaining oasis for kids, we have seen our children thrive. Their sleep, behavior, moods, and overall happiness has improved.
When we restrict screen time, read our kids great books, and promote outdoor play, they will flourish. Play based learning is critical in the early years. Children learning through doing, taking in the natural world with their senses, and listening to engaging stories. Cultivate wonder by getting your preschoolers off of tech and taking them outside everyday.
Why does unstructured play matter so much for kids? Read this:
Must Read: A Little House Picture Book Treasury by Laura Ingalls Wilder
This collection of stories is perfect for preschoolers, kindergarteners, and upper elementary school children. Join Laura of The Little House on the Prairie series in picture book tales about her childhood. Your boys will love these stories too. The young boy Almanzo makes an appearance in several stories.
Simple Activities for Kids:
This book collection will stimulate an appreciation for the simple things in life. Give your kids construction paper, scissors, glue, strips of felt, and markers. Allow them to make paper dolls of their own as they imagine what the simple life was like long ago on the prairie.
In one of the Little House picture book stories, Laura and Mary sit in the attic using pumpkins as stools and root vegetables as toys. Children of the past knew how to entertain themselves with the simplest of props.
Kids today have excess and much of it doesn’t even get played with. We, as modern parents, feel pressure to fill playrooms full of toys for kids. But the truth is, our kids would be more satisfied with the boxes those toys came in. Children get bored with shiny new toys after a very short time.
I am learning that less is more when it comes to kids and play. I have found satisfaction in decluttering our excess and encouraging my kids to play outside. The more we read and go outdoors, the more I see the beauty in a simple, low-tech childhood.
Must Read: How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World by Majorie Priceman
This adorable, short picture book will leave your little one craving something sweet! This is the perfect story to read around the holidays just before baking apple pies.
Simple Kindergarten & Pre-K Play Based Learning Activities:
Provide your kids with a globe or a large laminated map of the world. Let them trace their finger around the path that the main character travelled in this book to purchase her ingredients. Afterwards, have your child color in countries or states in a blank printed map. Dollar Tree sells a pack of United States maps but you can also download free coloring page maps online.
Let your preschooler “pretend bake.” They can use dry pasta, a few inexpensive spices, bowls, measuring cups, spatulas, and ladles to make their own creations, just for fun. This was one of my children’s favorite screen free activities when she was 4 years old.
Encourage your child to illustrate their own map or to paint a picture of an apple tree. If you are feeling adventurous, take your children apple picking and then try your hand at making an apple pie from scratch.
If you are not up for such an endeavor, purchase a pie from Costco. Warm it, slice it up, and serve it with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. Enjoy this decadent dessert with your kids outside beneath a cozy tree.
Must Reads For Gardening With Kids:
Alfie Outdoors by Shirley Hughes, Miss Rumphis by Barbara Cooney & Miss Maple’s Seeds by Eliza Wheeler
These books are beautiful and delightful. The illustrations are gorgeous and the messages tucked in each story will stick with your heart as a read aloud mama long after you close the book.
Play Based Learning Examples:
Grab an assortment of flower seeds and some miniature shovels. Allow your children a patch of your yard to create their very own flower garden. Remind them to weed, water, and maintain their plot a little bit each day.
Also, let your preschooler play in the dirt even when they aren’t gardening. My four year old frequently “waters” the grass with her watering can just for fun. I have seen my kids enjoy simple tools like shovels to dig dirt and baskets to collect rocks more than brand new toys.
Let your little ones discover worms, examine caterpillars, chase butterflies, and count lady bugs on the sidewalk. They will learn so much about science through hands-on exploration of the world around them.
Get your kids outside and comfortable with all sorts of weather. Let them splash in rain puddles and taste snow. Purchase a small rake and allow them to gather piles of crunchy leaves to jump in during the fall. Help them grow vegetables in the summer. Encourage them to pick ripe tomatoes and pop them in their mouth fresh from the garden.
The outdoors are teeming with opportunities for preschoolers to learn through play.
Need help making reading fun for kids? Read this:
Must Read: Harold and the Purple Crayon by Crockett Johnson
This is a short, classic story about a little boy who draws things that come to life. Follow Harold on the silly path he creates to get home in time for bed. Your preschooler will be amused by this adorable picture book for kids.
Easy Preschool Activities:
Give your kid a pack of crayons and some paper to draw up a grand adventure just like Harold did.
Better yet, send your child outdoors with a box of chalk and let them create a story on your sidewalk.
Must Read Picture Books About Knights:
Sir Cumference and All the King’s Tens by Cindy Neuschwander,The Pirate and the Firefly by Amanda Jenkins, Brave Young Knight by Karen Kingsbury, The Princess and the Three Knights by Karen Kingsbury
Fun Play Activities For Preschoolers:
This group of books will ignite the imagination of your little knight. Provide him with a costume from a second hand store. We were able to find a set of child sized armor for just a few dollars at our local thrift shop.
Over time, collect things like shields, plastic swords, helmets, capes, looking glasses, and compasses. Don’t forget the princess costumes and accessories for the little girls in your life.
Build a grand stash of costumes for your little ones to role play in after reading this delightful stack of picture books.
Must Read: Are You My Mother? by. P.D. Easton
Outdoor Play Activities:
Give your children binoculars, a book about birds, and a journal to log their findings. Have them spend the morning bird watching in the backyard or at a local park if you are up to a trip.
Must Read: Bee-Bim Bop
This fun picture book for preschoolers and kindergarteners has a catchy rhythm and tune. There is lots of repetition as you follow along with the main character on her journey to make her family’s favorite meal.
Screen Free Learning Activities For Children:
Provide pretend fruit, vegetables, and a shopping basket. Let your kids set up their own grocery store in the living room and shop for supper. If you are up to a more hands on activity, take your children to the real market and prepare Bee-Bim Bop for supper.
Must Read: Katy No Pocket by Emma Payne
I adore this picture book. It is about a kangaroo with no pocket and her quest to find her place in the jungle.
Play Activities for Kids:
Have your children play with their stash of pretend animals and reenact the story. If you are up for a trip, spend the afternoon at the zoo!
Enjoying delightful picture books and playing outside should be second nature to children but unfortunately, most neighborhood streets today are vacant of kids riding bicycles, playing make believe, and flipping through stories on the front lawn.
While kids walking around with their own electronic devices has become the norm, children reading books for pleasure and playing outside for hours on end has become increasingly more rare.
In our community, we are often the only family enjoying the outdoors despite the fact that our area is filled with young children.
While my kids climb trees, cruise around on scooters, and crack open books on a picnic blanket, their peers are inside playing video games.
This should not be so.
We as parents have the power to make the simple things in life attractive to our children. Picture books, free play, and time in nature ought to be things our kids look forward to.
Which picture book and screen free activity from this list are you most excited to provide for your child?
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