Homeschooling: FREE Preschool Activities

This year I am teaching my two older ones 1st and 2nd grade.  We have Bible and story time as a family, but while we are doing Math and English I need activities to keep my 3 year old close, but quiet.  Here are some of our favorites that I made for free, mostly from things I had around the house.

Color Matching:

I was in the Home Depot picking out paint colors when I came across these cute color samples.  I grabbed two of each of the basic colors and now we have a matching game. ( Free!)

Lacing Beads:

A shoelace and some chunky wooden beads...so simple but he loves this one.  He will lace the beads on with such concentration.  We match by color or bead shape, or make patterns.  It's great for fine motor skills too.  (This is obviously for littles that are past that put-everything-in-my-mouth stage)

Matching Shapes:

I cut pairs of shapes out of card stock.  I glued one set to another sheet of card stock and laminated everything with clear contact paper for durability.  Kids can match the loose shapes to the ones on the card.


Fun with Felt:

I have a huge stash of felt in every color of the rainbow and I am constantly trying to find new things to make with it.  Felt sticks to itself, so I give the kids a small sheet and various cut out shapes and they make pictures with the pieces.

I've also made sets.  We have a felt pizza: a brown circle for the crust, a smaller red circle for the sauce another white circle for the cheese and then lots of felt toppings.  They love designing their own pizza!

For ABC practice, I wrote the alphabet on a sheet of felt with permanent markers.  I cut out pictures that start with each letter.  They match the pieces to the letter sounds.

Junk Jar:

 I have an empty peanut butter jar full of lots of little random things.  Buttons, ribbons, paperclips, trinkets...The kids love to sort them by shape, color, texture, material...

To play "I Spy", they shake and spin the jar, searching for the object that the other is giving clues for.  They can also search for items beginning with a certain letter.

All these activities are put in their own zipper bags and kept in a drawer (or box).  I told my preschooler that this is his schoolwork and when we get out our books for school, he runs over to grab one of his activities.  He is really proud of them and it has been a huge help for me.
A few minutes of preparing these has brought much more peace to our day.