🎓 Skills Your Child Will Develop
- 🌈 Sensory Exploration — Safe exploration of varied textures, temperatures, and materials helps children build a rich sensory map of the world and supports self-regulation in children with sensory processing differences.
- 🎯 Focus & Attention — Sustaining engagement with an activity long enough to complete it builds the voluntary attention control that children need for listening in class, reading, and all forms of academic learning.
- 😌 Emotional Self-Regulation — Managing the feelings that arise during activities — frustration when something doesn't work, excitement, disappointment at the end — builds the self-regulation foundation that distinguishes emotionally ready kindergarteners.
- 🧠 Executive Function — Planning an activity, following multi-step directions, and seeing a project through to completion builds the executive function skills — working memory, cognitive flexibility, and inhibitory control — that are the strongest predictors of school success.
Preschoolers love popsicles! What could be better than a tasty frozen treat in the summer? How about a nutritious frozen treat that’s not only delicious, but fun to make too! Roll out the cookie cutters and create some watermelon frozen fruit pops with your preschooler. These unique pops are sure to become a summer favorite.
What You Will Need
Watermelon sliced in approximately 3-inch thick rounds
Popsicle Sticks
Cookie Cutters
What to Do
Step 1:
Lay out the watermelon rounds on a flat surface.
Step 2:
Have your preschooler cut out shapes from the watermelon with different cookie cutters.
Step 3:
Help your preschooler insert a popsicle stick into the bottom of each watermelon shape.
Step 4:
Put watermelon pops in the freezer until ready serve.
Step 5:
Eat and enjoy!
Watermelon Frozen Fruit Pop Tip
Use the watermelon scraps leftover from the cookie cutter activity to whip up some fresh and delicious watermelon juice.
Easy Watermelon Juice
More Cookie Cutter Friendly Foods
Cookie cutters aren’t just for cookies. Your preschooler is sure to have fun using cookie cutters to make shapes out of a variety of foods. Cookie cutter friendly foods include: Rice Krispie Treats, Jello, Sandwiches, Cheddar Cheese Slices, Bologna and Pancakes.
Cookie Cutter Tip
Cookie cutters also make fantastic Play-Doh tools!
I’m
Julie Pirkle, the Preschool Activities writer for PreschoolRock.com. As the mother of two young and imaginative boys, preschool activities are a standard part of my daily routine. The preschool years are a wonderful time of discovery and amusement that parents and preschoolers will cherish for a lifetime. I am thrilled to share this journey with you by combining my love of writing with my passion for kids. If you have any comments, suggestions or questions for Preschool Activities, please
contact me.
Activities that allow each sibling to engage at their own developmental level work best: building with blocks (toddler stacks, preschooler builds structures, older child engineers complex designs), art (each makes what they can), baking (each has an age-appropriate task). Avoid activities where one sibling's participation spoils the other's — matching academic difficulty is the main conflict source. Physical activities with a cooperative rather than competitive structure are usually most successful across age gaps.
Most preschoolers engage most deeply in 20–40 minute activity windows. Shorter sessions don't allow for the warming-up and deepening that makes activities richest; longer ones risk overtiredness. Watch the child's engagement rather than the clock — the right time to end is when engagement is still high, before it drops.
