What To Do

Give each preschooler a white piece of paper. Write each preschoolers name at the top of the paper, or help each preschooler to write their own name. Ask if anyone knows what the word "unique" means. Tell them that unique means that there is only one of something. Have every preschooler hold up their hands and tell them that their hands are unique. Tell the preschoolers that there are no two people in the world who have the exact same fingerprint.

Give each preschooler a magnifying glass and have them look at their fingertips closely. Ask the preschoolers to describe what they see on their fingertips. Have the preschoolers draw what they see on their fingertips in the center of their white paper.

Help each preschooler to use the ink pad to make fingerprints on their paper. Encourage them to make fingerprints of all of their fingers.

Line up all of the fingerprinted papers on a table. Have the preschoolers take their magnifying glasses to the table and look at everyone's fingerprints. Ask preschoolers to look closely at the differences that everyone has in their fingerprints.

Like this article? Get more like it in your inbox. Subscribe today to our free weekly newsletter.

Helpful Tips for Parents

• Choose toys that grow with the child: open-ended materials (blocks, clay, art supplies) remain valuable for years; single-use toys with one correct answer produce brief engagement.

• Children's questions are assessment data. The questions a child asks reveal their current conceptual level and what they're ready to learn next.

• Avoid academic pressure before age 5. Preschool children's brains are not developmentally ready for formal academic instruction, and premature pressure backfires.

• Use mathematical language all day: "more than," "less than," "half," "equal," "twice as much." Incidental math vocabulary builds the conceptual foundation formal math builds on.

• Expose children to multiple languages early if possible. The preschool window is the most efficient period for language acquisition the brain will ever have.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the most important educational skill to develop before kindergarten?

Executive function — the cluster of skills that includes working memory, cognitive flexibility, and inhibitory control — is the strongest predictor of kindergarten and long-term academic success. Executive function is built through play (especially complex pretend play), physical activity, music, and responsive adult interaction. It cannot be taught through drills or worksheets. A child with strong executive function can learn academic content readily when developmentally ready; a child with weak executive function struggles regardless of academic knowledge.

Should my preschooler be reading before kindergarten?

Reading before kindergarten is possible for some children and developmentally not expected of most. The literacy skills that predict reading success — phonological awareness (hearing sounds in words), letter knowledge, print awareness, and vocabulary — are the appropriate focus before age 5. These skills are built through: reading aloud daily, nursery rhymes and songs, alphabet activities, and rich conversation. A preschooler who loves books, knows their letters, and has a large vocabulary is fully reading-ready, whether or not they can decode words independently.

Related reading: See also our counting activities and our writing readiness guide for more ideas on this topic.

🎓 Skills Your Child Will Develop

• 📚 Pre-Reading Skills — Activities that involve letters, sounds, rhymes, and print directly build the phonological awareness and letter knowledge that are the two strongest predictors of successful reading development.
• 🤔 Critical Thinking — Being asked "why do you think that?" and forming and defending an answer develops the analytical reasoning children need for reading comprehension, mathematics, and evidence-based argumentation.
• ✏️ Pre-Writing Development — Drawing, tracing, and early mark-making develop the fine motor control and visual-motor integration that handwriting requires — making every drawing activity a contribution to writing readiness.
• 📖 Story Structure Understanding — Understanding that stories have a beginning, problem, solution, and ending develops narrative comprehension — the mental schema children use to make sense of increasingly complex texts throughout their school years.

Preschoolers love to be special. This preschool science activity will help preschoolers to understand that no two people are exactly the same. Preschoolers will learn that even their fingerprints are uniquely their own.

What You Need

White Paper

A non-toxic Ink Pad

Preschool sized magnifying glasses

Crayons

Questions to Ask Your Child

Use these open-ended prompts to extend the learning during or after the activity:

• "What was the most interesting thing you learned today?"
• "Can you explain this to a stuffed animal as if they've never heard of it?"
• "What part do you want to practice more?"
• "How is this connected to something you already know?"
• "What would you want to learn more about?"
• "If you were the teacher, what would you tell the class about this?"

There are no right or wrong answers to any of these questions. The goal is to keep the conversation going, model curious thinking, and give your child practice putting their experience into words.