Helpful Tips for Parents

• Teach the value of revision: show the child how making something better is part of the work. Re-doing a section to improve it is a skill that transfers to writing, coding, and design.

• Celebrate finished projects with an audience — a small presentation to family, a display at preschool, a photograph sent to grandparents. Public celebration of completed work builds the completion habit.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can technology be part of a preschooler's project?

Yes — technology as a tool within a project is different from passive screen consumption. A child using a tablet to photograph their project, record a video tour of their creation, or listen to instructions is using technology as a tool within a making context. Simple stop-motion animation apps (where children photograph clay or block constructions frame by frame) are genuinely engaging project tools from age 4. Voice-recording apps allow children to narrate their project process — a form of emergent literacy. The distinction: technology as a tool within a project = productive; technology replacing the making = unproductive.

Related reading: See also our outdoor building and play and our cooking projects guide for more ideas on this topic.

🎓 Skills Your Child Will Develop

• 🔬 Science & Engineering — Projects that must actually function — a structure that holds weight, a boat that floats, a plant that grows — teach engineering principles through direct experience that textbook learning can't replicate.
• 🤝 Collaboration — Projects done with a parent, sibling, or group require negotiating roles, dividing tasks, and integrating different contributions — developing the collaborative skills that every complex adult endeavor requires.
• 💡 Design Thinking — Imagining what a project will look like before building it, adjusting the design when it doesn't work, and refining until satisfied introduces the iterative design thinking cycle that underlies engineering, art, and innovation.
• 💪 Persistence & Resilience — Multi-step projects that take real time and encounter real obstacles build the persistence and resilience that research consistently identifies as more predictive of success than intelligence or talent.

**Learn how to reduce back to school anxiety in your preschooler.

Treasure Chest

Make a place to keep all of those "treasures".

Grocery Shopping Fun

Turn this daunting chore into a fun, enjoyable trip.

The Ultimate Double-Sided Activity Table

I wanted a train table for my son's wooden train set, but I wasn't willing to pay $200 for one. So, my husband and I set up shop in the garage and created our own.

The Ultimate Double-Sided Activity Table is much more than the simple train table I was looking for. First, it is double-sided, so allows you to glue a wooden train set to one side and staple thick plastic to the other side for messy crafts, if you should so desire. It's great for seating 12 preschoolers for a birthday party, setting up train sets, having a tea party, making crafts, painting, cooking, and anything else you can think of. I guarantee that this multi-purpose table will have all your friends saying, "Wow! Did you make that?".

Materials You Will Need

1 - 6' piece of 4"x4" wood (legs)

3 - 10' pieces of 1"x4" wood (sides)

8'x4' - 3/4" plywood (table)

2 1/2" Size 10 wood screws

4 Casters

Sand paper and sander

Circular saw

Drill

Safety glasses

How to Make it

Step 1:

Cut the 4"x4" to the desired height of your table (these will be the legs of the table). We cut ours to 13".

Step 2:

From one of the 1"x4" boards, cut two lengths of 4' 1/4" each. These two boards will make up the two short sides of the table.

Step 3:

Take the two remaining 1"x4" boards and cut them to 8' 1 3/4". These two boards will make up the two long sides of the table.

Step 4:

Cut out a semi-circle like shape on each of the short ends of the plywood. These will act as hand grips for picking up and flipping the table surface.

Step 5:

Sand the wood after all cuts have been made. Be sure to sand all the edges and corners till they are partially rounded. That way they will be very smooth and will not cause injury.

Step 6:

Attach casters to the bottom of each leg.

Step 7:

Attach the 1"x4" boards (which make up the sides of the table) to the legs to create a "frame" or "box" around the four legs. You will want to attach the boards to the legs in such a way so that when the plywood is in place, you will have a 1 - 1 1/2" lip around the perimeter of the table. That way, the plywood will be recessed, sitting on the legs of the table. NOTE: Be sure to pre-drill the holes before screwing in the screws.

Step 8:

Place the plywood in the table frame on top of the legs.

How to Liven it Up

As stated in the description above, you can glue a wooden train set to one side, and staple a thick plastic "drop cloth" to the other side. Then, depending on what you want to use the table for, you can just give it a quick flip and voila...you've got the perfect table!

Also, if you'd like to get your preschooler involved in this project, you can have them paint the table once it's finished.

My Two Cents

We absolutely love this table. It now serves as our dining room table. We dismantled our dining room table and put it into storage. We use our table everyday for crafts, painting, coloring, and playing. It's been great for holding playgroups at our house, and parties are great now that we have somewhere for the kids to gather around. I don't know how we got by before we built it!

I'm Stacey Lloyd , the Executive Editor and one of many writers for PreschoolRock.com. I enjoy writing about preschoolers, and reading your ideas and ex