🎓 Skills Your Child Will Develop
- 🏆 Pride & Accomplishment — Completing a real project — something that works, that's given as a gift, or that solves a real problem — produces a depth of pride and accomplishment that short activities and exercises cannot generate.
- 🌍 Real-World Competence — Projects that solve real problems or produce real results — a bird feeder that birds actually use, a garden that produces food — build genuine competence and connect children to the productive adult world.
- 🎯 Attention to Detail — Projects that require precise measurements, careful steps, or quality execution teach children to slow down, pay attention to detail, and care about doing something well — not just doing it.
- 📋 Planning & Sequencing — Planning a project — identifying what's needed, sequencing steps, and working through to completion — develops the executive planning skills that academic projects, writing, and complex problem solving all require.
Preschool nature projects encourage exploration of the great outdoors. Parents and preschoolers use elements in nature to create learning tools involving discovery of the world around us. Preschool nature projects develop an appreciation for the trees, plants, flowers and other fascinating things in our natural world. By creating preschool nature projects, you offer opportunities for your preschooler to develop a love of science and nature.
Featured Preschool Nature Projects
Preschool Nature Collage 
Make a nature collage with your preschooler. Take a walk with your preschooler and explore the happenings outside. Make this learning experience memorable by making a collage of interesting items found in nature.
Homemade Bird Feeder
Does your preschooler love animals? Make a with your preschooler and attract birds to your yard! Preschoolers are overjoyed by the responsibility of feeding the birds.
Featured Preschool Book
Dragon's Halloween is a laugh out loud book about Dragon's adventures on Halloween. This book is sure to make preschoolers laugh out loud. Dragon can not decide which costume to wear on Halloween so he wears a combination of three different costumes to a costume party. Dragon is scared of some fierce sounding growling he hears in the woods until he realizes the growling is coming from his own stomach! This book combines Halloween fun and learning at the same time.
Around PreschoolRock.com
My Leafy Family
With so many pretty fall leaves falling off the trees now, take some time and collect them with your preschooler and watch what fun you can have with them.
Treasure Chest
Every preschooler needs a treasure chest! Why? Because preschoolers love to collect things. They find rocks, seashells, leaves, and other "exciting" things during their exploration of the world that they want to keep. A treasure chest is just the place to keep these items.
Preschool Garden Markers
Spring brings the love of gardening. Preschoolers love to dig in the dirt and help Mommy and Daddy plant flowers, herbs and plants. Once you've planted your garden, why not create some beautiful garden markers?
I'm
Monica Paynter, the Preschool Projects writer for PreschoolRock.com. As the Mom of two preschoolers, I love creating projects with my children. Projects promote positive relationships between parents and preschoolers. If you have any suggestions, questions or ideas for this site, please
contact me.
Appropriate preschool projects share several characteristics: they have a clear, achievable goal the child can understand and care about; they involve multiple sessions of engaged work (not just one sitting); they produce something the child is proud to display or use; and they involve the child's active participation rather than adult execution with child watching. Great preschool project categories: construction (building something functional or decorative), growing (plants, crystals), cooking (multi-step recipes ending in something edible), and creative-arts (a book, a collection, a mural).
Cleanup is part of the project — establish this from the first session. End each session 10 minutes before you need to stop for cleanup time. Make cleanup as specific as possible: "Brushes go in the cup, lids go back on the paint jars, newspaper goes in the recycling." Specificity prevents the vague "clean up" command that children correctly don't know how to execute. Stay present during cleanup — a child cleaning up alone quickly loses motivation; a child cleaning up alongside an adult stays engaged. Acknowledge completed cleanup: "The space is ready for the next project."
