I just love a reason to get festive with our creative and learning play around the holidays and of course, it gives me every reason to shop the Target dollar spot. These red, white, and blue patriotic preschool activities are all great for fine motor skills development as well as incorporating other early learning skills such as learning colors, counting, and even an early introduction to the United States flag and traditions.
All of these materials were purchased at Target in the dollar spot or at Dollar Tree. What’s great though is that even though these particular activities are patriotic themed, the same concept can be used with materials you may already have on hand. And, I’m excited to share how the same materials can be used in multiple ways to get more bang for your buck!
Materials:
Patriotic themed stickers
Red, white, and blue patriotic window gel clings
Muffin pan
Star-shaped erasers
Red, White, and Blue Preschool Activity #1
This first activity was just getting creative with these red, white, and blue window gel clings. We used two packages of the gel clings and made pictures on paper instead of sticking them to the window. Stick them back on the plastic sleeves and use them again!
Red, White, and Blue Preschool Activity #2
A mini muffin pan from the dollar store makes for a great sorting tray! I simply drop one star eraser in each and then my son sorts the rest of the erasers by color. Just think of the possiblities to get creative with this activity…what about patterns?! :)
Red, White, and Blue Preschool Activity #3
This activity is perfect for fine motor skills development. My toddler helped place stickers in a random pattern on a sheet of paper. Although, this could also be done with placing the stickers in an actual shape outline if you’d prefer (such as a star or flag outline).
Then, he placed the star erasers (used again from the previous sorting activity) to cover up the stickers. An easy twist would be to toss some listening comprehension in and give specific oral directions such as “place the red star on the red sticker.”
Red, White, and Blue Preschool Activity #4
This patriotic preschool activity combines materials from the other activities. We placed the window gel cling stars at the top of a piece of paper and then sorted the star erasers by color. This is another opportunity to practice color sorting, fine motor development, and then we practiced counting the stars as well!
Fun, fun, and fun!
We’ve had a lot of fun getting creative with these red, white and blue materials! These are quick prep and perfect for short-attention spans. Sure hope you found this useful and just maybe you can enjoy these fun and easy patriotic preschool activities!
Do you get excited to combine learning with holiday themes?
Fun! I don’t have kids yet, but I teach art to preschoolers and I could use this as a good way to learn to talk about colors and shapes!
That’s wonderful, Lydia! I’m so glad you may be able to use the ideas! My boys certainly enjoyed it and learning through play is always so fun.
That’s wonderful, Lydia! I’m so glad you may be able to use the ideas! My boys certainly enjoyed it and learning through play is always so fun.
Great activities. Love the patriotic theme too!
Thank you! They are just perfect to keep little ones entertained and learning!
Cute! My toddler is just about old enough to enjoy this. :)
Thanks, Emily! Glad you found the ideas useful!
Great ideas! My oldest is 5 but he’d love to do these as well.
Thank you so much, Naya! Yes, there are so many ways to adapt for the child’s needs. Muffin pans are even great for sorting alphabet letters. :)
I love all these. I’ll have to try them with my daughter. She is the perfect age for this.
So happy this was helpful, Rachel! Hope she enjoys the activities! Have a lovely weekend.
cute ideas! these would be perfect to keep my four year old practicing shapes and colors this summer.
Thank you, Jessica! I agree – any way to keep learning going and keep it fun! :)
This is the cutest idea ever! I used to teach preschool and this would be perfect for them!
Keep smiling
Molly | http://www.stylemissmolly.com
Thanks so much, Molly! You’re the sweetest.
Such fun ideas! I’m always looking for new ways to entertain my preschoolers, so these are perfect. Love the mini muffin tin!
Thanks Shann! The muffin tin is fun for a lot of sorting activities. Hope your boys enjoy them. <3
These are so great! I can do them today with my kids, thanks!
So glad you found this helpful, Monica! Thanks for reading.
Thanks for sharing — I love the idea of the 3rd activity. What a fun way to work on fine motor skills!
Thanks, Lora! I love simple activities that also sneak in the learning + fun and the stickers and object placement activity is perfect for that. :)
I love all of these activities! I am definitely adding these to our list! Thanks!
Awww I’m so glad, Katie. Hope you had a Happy 4th!
How fun are these! I will have to look back on these next year. This year the kids were not really into any of the celebration activities I tried.