Ten Fun Activities for Parents and their Gifted Preschoolers

As a mother of three very young and inquisitive little boys I am guilty of hiring the electronic babysitter while doing laundry, making dinner, and talking on the phone. And I am sure if I did an informal telephone interview with other mothers I would find this to be true for most everyone. I know that excessive T.V. watching without adequate interaction will cause verbal delays. That’s just common sense. We don’t just plop our kids down in front of the television for hours on end and then just walk away. So in lieu of the recent Baby Einstein shake up I thought I would take a moment to jot down a few very successful non-television activities that my boys and I have done together this summer. They both have busy little minds and are often easily bored so I have to get creative quite often to keep them occupied.

Here is my quick list of activities that we enjoyed and might be fun for you to do with your gifted preschooler before the dog days of summer come to a close:

1. The boys completed monthly activity boxes fresh from Brighter Vision Learning Adventures. I highly recommend these, and if you go to their website you’ll get a free sample delivered to your house. The box comes with a bedtime story, activity book, craft, and stickers. It is perfect for the advanced 2-5 year old who wants to do a bit more than what he or she is being exposed to at daycare or preschool. It is also the perfect companion when you want to take the family to a restaurant. It will keep them busy, busy, busy!
2. We spent an entire afternoon building a fort out of wet sand at the beach. Each child selected a job for himself. It was fun watching them work together to haul buckets and dump trucks of water from the water’s edge to their little construction site. The best part of this activity is that it is virtually free! We just had to pay for parking.
3. The boys also worked on monthly activity boxes from The Young Scientists Club. My kids both share one box and they love doing the experiments with me. Each box includes a letter to the parent and all the materials needed to complete the experiments. There are usually three in each kit and take more than one sitting to complete. I like this product because it is designed to be meaningful for the child at whatever level of understanding he or she is at. This kit is also great for a heterogeneous grouping.
4. We took a helicopter ride, then spent the next few weeks talking about, drawing, and reading about planes and helicopters.
5. We played “I spy with my little eye” approximately 100 times in the car, each one trying to out-do the last person until mommy or daddy were “stumped for good”.
6. We bought a used Fisher-Price ride-on police jeep at a local garage sale and then spent the next month giving driving lessons. Now we have two NASCAR drivers on our hands and a lot of dead grass in the yard.
7. We took a vacation with the family and gave both boys a memory book to draw and write in about their experiences away from home. Now that they are finished they’re priceless.
8. We joined a summer reading program at our local library, and read over 25 books, some more than others. We learned a lot about outer space, dinosaurs, the weather, and Aesop’s Fables to name a few.
9. We went to the Children’s Theatre and saw a high school production of Suessical then spent the rest of the week singing what we had to say instead of saying it.
10. We spent countless hours with our various Lego kits. Our favorite ones have to be the Lego Crazy Action Contraptions: A Lego Inventions Book and the Lego Classic House Building Set.
11. We crashed a lot of cars, played numerous games of go-fish, ate our share of ice cream, and took sometimes two baths a day just to stay clean.

One final note on the Baby Einstein issue: I was surprised when I did a little digging on the subject. I learned that the Baby Einstein study was only based on an observational over-the-phone interview with parents of children between two months and two years old. It made me question the validity of this whole water-cooler topic, and the media’s “jump on the bandwagon” mentality. Neither gives parents credit for all that we do to teach our children about life outside of the realm of the almighty electronic picture box.

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The editor of Healthy-family.org has a master's degree in English from Northern Illinois University and a bachelor of science degree in special education. She has taught students from early elementary school through college freshman level. Today she enjoys reading and writing about both hot topics and those not so commonly discussed on other websites. Most of her days are spent playing all kinds of make-believe with her three very young and active sons. | All articles by Caryn Talty.