Waiting in Line with Preschoolers? Here are 10 Fun Things to do Right now

Preschool child waiting. Photo by Pavel Jedlicka

Waiting in line with preschoolers is a daunting task. Things can get ugly fast if you don’t have fun things to do and you are not an experienced preschool teacher. No one likes to wait in line. According to a the Telegraph, Britons on average spend 6 months of their lives queuing up, or about 5 1/2 hours a month. It takes great patience for busy adults to stand idly for any length of time. But when you find yourself waiting in line with preschoolers for any longer than a few minutes, patience is nearly impossible to muster. Long airport lines and especially international flights originating in the U.S. have got to be the two most irritating places to find yourself trapped when you are in the company of bored and irritable preschoolers. Nothing causes a parent sweaty palms more than idol minds, fidgety fingers, and restless legs forced to stay put and keep quiet for a half-hour or more. Here are a few fun things to do while you are waiting in line with your preschooler to make your time go by a little faster. Whether or not you are a parent or preschool teacher, these are sure to please!

Here is a quick and simple list of fun things to do that will stop the whining while you’re waiting in line with your preschoolers:

1. Floor tile Fun:

If you happen to be standing near multi-colored floor tiles like the terrazzo designed tiles at the Harrisburg International Airport in Pennsylvania, this fun game is perfect for you. While waiting in line with your preschoolers, ask your little ones to hop on each color, shape, letter, or image as you call it out. The Harrisburg terrazzo offers lions, flags, letters of the alphabet, circles, stars, and even faces. If you are a preschool teacher you can simply tape letters of the alphabet or images representing sounds on pieces of paper all around your room. Offer praise for the fastest hop, most accurate landing, best listener, etc….

2. Peruse the Shoes:

Ask your preschoolers to count and sort all the shoes they see while waiting in line. You’d be surprised at how much fun this activity can be, and how willing other line-waiters often are to join in the fun. How many people have on black shoes? open-toed shoes, gym shoes? Who’s wearing shoes without socks? A preschool teacher can also add to the fun by helping the kids create a colorful graph about their classroom shoes. How many kids have laces? How many kids have velcro ties? The options are endless.

3. ABCs Hiding from Me:

This is a fun thing to do if your preschool child can recognize at least some of his or her letters. Most long lines are fully equipped with plenty of signs around for your viewing pleasure. You can say you see an “A” and then let the child locate the “A” by going under it and pointing at it. When the child becomes more proficient, just up the anti by only giving the letter’s sound, then asking them to name it and find it. Long waits, such as in an airport terminal may allow you to go through the alphabet from A to Z. Anything is game if you are really stuck for time, even reading material being used by those in your immediate proximity, as long as you ask politely and your neighbor waiting in line with you is receptive.

Recommended Books:

4. Eye-Spy With My Eye:

This fun favorite waiting in line with preschoolers game has very simple rules. You see something and give out clues until your preschooler correctly guesses what you are looking at. We like to make the game more elaborate as the child ages, but the simplest way to play is by naming a color that you see and asking your preschooler to find an object of the very same color. Objects named that are the correct color are always correct when we play with our preschoolers, even if that is not the originally intended object. When the child answers correctly then it is their turn to choose a color and make the parent guess.

5. Simon Says:

Looking for more fun things to do right now? Simon Says is a fun game when you don’t have any toys or props handy. We play a modified version of this while waiting in line with our kids at the airport. This is necessary if you are including toddlers two and under. Basically, Simon always says and no one is ever out. We play continually until Mommy or Daddy repeats a command (accidentally on purpose, of course). The kids will shout that they did it already, thus Mommy and Daddy lose and the kids win. Game over. Some good commands for standing still are: clap your hands, touch your nose, count to 10, stick out your tongue, stand on your tippy toes, etc… The littlest toddlers will always try to imitate the older ones and can be quite amusing to watch.

6. Walk the Line:

Need to keep the noise down? Try this fun game out. Walk the line is a quiet game to play while waiting in line with preschoolers. This isn’t a Johnnie Cash solo, but if you are fortunate enough to have it downloaded into your ipod or nano then you can relax to it while the kids are busy trying to stay on task. You need to have a floor with either grout lines or stripes in the carpeting or linoleum. The basic rule is that the preschoolers have to keep both feet either on or off the lines (depending on pattern and child’s skill level). Give the kids at least three chances to misstep before eliminating contestants. This game works great for the preschool teacher who makes daily trips to the bathroom with his or her entire preschool class. Winner chooses the next game to play, or if you are a preschool teacher, gets to be line leader the next time.

Recommended Books:

7. What am I?:

This fun waiting in line with preschoolers game is similar to charades, but we keep the guessing to a minimum by only acting out animal sounds and actions. Everyone gets equal turns and everyone is a winner when they guess the right animal!

8. Counting Coins:

Are you waiting in line with your preschoolers for an extended period of time? If you are desperate and have some spare change in a change purse there are countless things you can do with it. Your preschooler can sort them by size, count how many there are, arrange them in a line, stack them to make towers, and learn to name them with your help. I always reward my kids by letting them keep the coin if they can tell me what it is and after they’ve mastered that, how much it is worth. Then there is the issue of spending it….

9. Cup Toss:

If you are in your thirties and grew up near Chicago, this great preschooler game is akin to Bozo’s Grand Prize Game:

Cup Toss is a good game for waiting in line if you can get a hold of a couple of clean coffee cups and a couple of pieces of paper. Just take the cups and place them in a line. Crinkle the paper into tight balls and tell your youngsters to stand in a designated spot. The kids will take turns trying to throw the paper wads into the cups. (The younger the child, the closer the cup, of course.) If you can’t find cups or your child is unable to get the paper in the cup just get a sheet of paper big enough and have them try to throw the wad onto the paper. This is also a favorite game for preschool class parties during holiday times.

10. Rhyme Time:

If you have exhausted this list and still have time to kill while you wait for a connecting flight, delayed bus or train, or are at the DMV (Department of Motor Vehicles) trying to renew your license, this fun game may just save your sanity and keep your preschooler from forgetting his good manners. Just start with a letter of the alphabet, for example, “A”. Then ask your child for a word that begins with “A”; (let’s assume he or she says “Apple”). Now everyone has to rhyme with apple, all the way up to the letter “Z”. Bapple, Capple, Dapple, Eapple, Fapple, Gapple, Happle, … Zapple. This one will cause a lot of giggles and perhaps a few questions about what these other words mean. For really silly Seuss loving kids this is a great game for making up definitions to silly words and trying them out.

Well, there you have it, a handy list of fun games to play while waiting in line with preschoolers!

Need some additional resources? Have only one child to entertain? Try our list of Top 10 Educational and Fun Websites for You and Your Preschooler or our list of Top Ten Point and Click Online Games for Toddlers.