7 Creative Development Activities for Preschoolers to Inspire Young Minds

Children are born creative. If you doubt that even for a single second, give any three or four-year-old some paints and an empty room. You’d be surprised at all the modern art adorning the walls (and his body parts and clothes) in less than ten minutes.

However, these pint-sized artists need a little guidance to channel all that creativity into something productive, and that’s where we, as parents, step in.

Creative development in preschoolers is all about nurturing their overactive imagination and promoting skills important for their social, mental, and physical development.

Does that sound too complicated? Well, don’t worry! There is nothing remotely complicated about teaching creativity to kids because… (read the first line again).

Listed below are 7 super fun creative development activities for preschoolers that are as easy as making your child eat choco-chip cookies and are sure to boost his creative genius too.

1. Cool Paint Animals

For this activity, you’ll need one large sheet of paper and a few paints.

Fold the sheet of paper into half and then unfold it. Ask your preschooler to put blobs of paint on one half of the paper. It could be a single color or a mixture of few.

Now fold the other half of the paper over the paint while it’s still wet and tell your little artist to gently smooth the paper over the paint with his tiny hands. Let him enjoy the task for a while.

Then unfold the paper carefully and voila…you have a beautiful butterfly with interesting patterns on its wings! Or is it a fairy with a magical wand? Or a spider with funny-looking legs?

Let your child’s imagination run free. Encourage him to make out which animal he has formed. Let him point out its body parts to you. For similar activities, check out these 10 kindergarten art projects!

2. Role Playing

My preschooler just ‘looooves’ her bedtime story sessions, unlike her super-tired-at-the-end-of-the-day mom.

Every night, I convince myself that her love for stories is more important than my love for sleep, and get to task hoping against hope that she falls asleep in the next five minutes.

That she never does is another story.

Now on nights that I’m not too keen on hitting the pillow, we decide to act out roles from stories. My little one loves playing Cinderella. Which role I get to play (step mother or fairy godmother) really depends on her mood, but we sure have a lot of fun!

What’s more, using role play to respond to the story helps her develop important communication skills and builds up her confidence too.

3. Fun with Everyday Objects

I firmly believe that you don’t need expensive toys to keep your toddler or preschooler busy.

Using everyday objects like old newspaper, glue, empty plastic bottles, strips of ribbon, cardboard boxes, empty toilet rolls etc. for simple, fun activities is a great way to encourage creative development in preschoolers.

For example, you can collect leaves of different shapes from the garden, dip them in paint and help your preschooler create their impressions.

Or you can just empty a cardboard box and give it to your little one. He could turn it into a house for his favorite teddy or a garage for his cars.

Even the spoons and pans in your kitchen can make a wonderful drum kit for your little one. Just don’t forget to plug your ears with some cotton balls before he begins his gig.

4. Play Dough Creativity

I am sure all preschoolers are fascinated with animals. Mine is currently obsessed with apes. No matter which one of them she sees, she insists on calling ALL of them ‘gorilla’.

Anyway, a super fun activity to boost your little champ’s creativity is to make a batch of play dough and have your little one make animal shapes with cookie cutters. Help her paint and decorate them later on.

You can find some interesting play dough recipes here.

5. Sponge-y Delight

For this fun activity, just cut sponges into simple shapes like circles, hearts, stars, and squares.

Now let your budding artist dip them into different colors and dab away on a sheet of paper to create a masterpiece!

This simple activity will teach your child shape recognition along with giving her the ability to showcase her creative genius.

6. Tearing and pasting

Don’t preschoolers just loving tearing paper! At least mine does! So I decided to put this not-so-exciting hobby of hers to some good use.

On days she really feels the itch to tear some paper, I hide all the insurance papers I can find at home (which I didn’t do a few months back and faced the repercussions!) and give her tissue papers of different colors to tear.

Then, I give her some glue and a sheet of paper with some object drawn on it. Now she has to paste those torn pieces of tissue paper onto that object using her imagination and creativity.

For example, you can draw a big apple with a leaf on top and give your munchkin one red and one green colored tissue paper that he has to tear and paste in the picture.

Besides being extremely satisfying and fun for your tiny tot, these tearing and pasting activities are a great way to develop his fine motor skills too.

7. Get them to vote

I know preschoolers do not having voting rights in any of the countries on this planet as of now, but that doesn’t mean they cannot vote!

Summer vs. Winter, Dogs vs. Cats, Spiderman vs. Batman, Pizza vs. Pasta, Icecream vs. Choco-chip Cookies, Mommy vs. Daddy…

Okay, cut out the last one for everyone’s mental well-being.

Encourage your child to vote for things he likes and ask him to give reasons why he voted for them. Try to have a small debate.

Activities like this help your child develop the power of reasoning, which is a very crucial skill for young minds on their way to kindergarten.

So you see, developing creativity in little ones need not require too much time and effort. Just engage your preschooler in these simple-yet-fun creative activities for toddlers and get ready to watch him at his best!