Help your preschooler learn about their bodies through fun and interactive activities.
Teaching children about their bodies helps them understand how important all the different parts are.
Learning how each part of their body works together encourages kids to take care of their bodies through exercise and healthy food. Not to mention that body parts have weird and wonderful functions that preschoolers will love learning about.
Through engaging sensory activities, preschoolers can learn to appreciate just how amazing their bodies are.
Some of the benefits of body parts activities for preschoolers are:
Try these body parts activities that can be done in and out of the classroom:
This activity helps children learn about body parts while practicing essential skills like cutting. Before starting the worksheet, sing Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes a few times.
This will help the kids grasp where all the body parts are. This also introduces another element that reinforces learning.
Learning Area: Bilateral coordination and fine motor skills
This is an interactive activity that will get preschoolers to try new foods.
Allowing children to experience foods blindfolded lets them focus on their sense of taste. It is a fantastic activity to include when teaching about the mouth, tongue, and teeth. You can also encourage the kids to use new and exciting vocabulary to describe what they are tasting.
Some kids may be reluctant and even fearful. This is a great activity to encourage positive social interactions and moral support.
Learning Area: Develops senses and encourages new vocabulary and social skills
Hands are great introductory body parts because we use them for everything. Kids will love getting their hands dirty and will be impressed that they can turn simple handprints into fun pictures. This is a great art lesson to incorporate into letter learning activities when teaching the alphabet.
You can also use footprints to create pictures, but be sure to use water-based paint and old clothes.
Learning Area: Fine motor and pre-writing skills
Bingo is a wonderfully adaptable activity and learning tool. Printable bingo pages make it easy to play at home or in the classroom. Bingo is fun to play individually or in a group. It is also an effective way to help preschoolers learn different body parts.
Learning Area: Improves cognitive function, body part recognition, and teamwork
You can adapt this activity to incorporate organs or body parts, making it great for a body-themed unit.
Each child can make their own set of stones by cutting out the organ pictures and sticking them onto the stones with a craft adhesive. Once dry, place them on the body outline and draw around the stones.
The children can then put the organs into place using the shapes as a guide.
Learning Area: Fine motor skills and shape recognition
This is a great follow-on activity to the Label the Body printable.
Preschoolers will be able to recognize the different body parts and follow the dotted lines to trace the name of each part. By matching the body parts to the corresponding word, it reinforces learning and you can gauge their level of understanding.
Tracing is an ideal activity for finger strength and fine motor skills. It helps preschoolers practice their pencil grip and pre-writing skills. It also encourages short blocks of intense concentration.
Learning Area: Fine motor and pre-writing skills
This classic game is easily adapted for different age groups and gets kids up and moving. Not only are you teaching different body parts, but the kids will be moving their bodies and having fun.
It is also a game that encourages focus, listening, and comprehension skills.
Learning Area: Listening and comprehension
Place the banana, crackers, and lemon juice in the ziplock bag and get the kids to mash it up. Then, cut the corner off the bag and place the opening inside the stocking. Then, by squeezing the mixture into the stocking, children see the excess liquid and the final product.
This experiment is a hands-on example of how our bodies digest food that preschoolers will love.
Learning Area: Science and Biology
Creating a skeleton from pasta is an activity that allows preschool kids to be creative while learning about bones. They can have their skeleton doing various poses, which will get them thinking about how bones bend and move.
You could paint the pasta white, so your skeletons look like x-rays.
Learning Area: Creativity and fine motor skills
Most kids love playdough, and it is a great play medium for a variety of activities. Using playdough to create faces is a sensory way to help kids learn about body parts.
They are also free to play around and could make pink ears and a blue nose. This kind of creativity is a valuable learning tool.
Learning Area: Improved finger strength, hand-eye coordination, and fine motor skills
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This activity helps preschoolers identify shapes and body parts. They can practice their cutting skills and match the body parts to the correct shape.
Learning Area: Shape identification and fine motor skills
This versatile body parts paper game gets kids moving and engaging with their bodies. You can add music and use this game to work out some energy before a sit-down activity.
One dice has body parts, and the other dice has movements. Roll both dice, and the children must complete the actions on the die. For example, wiggle and elbow will mean the kids have to try and wiggle their elbow.
This game will encourage kids to think about how the different parts of their bodies can move.
Learning Area: Gross motor development and listening/comprehension
Sensory trays are ideal for preschool children, and this blood sensory tray is a hands-on activity for a body theme.
The red and white water beads represent blood and open the way for interesting discussions about blood and how it gets pumped around the body. You can also talk about how important blood is for our bodies and the function it serves.
Learning Area: Fine motor skills and sensory development
This fun art activity will challenge preschoolers to think about how body part placement affects how we perceive people. It is an activity that allows for self-expression while practicing fine motor skills like coloring and cutting.
Preschoolers will enjoy creating quirky pictures and will love playing around with the placement of ears, eyes, and a nose.
Learning Area: Artistic creativity and fine motor skills
Not only is this a delicious snack, but it also helps young kids understand how the different parts of our bodies work.
Use the cutter to create body shapes from the tortilla. This represents our skin. Cover the shape in pizza sauce and explain that it represents our blood. Cut strips of cheese and place them on the body where the bones would be. Cover the cheese with pepperoni like muscle covers our bones.
Then bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for about 15 minutes.
Learning Area: Fine motor and kitchen skills
Children learn best when activities are multi-sensory and engaging. Using paints, songs, pictures, games, and movement to discover and learn about the body will help kids to connect with their learning in a new way.
The human body is fascinating, and although the basic mechanics of our bodies are the same, we all have unique features. These activities add a personal element as children learn to celebrate their differences and look after their bodies.
Caitlin van Wyk is a freelance writer and a mother of two wild boys. She is passionate about offering support and educational content for parents as they navigate the highs and lows of raising kids.
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