Are you diving into a Fairy Tale theme in your preschool classroom or homeschool? Keep reading for the most magical Fairy Tale preschool activities around!
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FAIRY TALE PRESCHOOL ACTIVITIES
One of the most magical themes to teach (whether you’re homeschooling or teaching in a preschool or kindergarten classroom) is Fairy Tales. Little ones LOVE to learn about their favorite fairy tales, which are super fun to read AND teach valuable life lessons!
Keep reading for over 20 Fairy Tale activities for your preschool, pre-k, and kindergarten littles. These ideas include printables for math & literacy, fine motor, gross motor, sensory play, art, and more! Oh, and there’s a freebie, too!
If you want a copy of my yearly themes (including an editable version where you can type in your own themes), check out this freebie. (*Please note: You will need to download this file to your computer and then open it with Adobe in order to add your own themes. You cannot add your themes from your web browser.)
FAIRY TALE ACTIVITIES
Before you get started with your Fairy Tales theme, make sure you have your books all ready to go! You can check out our favorite books for this theme in this post. There are over 30 books for you to choose from! Make sure to request these from your local library (or order them from Amazon) a few weeks before you start your theme.
You’re definitely going to want to start your Fairy Tale theme with these vocabulary cards! These are the perfect way to introduce your little learners to 15 fairy tale words they’ll be learning about over the course of the unit. You can use these vocabulary cards in your writing center, as a Write the Room activity, or as a picture match.
Starting at a random number and then “counting on” is a great skill for little ones to practice in preschool and kindergarten. First, have students count 0-10 orally. Then give students a number (such as 4) to start counting from without having to start at 0 (so they would say “4,5,6,7” and so on). Practice orally until they can count from any starting number. When they are ready, have students place numbers on the cards in numerical order starting from the printed first number. Students can also practice counting backwards after completing the card.
JACK AND THE BEANSTALK FAIRY TALE ACTIVITIES
Syllable awareness is an important phonological awareness skill that little ones need to become strong readers. This activity asks little ones to sort pictures based on the number of syllables in the word (1-2 syllables). They’ll put the picture on the correct side of the beanstalk and then choose the next one. Increase the engagement by pairing this activity with students clapping, stomping, or jumping for each syllable in the word.
This activity has the little ones working on numbers 1-12. Start by counting orally and then choose a hen and name the number. Have your little one place the correct amount of “eggs” that go with each hen. You could use math cubes like we are in the picture, or you could use whatever you have…legos, magnatiles, or even snacks!
THE LITTLE RED HEN FAIRY TALE ACTIVITIES
Understanding sequencing is an important skill for our littles to learn for reading and math. In this activity, watch The Little Red Hen read aloud on YouTube and discuss the order of events in the story. Cut out the sentences and have your little one put them on the mat in order of the events. (*Don’t worry, your little one is not expected to read these sentences on their own!)
This activity has three different options to play. You and your littles can play dominos, which involves dealing five cards to each of you and trying to match the starting card. Pick from the pile as needed to try to find a card to match. Skip your turn if you don’t get a match on the first try. Alternatively, after rolling a die, your littles can say the number and match it to a domino. Thirdly, you can cut all the pictures apart and use them to play a memory game by placing them face down on a table and picking two at a time to find a match. For all these activities, the one with most matches wins the game.
A fun activity to do with your little one would be making Banana Bread. Baking helps with math foundational skills, fine motor skills, following directions, sequencing, and more! Plus it’s delicious!
HANSEL & GRETEL FAIRY TALE ACTIVITIES
According to research by Piasta, Petscher, & Justice (2012), the optimal benchmark for students entering kindergarten is knowing 18 uppercase letter names and 15 lowercase letter names. The research also states that little ones have a preference for uppercase letters, so giving them plenty of exposure to lowercase letters is important. This activity asks students to pick a card and say the letter and its sound. Have them place the card on the correct side of the mat. They can also match upper and lower case letters together.
It’s every kid’s dream to decorate their own candy house…so let’s make that dream a reality! Have your little one look at all six sides of a die and count the dots. Roll the die and find the corresponding color on the Play Dough Candy House key. Decorate the house with colored play dough “candies.” Work toward your little one being to tell you how many dots are on the die without having to count them, which is called subitizing.
With this activity, place painters tape on the floor in different paths for your littles to follow. They can walk, crawl, run, crab walk, skip hop, or walk backwards as they follow the path and pretend to be Hansel or Gretel. This will help to improve their gross motor movements, which is a pillar of health and kindergarten readiness. (*Always test your painter’s tape on a small portion of your floor first! You don’t want to do any damage to your floor.)
LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD FAIRY TALE ACTIVITIES
Phonemic awareness is the ability to hear and manipulate sounds in spoken language. This is a precursor to reading and must be intentionally developed during the preschool and kindergarten years. For this activity, have your little one roll the cube and name the picture on top as well as the first letter sound. Roll the die again and name the picture and letter sound again. Ask if the second one has the same or different sound. Have your littles act out the character for the picture they roll for more fun.
Before we expect kids to write letters and numbers, we need to give them plenty of practice tracing different types of lines. This activity asks littles ones to trace (or cut) on the lines to Grandma’s house. Or you could have your little ones use a manipulative (like paperclips) to measure the distance to Grandma’s house. That would be fun, too!
BILLY GOATS GRUFF FAIRY TALE ACTIVITIES
My kids LOVE board games, so anytime I can incorporate learning into a board game, it’s a BIG hit! Tell your little one the point of the game is to help the 3 goats get across the bridge to the grass on the other side of the river. Have them roll a die and move that many spaces on the board. If they’re ready, have them read the CVC word on the space (or you can give them the sounds orally and have them blend the sounds to say the word). Then have them name a rhyming word. If that’s too tricky, you can give them two words and have them tell you which one rhymes with the word on the board. Take turns to see who finishes first!
This mathematical concept is crucial for kids to understand as they head into kindergarten. Have your little one choose a card and count the goats. Then have them choose another card and count the goats again. Talk about which number is bigger and which is smaller. As they progress, you can introduce the signs for “greater than”, “less than”, and “equal to”. Help them to read this as a math sentence, such as: “5 is greater than 2″or “2 is less than 5”.
Use blue pompoms or blue construction paper to make a river. Then you and your little one can make a bridge across the river for the goats to cross on. Try making a wider bridge so goats can cross together or a taller bridge that the troll is too short to reach using different supplies. Be creative and let your imagination soar!
GOLDILOCKS AND THE 3 BEARS FAIRY TALE ACTIVITIES
For this activity, mix up the cards and read all the words to your littles. Have them match up the opposite word and decide which bear likes each word. Have them put the words on the lines by the bears. Read each sentence (or have them read it if they are ready) and have them repeat the sentence after you. This is a great way to develop their vocabulary and background knowledge.
Tell your little one there is a different ending to Goldilocks and the 3 bears where the bears chase after Goldilocks! They will love this! Have them spin the spinner and mark the correct box above the bear on the spinner. Repeat until one bear makes it to the top and catches Goldilocks! For advanced littles, roll a die along with the spinner and mark the mat with that many boxes above the bear. This allows for them to practice subitizing as well as demonstrate one-to-one correspondence.
THE 3 LITTLE PIGS FAIRY TALE ACTIVITIES
Review letter names and their sounds with your littles. Have them choose a word brick and tell you the name/sound of each letter. Find the corresponding alphabet letters and place them on the mat in the correct order. Have them say the word while running their finger along the arrow, and then have them find the corresponding picture and place it on the mat.
Because we have a base-10 system for math, we want to work with numbers 0-10 A LOT in preschool and kindergarten. For this activity, review counting to 10. Using different colored manipulatives to represent bricks, sticks, and hay, have your little one pick a card and place the correct number of each item on the 10 frame. Have them count all of the items. If they’re ready, they can say the addition sentence that goes along with the card. For advanced littles, have them remove some manipulatives to practice subtraction.
For this activity, challenge your little one to build a house out of blocks, magnatiles, or other building materials that the Big Bad Wolf can’t blow down! A blow dryer can be used to simulate the wolf blowing, and your little one can determine if they built a strong enough house or if they need to rebuild it (which is a great engineering activity!)
Fairy Tales often include “numbers” of characters in them. These number cards are a great tool to help your little one practice saying and counting the numbers 1-20.
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FAIRY TALES PRESCHOOL & PRE-K FUN
I hope these ideas helped you fill-in your Fairy Tales lesson plans for your preschool classroom or homeschool! All of the printables for this unit can be found in my Fairy Tales Preschool Activity Pack.
What types of preschool Fairy Tale activities do you plan for your kiddos? Do you have any fun activities that would be great to add to this list? Comment below or find me on Instagram [@littleslovelearningblog] and let me know!
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Happy Learning!
