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Activities for Preschoolers Meeting New Classmates

Many preschoolers find the first day of school intimating and need a few activities to loosen them up. Prepare a few activities for your preschoolers to help introduce them to their new classmates and possibly make new friends. Many young children have short attention spans, so it is best to plan short and easy activities for them to do.

Name Activities
- Have the preschoolers sit in a circle and hand one preschooler a foam ball. He must say his name and toss the ball to another preschooler. Each preschooler must say his name and toss the ball to another person in the circle. After each preschooler says his name, have them keep tossing the ball and sharing one interesting fact about themselves like ̶0;I love to play soccer̶1; or ̶0;My favorite color is red.̶1; Another idea is to have the preschoolers toss the ball to someone in the circle while saying that person̵7;s name instead of his own.
Matching Activities
- Cut hearts out of construction paper and cut the hearts down the middle to make ̶0;broken hearts.̶1; Hide the heart halves all over the classroom. The preschoolers must find a heart half and find the preschooler with the matching heart half. Once they find a matching pair, the two preschoolers must shake hands and introduce themselves to one another. Keep hiding the hearts and allowing the preschoolers to introduce themselves to one another.
Fruit Salad Activities
- Cut up several chunks of fruit to make a fruit salad. Place the bowls of fruit around one large empty bowl. Give each preschooler a toothpick to pick up pieces of fruit to add to the empty bowl. As the children mix the fruit together in the empty bowl, have them say their name and introduce themselves to the class. Bring out a rotten banana and pretend you are going to add it to the bowl. Ask the preschoolers if you should add it to the bowl. Explain how rotten bananas can mess up a bowl of good fruit. Tell the children everyone should respect one another and get along to create a good classroom family.
Puzzle Activities
- Write your preschoolers̵7; names all over a sheet of construction paper. Tape the paper on card stock and draw lines between the names to resemble puzzle pieces. Cut the pieces out and mix the pieces up. Give the puzzle pieces to the preschoolers and have them work together to assemble the puzzle. If you have several preschoolers, make a couple of small puzzles instead of one large puzzle. This also helps the preschoolers learn each other̵7;s names.

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