Ever wondered what your kids are really learning at preschool when it seems like they’re just playing all day? The good news is that if it seems like they’re “just playing” then the school is doing something right!

Learning during the first 6 years is about building skills through play.

This does not only apply to babies and toddlers. Preschoolers learn best through play, when using their whole body and engaging the senses.

You may be wondering what a preschool curriculum should include or what subjects are focused on. This is not really that important. There is no curriculum-in-a-box, but rather a set of abilities and skills a preschooler should develop.

Some preschools choose to use set themes around which to plan play activities; others let themes develop naturally (learning about caterpillars when a child finds one in the garden). 

A good quality preschool will give your children a well-rounded education through a balance of free play and well-planned, adult-guided play.

So, what do kids learn in preschool? Here are 16 things.

Physical development starts with developing gross motor skills – the large muscles of the body.

At preschool, your children will be moving nonstop. Movement is the most important skill to develop first in the early years as it is necessary for all other learning.

Children must develop skills such as strength, hand-eye coordination and agility.

They also need to develop two important senses – vestibular and proprioception – responsible for balance and body awareness.

Movement is important as it stimulates learning, improves concentration, gives the brain oxygen and works both sides of the brain. Good gross motor skills also lay the foundation for fine motor skills. 

Some examples of gross motor activities:

Fine motor coordination – the development of the small muscles – is a prerequisite to learning how to write and is necessary for performing everyday tasks.

In preschool, children spend a large portion of their day working on these skills.

Fine motor skills are developed through all kinds of art activities, such as:

They can also be developed with other fine motor activities such as:

Developing a pencil grip and learning to form letters starts with all these kinds of fine motor activities.

Preschool is where the foundations for mathematics begin. No child ever learns maths in the first grade. The type of maths they learn just becomes more formal.

In the preschool grades children learn:

These concepts are learned while having pure fun – in the sandpit, while baking, playing with water, building with blocks and even while tidying up.

Problem solving is an important life skill and one that must be developed early on. Learning this in preschool also helps children with mathematical problem solving during the formal grades.

Problem-solving skills are built during simple activities such as:

Preschool is a language-rich environment where children’s vocabulary expands dramatically. 

They learn sentence construction, the use of grammar and tenses, the meaning of words, etc.

Language and vocabulary are learnt throughout the day while:

Writing starts with developing important pre-writing skills through play and art activities.

These four skills are specific requirements for learning to write and will be the focus during preschool:

Listening is one of the most important and often underdeveloped skills. This should be a focus area during preschool. 

Children learn to listen by doing these kinds of activities:

Although your children are learning to listen at school, it is highly recommended to focus on these skills at home too. Children with good listening skills are much more successful and capable at school.

Here are some listening games you can play at home. 

Music in preschool is about so much more than just developing musical skills.

Music develops children’s:

Visual and auditory perception are the two main building blocks of learning to read. 

Children develop their visual perception during preschool with the following types of activities:

Auditory perception is the brain’s ability to make sense of what the ears hear. It is vital for being able to learn sounds for reading.

These kinds of activities develop auditory perception:

During preschool children develop all the necessary pre-reading skills to set them up for learning to read formally.

Learning to read requires developing sound knowledge (auditory perception) and symbol knowledge (visual perception), as explained above. 

These are the five main pre-reading skills:

Children are exposed to these kinds of activities:

At school, children also strengthen their memory, a skill they will rely on for learning throughout their education.

These are the kinds of games that are often played in preschool classes:

As children explore and interact with their environment and nature, they also learn about early science concepts. 

A great example is learning about physics by discovering the properties of water during water play:

Where better to learn social skills than in preschool? Children are surrounded by friends and adults and they learn to interact appropriately with others.

Throughout the day children learn about:

Preschool is where a child’s creative spark can really be ignited.

There are many opportunities throughout the school day where children develop their creative expression:

Last but perhaps most importantly, the greatest takeaway for young children at preschool is their growing independence.

Children learn to take care of themselves and show a sense of responsibility and a desire to be competent.

There are endless opportunities for this:

And there you have it. That is certainly not a complete list as your kids are learning so much but that is more or less a summary of what skills a preschooler should have.

Here is a detailed school readiness checklist if you’d like to delve into each developmental area more.

Be wary of preschools that focus on academic skills. This is developmentally inappropriate and, as you can see from the list above, play is important during the early years.

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