Enjoy some watermelon play with your preschooler through fun hands-on activities. Also, look at my post 4 Week Free Watermelon Unit Study & Best Hands-on Ideas. Too, see my page How to Homeschool Preschool for more ideas.
Grab my busy book summer preschool printable and a simple idea for paper plates to practice letter recognition.
Letter recognition and phonics instruction should be child’s play and using a few paper plates and some craft paint will make it be just that.
Watermelon isn’t just a delicious treat — it’s a wonderful way to learn about growing, cooking, and health.
Whether you’re counting seeds, matching letters, making a craft, or tasting a sweet slice, watermelon is a wonderful fruit for children to learn about.
It combines fun, education, and health — all in a single, delicious package.
WATERMELON BOOKS FOR KIDS
Next, look at these fun books for kids.
5 Watermelon Books & Resources
Add these fun books about seeds, gardening and watermelons. You can use them for a unit study or add to your home library.
"Watermelon, Watermelon" is a delightful sing-along book by award-winning songwriter and music therapist Stephanie Leavell. Perfect for ages 1-7, this rhythmic and catchy story is based on Stephanie's beloved children's song. The book features bright, captivating illustrations by Sarah Pilar Echeverria, making it an engaging read that young children will request again and again.
Julia Rothman starts with an illustrated history of food and ends with a global tour of street eats. Along the way, Rothman serves up a hilarious primer on short-order egg lingo and a mouthwatering menu of how people around the planet serve fried potatoes–and what we dip them in.Award-winning food journalist Rachel Wharton lends her expertise to this light-hearted exploration of everything food that bursts with little-known facts and delightful drawings
Crocodile loves watermelon, but what will happen when his greatest fear of swallowing a watermelon seed comes to pass? Will vines sprout out his ears? Will his skin turn pink? Only one thing is certain: his wild imagination will have kids laughing out loud and begging for another read.
When twelve-year-old Della Kelly finds her mother furiously digging black seeds from a watermelon in the middle of the night and talking to people who aren't there, Della worries that it’s happening again—that the sickness that put her mama in the hospital four years ago is back. That her mama is going to be hospitalized for months like she was last time.
With her daddy struggling to save the farm and her mama in denial about what’s happening, it’s up to Della to heal her mama for good. And she knows just how she’ll do it: with a jar of the Bee Lady’s magic honey, which has mended the wounds and woes of Maryville, North Carolina, for generations.
- WORDY-FUN: Word-a-Melon is the family-fun word search game by Bananagrams
- FLIP THOSE TILES: Take turns rolling the die, flipping the cardboard letter chips and creating words with the overturned letters
- USE YOUR MELON: Unused letters are flipped back over so players must be sure to remember where they are!
COOL WATERMELON FACTS
Before you get started share some share cool watermelon facts with your child:
- A watermelon is a kind of fruit that grows on a vine that trails along the ground.
- Watermelon starts from a tiny seed, then a vine grows from it, flowers bloom, and a small watermelon starts to form. The small watermelon grows and grows until it’s big enough to eat.
- The outside, called the rind, is thick and green with light green or yellowish patterns.
- Inside, the flesh is usually a rich red or pink color.
- It’s sweet and filled with water, in fact, watermelons are about 92% water! That’s how it got its name: water + melon.
Here are some great ideas to get you going with your watermelon play.
WONDERFUL WATERMELON PLAY IDEAS
- Here you can learn How to Conduct an Exploding Watermelon Theme Experiment.
- Older kids will enjoy making these DIY Watermelon Coasters.
- Find out How to Make a Watermelon Sensory Bin for Play and Learning for an inspiring sensory experience.
- Make 3 ingredient Watermelon Lemonade to enjoy on a hot summer day.
- Your little learner will love to learn How to Make Fun Watermelon Seed Slime For Summer Learning.
- Watermelon Seed Count-Using black beans or black pom-poms as “seeds”, children can practice counting by placing the correct number of “seeds” on a paper plate watermelon wedge labeled with a number.
- Spend a whole month studying this tasty fruit with my 4 Week Free Watermelon Unit Study & Best Hands-on Ideas.
- Seed Spitting Distance- For a messy but fun outdoor game, let kids spit actual watermelon seeds and measure who can launch theirs furthest.
- Grab my busy book summer preschool printable that is full of watermelon and other fun summer themes to keep little hands busy all season long. It’s at the bottom of this post.
There are matching pattern activities, counting, sorting, letter recognition, life cycles, find it pages, and so much more.
To use the busy book summer preschool pages throughout the season you can laminate the pages and cut out the ones that say cut at the top.
Use velcro dots if you like to attach the matching pictures as they work on them.
Use small plastic bags to hold the pieces and tuck everything inside a folder, alternatively, you can place your sheets inside 3 hole page protectors and keep them in a 3 ring binder.
HOW TO MAKE A FUN MATCHING LETTERS ACTIVITY
You will need:
- 10 paper plates
- Red craft glue
- Green craft glue
- Black marker
- Scissors
Start by painting or having your child paint the center of the paper plates red, you will need to do this on all 10 plates, you want to go pretty close to the ruffled edge of the plates.
Set aside and allow to dry.
Paint the outer edge of half of the plates green.
Allow this paint to dry and then stack the plates with only the red center painted on top of the fully painted plates.
Cut into 6-8 wedges, by stacking you are assuring they stay uniform.
Cut the white edge off of the plates that have just been painted red in the center.
Use a black marker to write the capital letter on the green rind of one piece and the lowercase counterpart on the red only slice.
To make it a bit more fun and playful keep the matching wedges a little more obvious by cutting “bite” marks or other shapes into the edges of them while they are stacked.
Store the pieces in a plastic bag and take them on the go too.
This activity is a wonderful way to practice letter recognition, matching, and phonics.
Here are a few more ideas to make it even more fun and helpful…
Say the letter aloud when you match it.
Say the letter’s name and its short or long phonics sounds.
For example:
“This is the letter B. B says /b/ — b, b, b — like in baby, ball, blue.”
“This is the letter S. S says /s/ — s, s, s — like in sun, sand, sweet.”
Spend extra time practicing letters that look similar or often stump children like b and d.
HOW TO GET THE SUMMER BUSY BOOK
This is a 57 page pdf download for a simple summer busy book.
Here is what it contains.
- Build the word
- Summer months
- Count the bees
- What comes next
- Which is different
- Summer dress up
- Let’s go for a picnic
- Sandcastle puzzle
- Count and mark
- Create your own summer necklace
- Summer sport matching
- Summer season sorting
- 10 frames and numbers
- Trace the alphabet
- Match the summer scene
- Summer I Spy
- Match the ice cream shadows
- Match the color
- Sort by size
- Find the summer objects
- Sort by size and color
- Match the emotions
- Trace by size
- Watermelon life cycle
- Ice cream scoop stacking
- Count and match
- Fruit matching
- Match the patterns
- Match the shapes
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