Watermelon Activities for Toddlers and Preschoolers
Our most recent theme for the summer reading program we’ve been following was WATERMELON! And it has been SO fun. I shared a couple posts last week with some of the fun activities we’ve been doing and I’ll link those again here, but wanted to round everything up in one spot. Each week, we’ve been reading books to go along with a theme, doing themed journal activities, and of course, some playful learning activities, too! I wanted to start this post by sharing the watermelon-themed books we found on Amazon. I always check my local library first when I’m looking for a certain type of book, but this time, the library was fresh out of anything watermelon-related. I ended up buying a few and was so glad I did- they were awesome!
Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links which means I would earn a small commission if you were to purchase through those links. All opinions are my own, and I only link to products that I truly recommend.
- Watermelon Madness
- This Watermelon is Not Round
- The Watermelon Seed
- One Watermelon Seed
- Down by the Bay
Now onto the watermelon play ideas!
For this activity, I used an empty cardboard box we had kicking around and covered just the top of it with black card stock paper. I cut out a watermelon shape using green and pink paper, and then used a sharp screwdriver situation (yikes) to poke little holes for “seeds.”
All I did was dip one end of a handful of q-tips into some black paint and set them out on a paper plate to dry over night. In the morning, they were ready to play! Both of my kiddos (2 and 4) enjoyed using the q-tips to poke into the little holes of the watermelon giving it some seeds. This is a great exercise for building fine motor skills (the skills we eventually use for proper pencil grip, handwriting, buttoning, zipping, fastening, cutting food, eating with silverware etc.)!
This is one of the activities I ended up doing a full write-up on. It was seriously so fun and needed its own post. I included the recipe for how to make the chill dough, how to give it a watermelon-spin, and some more photos for your Pinterest pinning pleasure (say that 10 times fast). :)
You can read the full post on the Watermelon Chill Dough HERE.
Scissor skills! So important to get kiddos comfortable using scissors before they head into pre-k and/or kindergarten. They don’t have to have their scissor skills mastered by any means, but it definitely helps to have them at least not feel like a completely foreign object when placed in their hands. We do lots of short, quick, and simple cutting activities just to practice the correct way to hold the scissors, building stamina with opening and closing the scissors, and of course following lines to cut on. Sometimes we don’t even follow lines and we focus more on the opening and closing piece- also great for strengthening those fine motor skills.
To prep this specific cutting activity, I simply drew half a watermelon onto a piece of card stock, colored it with crayons, and used a black marker to draw some dotted lines where I wanted Kade (4) to cut. When he was finished, he had made the watermelon half into watermelon slices!
So we scored these adorable cups at Target and they ended up being SO FUN to play with (linking some plastic cups that are equally as cute for you HERE). We made up this little game called “Who Ate the Watermelon Seed?” that we used to work on reading names of the people in our family. Here’s how we played: I wrote the names of everyone in our family on masking tape and stuck them to the bottom of a cup. I originally just had the 4 of us but then Kade reminded me we needed to have one for the new baby- so I added a fifth. :)
I used a single black pom pom as “the watermelon seed” and had him close his eyes. I hid the pom pom under a cup and told him to open his eyes. I would ask him “Did MOM eat the watermelon seed?” He would find the cup that read “mom,” and lift it to check for the pom pom. I typically asked a few different names before saying the one I actually hid the pom pom under so that he got some practice reading the names. We played this a few different times and he, of course, wanted to take a turn hiding it too.
I think this would be a super fun way to practice sight words, or even letters or numbers, too! Even though we called the game “WHO” ate the watermelon seed, I think it could still be fun to say “Did the number 4 eat the watermelon seed?” or “Did the word ‘like’ eat the watermelon seed?”
This is seriously so simple but so effective and empowering for a little one. I just so happened to buy the world’s juiciest watermelon (do these pictures make your mouth water, or what?!), cut it in half and set it up on a tray for Kade (4) with a melon baller and a big bowl (similar). The idea behind this activity is not that I’m trying to get out of balling my own melon (though it was kind of nice to have the help), it’s more about giving Kade the opportunity to build his fine motor skills, and also feel helpful and important. Kids love getting to help in the kitchen!
He definitely did not have enough stamina to make it through the whole melon- and I don’t blame him! I took over when he started getting tired. Also want to mention that we did have watermelon flinging all over the room and all over the floor so definitely keep a wet rag or some wet wipes handy ;) but hey, it was all about the experience and we did keep a decent amount off the floor and into the bowl. It was delicious!
Here is a super easy watermelon craft idea that both my 4 year old and my 2 year old did together. I cut a paper plate in half and set out some pink paint and green paint each with a paint brush. I had one kiddo start with the green around the edge, and the other start with the pink in the center and then they switched. When both of them had painted with the green and pink, I showed them how to dip a fingertip into some black paint and make dots for seeds.
It took everything in Tatum to not turn it into a full-on finger painting project - I helped her do a few “dots” and then gave her another plate to finger paint all over. They turned out really cute!
This is another activity we did that I ended up doing a full write-up on. It was such a fun activity that combined sensory play and fine motor skills by squeezing squirt bottles with warm water to melt away some frozen pom poms (aka “watermelon seeds”) that TOTALLY look like blueberries. The ice actually looked like little watermelons but it was just regular water dyed with red food coloring and little black pom poms.
Click here to see the full post on this “watermelon” ice sensory play activity!
I kept this activity very simple as it was meant for my 2-year-old who, at this point, only counts to 3 independently and higher with help. I used cardboard from an empty box we had and cut it up to make these little watermelon slices. I ended up using these tempera paint markers that we have (which are awesome!) to color them assuming they would show up better on cardboard than just regular marker. I let them dry a bit and then I drew some giant seeds on the red-ish, flesh part with black sharpie, and wrote coordinating numbers on the rind pieces also with black sharpie.
I did the puzzles first, showing Tatum (2) how they worked, and then let her try with my help. She loved putting them together and was always very proud of herself when she matched them up. This is not only a great way to build fine motor skills, hand-eye coordination, and problem-solving skills, but it also reinforces early counting skills, and provides exposure to number recognition.
If you haven’t heard about learning journals yet, you are going to love them! I did a full post on our watermelon-themed journal activities that you can find HERE, along with these other themed journal activity posts:
Ocean-Themed Journal Activities
Zoo-Themed Journal Activities
4th of July-Themed Journal Activities
We had so much fun with this theme and loved getting to share it with you! Don’t forget to PIN the activities you may want to try, and if you do try them out, please always feel free to tag us on social media so we can see!
Check out our other themed activity posts here:
Ocean Activities
Zoo Activities
Bug Activities
Frog Activities
Apple Activities
