M is for Marbles: 5 Activities for Preschoolers

When I first thought of marbles for today's post I had two main ideas in mind, marble painting and marble tracks. I also went scouring Pinterest for more fun activities for you and your kiddos to enjoy. These are geared toward preschool age but I'm sure many older children will love them too! 

1  Marble Painting

Place a piece of paper into a box or cake pan

Dip marbles into paint and place on paper

Let little ones roll the marble around and make fun designs! 

Picture from Teach Preschool

2.  Marble Scooping (Montessori Style Activity)

If you're not familiar with Montessori style schooling or activities that's OK. Your kids will have a lot of fun with this! Set up an area with a container of marbles and a small spoon or tongs and another container to transfer the marbles to. It could be a bowl, egg carton, small container, colored cups for sorting or whatever you have on hand. 

3. Marble Tracks

This is a family favorite and I'm sure many have fond memories of these. A few years ago my mom bought the  Hape Quadrilla Twist and Rail Set. It has been so much fun to build and play with! It comes with ideas because each of the colored blocks are cut differently so it can be sort of confusing when attempting to construct your own track. Once you get it figured out though it's hours of fun for kids and parents alike.

If you don't have the money for a big fancy set like this one it's easy to make your own. This would be a great family project to reuse some of the paper tubes and other miscellaneous stuff you have around the house and build your own marble run.

3. Games
Place a damp paper towel over a jar and use a rubber band to hold it in place. Takes turns placing one marble at a time on top of the paper towel. The one to rip the towel loses. See how many you can get to stay before they all fall to the bottom of the jar!

Or make your own bowling game and set up ten pencil top erasers. Use a marble to knock them down. Sounds like a fun idea to cure the "I'm bored" comments and can be done in a small area.

A lot of Chinese Checkers games use marbles as the game pieces. You can either make your own or grab one online or at the store.

4. Water Marbles (aka water pearls)
I've never used these but I've seen them in craft stores on occasion and they look like fun.These could be added to sensory bins or used for scooping and transferring activities.

5. Science Lessons
You can use marbles to teach a variety of science concepts. eHow has several great ideas for using marbles for science lessons on inertia, water displacement, viscosity and more.


Now it's time to go find some marbles and pick one of the activities above or find some of your own and have fun!

What other activities do you use marbles for?