mess-free activities

10 Easy Mess-Free Activities To Engage Your Preschooler

As a mom, I’m always looking for low-mess activities to keep my kids entertained without overwhelming myself. I love those beautiful learning and creative moments, but sometimes I just don’t have the energy for the prep or the mess afterwards, and that’s okay.

As a fan of simple crafts that are low-mess and easy to prep, I’ve put together the following activities that work for me and my kids, especially when I’m at my lowest but still need to keep the kids engaged.

Fell free to explore my free printables library if you’re looking for more mess-free options

Some of the products I recommend in this post contain affiliate links. This means I may earn a small commission (at no extra cost to you) if you click and make a purchase. I only share products we use, love, and think you’ll find helpful too!

1. Sticker Collage

Supplies:

How to prep:

  • Hand your little ones a large sheet of cardstock or cardboard.
  • Dump out a pile of stickers.
  • Let them go wild creating a collage! They can colour around the stickers before they start sticking or afterwards if they want to decorate more. Perfect quick crafts for preschoolers.

2. Popsicle Stick Puppets

Supplies:

  • Popsicle sticks
  • Felt or construction paper
  • Googly eyes
  • Glue

How to prep:

  • Cut out shapes for the heads and clothes, and lay them on the table
  • Let your child make puppet people: Glue the head and clothes to the popsicle stick and add googly eyes.

Want even more easy ideas ready to go?

I put together 10 mess-free craft ideas you can print and stick on your fridge so you’re never scrambling again.

3. Toilet Paper Roll Binoculars

Supplies:

  • 2 empty toilet paper rolls
  • Tape or washi tape
  • Yarn
  • Stickers

How to Make It:

  • Tape two toilet paper rolls together side-by-side (wrap the tape around the rolls to hold them firmly together and let your kids decorate them however they want, with crayons, stickers, etc.
  • Make holes on each side of the rolls and tie a piece of yarn so they can hang the binoculars around their necks.

Mom Tip: After they’re done, go on a mini “adventure hunt” around the house or backyard!

4. Paper Plate Masks

Supplies:

How to make it:

  • Carefully cut eye holes in the paper plate, then have your kids colour with crayons or paint markers.
  • Next, you can cut out ears for whichever animal you want to make and glue them at the top of the plate, use pompoms for the nose and googly eyes.

TIP: You can attach a popsicle stick to the bottom or tie a string to the sides to wear it

5. Cotton Ball Rain Clouds

Supplies:

  • Cardboard 
  • Blue construction paper
  • Cotton balls
  • Glue stick

How to Make It:

  • Draw a simple cloud shape on the cardstock and cut it out. Then, punch five holes at the bottom and attach a string to each hole.
  • Draw raindrops on construction paper and cut them out. After that, let your child glue the cotton balls onto the cloud shape carton and glue the paper onto the strings to make the raindrops.

6. Egg carton colour matching

Supplies:

  • Paint markers
  • Empty egg carton
  • Pipe cleaners

How to make it:

  • First, make a small hole at the bottom of each egg carton cup, and paint each cup with a matching colour.
  • Next, give your child some pipe cleaners in the matching colours and let them pass each pipe cleaner through the hole in the egg carton cup that matches its colour.

You can do this activity with other things like pompoms, large buttons, coloured stones, etc

7. Milk carton cube puzzle

Supplies;

How to make it:

  • Rinse and dry each empty milk carton and cut each one into two halves. Keep the half with the bottom and put aside the other half. If needed, trim off any crooked edges.
  • Next, cut your colourful construction papers into mini squares to fit the top of each carton. Turn each half carton over so that the bottom becomes the top, and glue the mini squares to the top of the cartons to make colourful cubes.
  • Depending on how many carton cubes you’ve got, make different colour grid cards (2×3, 3×3, etc) with each grid showing a different colour pattern (red, yellow, blue, etc). Give your child the cubes and the cards
  • Their job is to rebuild the colour grid using the coloured cubes to match the card’s colour & position exactly.

8. Button emotion match

Supplies You’ll Need:

  • Coloured construction paper
  • Scissors (or a circle punch if you have one)
  • Washable markers
  • Optional: laminator or contact paper for durability
  • Paper plate
  • Buttons or pompoms

How to Make It:

  • Using scissors or a circle punch, cut out multiple circles from different coloured papers, and draw different emotions, shapes, etc with your washable marker.
  • Give your child a paper plate, some buttons or pompoms and the circles to recreate the drawing on each card.

TIP: For some variety, use these circles for colour sorting, matching games, counting, or even as simple emotion cards, and if you want to reuse them many times, laminate each circle or cover with clear tape.

9. Caterpillar Number Match

Supplies

  • Large Cardboard
  • Markers
  • Scissors
  • Empty egg carton
  • Coloured paper circles or stickers
  • Glue
Mess-free activities

How to Make It:

  • Draw 10 colourful circles in a row to make your caterpillar body, and in the first circle, draw a caterpillar face, then write the numbers 1–10 inside each circle that follow the ‘head.’
  • After that, cut your empty egg carton into individual cups and label each cup with numbers 1–10 using coloured paper circles (make sure the colours of the numbers on the egg carton match the colours of the numbers in the circles).
  • Lastly, let your child match each egg carton number to the correct number on the caterpillar.

10. DIY Cardboard Shape Puzzle

Supplies:

  • Cardboard pieces (Scrap boxes work great)
  • Black permanent markers
  • Scissors

How to Make It:

  • Cut your cardboard into squares. Then, on each square, draw different shapes (circles, squares, triangles, hearts, stars, etc.) and write a matching number next to each shape using the black marker
  • Draw lines (zigzag, straight, etc) between the shape and the written number and carefully cut along the line in the middle, turning them into puzzle pieces that fit back into their matching holes. Then give it to your little one for a fun count and match game.

This is one of our go-to projects from our must-have craft supplies list

Final Thoughts

These activities are meant to help you keep your ideas flowing, and give you options for those “I’m not feeling up to it days”. So go ahead and entertain your kids and keep them busy with these ten no-prep, mess-free activities when you’re out of ideas, because they are your secret weapon for those days you need something, without the stress.

You’ve got this, mama!