Activities for 5 year olds
Activities for 5 year olds at home
| Activity | What kind | What a child does |
|---|---|---|
| The Rainy Day Box | Make | Cards of forts, crafts, games and experiments with things most homes have, each saying how long, how messy and what a grown-up does. |
| The Activity Book | Puzzle | Mazes, word finds, riddles, dot-to-dots and logic puzzles in four sizes, most of them new every day, to print or do on screen. |
| Dot-to-dot | Puzzle | Join the numbers and a picture appears. Counting practice with a pencil. |
| Shadow match | Puzzle | Match each picture to its shadow: looking closely, with no reading needed. |
| Odd one out | Puzzle | Find the one that does not belong, and say why. |
| Mazes | Puzzle | A new maze to print or trace with a finger. |
| Spot the difference | Puzzle | Two pictures, a handful of changes to find. |
| Coloring pages | Make | Pictures to color on screen or print for the table. |
| Trace letters | Make | Trace capital letters, starting with the first letter of your name. |
| The Art Studio | Make | Crayons, paint and coloring on the screen. |
| How to draw | Make | Step-by-step drawings to copy onto paper. |
| No-bake recipes | Cook | Food small hands can make with no oven: mix, spread, stack and eat. |
| The Kitchen | Cook | Real recipes step by step with Crumb, saying which jobs are a grown-up's. |
| Easy recipes | Cook | Simple recipes a child can lead, with a grown-up on the hot and sharp jobs. |
| Funny food | Cook | Snacks shaped like critters and faces. |
| Exercises at home | Move | Real exercise sorted by how much room it needs, from a chair's width to a hallway. |
| Brain breaks | Move | One-minute moves to shake out the wiggles between quiet things. |
| Stretches | Move | Slow stretches for a calm end to a busy day. |
| Easy magic tricks | Play | First tricks to learn, practise and show the family after dinner. |
| Animals: compare two | Explore | Pick any two animals and see which is bigger, faster or lives longer. |
| The library | Read | Free stories by reading level, to read together or alone, with no account. |
| Short bedtime stories | Read | Stories short enough for one more before lights out. |
| Peabody TV | Read | The library's books as read-along shows. |
| Pet care books | Read | Short stories about looking after dogs, cats, rabbits, hamsters and more. |
| Music | Music | Song sheets in any key, the Chord Finder, Beat Buddies and the sing-along. |
| Charades | Play | Charades words by age, for a living room game with no board. |
| Worksheets | Puzzle | Printable reading and math sheets by grade. |
| Preschool learning games | Play | Tap-to-play games where every question is said aloud, so no reading is needed. |
| Free games | Play | The arcade: every game quietly practises reading or math, and Just play turns the questions off. |
| Picture timers | Play | Fun picture timers for a turn, a tidy-up or ten minutes of screen time. |
| Road trip games | Play | The License Plate Game, car games and checklists for the drive. |
What 5 year olds are like at home
A 5 year old is starting to read and count on their own, likes rules to games, and can stick at a puzzle for ten minutes or more.
A day for a 5 year old
| When | Try |
|---|---|
| Morning | Exercises at home |
| Before lunch | The Rainy Day Box |
| Lunch | No-bake recipes |
| Afternoon | The Activity Book |
| Evening | Easy magic tricks |
| Bedtime | The library |
19 of the 31 activities above need no screen once they are open or printed. For games only, see free games for 5 year olds. Everything here is free through the end of 2026, with no ads, no sign-up and nothing to download.
Other ages: 3 · 4 · 5 · 6 · 7 · 8 · 9 · 10 · 11 · 12.
Questions parents ask
What can a 5 year old do at home?
Things to make, puzzle, cook, move, play, explore, read and music: the table lists 31 that suit a 5 year old, from The Rainy Day Box to Road trip games.
Which activities for a 5 year old need no screen?
The Rainy Day Box, The Activity Book, Dot-to-dot and Shadow match, and more in the table.
Are these activities free?
Yes. Everything here is free through the end of 2026, with no ads, no sign-up and nothing to download.
What if my child is ahead or behind for 5?
Ages are a guide, not a rule. Look one year either way: 4 or 6.
Teacher? Share this page to Google Classroom. Children open it with no sign-up.
Checked against how Peabody works on 6 November 2026. Written with help from AI, from Peabody's own code and library. Peabody is a learning app, not an assessment: if you're worried about your child's learning, talk to their teacher. How Peabody's pages are made.