Sudoku Puzzles for Preschool & Kindergarten Kids

Here are some Sudoku puzzles designed especially for Preschool and Kindergarten kids! Since Spring is coming up, these puzzles have a Bug theme.

Ever seen Sudoku puzzles for preschool age? I couldn’t find any, so I made some!

Here’s how this came about. I’m more of a word search person because I’m better with letters than numbers. For a long, long time, Sudoku just made no sense to me. I knew people who loved it and I couldn’t imagine why.

One day, I decided to give Sudoku another try when I found one in a puzzle book, and it just clicked! Suddenly, I like these puzzles and now I’m working all the Sudoku puzzles I can find.

Naturally, that led to thinking about how this game could be brought down to the Pre-K level. A regular puzzle with 9 numbers of 9 rows, 9 columns, and 9 groups of 9 boxes is just too much. I found sets for children that had less spaces, and instead of numbers, used letters or pictures, but they still weren’t suitable for Pre-K children.

For Pre-K, I decided 4 boxes without both the columns and rows would work. Also, letters and pictures are going to work better than numbers if there are only 4.

Feedback Requested! If you use this game, I’d love your honest feedback.

What Skills Are Children Practicing?

When using these games, children are practicing:

• letter recognition (on the letter games)
• recognizing patterns
• improving memory skills
• visual discrimination

“Little Sudoku” Game

Print these Little Sudoku cards on white or colored paper. You can have children write the letters on the paper, or you can laminate these cards and have children use letter tiles or other manipulative letters (or even dry erase).

Here’s how children play “Little Sudoku”.

At the top, it shows the letters children will be looking for (e.g. “BUGS” on the card above). Then it says, “What is missing in each row?” The letters are scrambled in each row, and children will figure out which letter is missing.

You could give children letter manipulatives, one of each letter, B, U, G, and S. Then they will decide which letter is missing from that row and move the letter into the blank box.

This set of Bug Sudoku puzzles has 3 four-letter word games for BUGS, ANTS, and MOTH. There is a set with the boxes in a row, and there is a set with the boxes in a square.

Download the Sudoku Preschool Game

This is a free printable, just click to download.

Download the “Little Sudoku” Printable

I’d love to know how these work for your students or your own children, what age they work best with, and any suggestions or feedback you have! Is it too easy, too hard? Do you want more of these? You can give me feedback on this short survey or if you’d rather just email me here.

Bug “What’s Missing” Clip Cards

This set of Bug “What’s Missing” Clip cards was inspired by the “Little Sudoku” game. They could even be called Sudoku Clip Cards. They have 4 boxes with one letter missing.

In this version, children will clip the answer with a clothespin. You can make these self-checking by putting a mini sticker on the back of the card, directly behind the answer. Then children flip the card over to see if their clothespin is clipped on the sticker.

There’s also a set with pictures of bugs instead of letters. In the same way as the letter version, children decide which bug is missing and clip the answer with a clothespin.

Download the “What’s Missing” Game

This is a free printable, just click to download.

Download the “What’s Missing” Cards