Objective To understand the participation status of physical activity of preschool children in Shanghai through a cross-sectional survey . Methods A self-designed questionnaire on children′s outdoor activity were used from March to June in 2018 to investigate the daily activities of 454 preschoolers.T test was used to compare the mean of the two groups of normal distribution data,non-normal date are tested by non-parametric test,and Chi-square test was used to compare the rate. Results The average time for participating in outdoor activities of preschool children was 1.49 hours/day on workday,and it was 2.64 hours/day on weekend.The top five most popular sports for children were walking,skateboarding/skating,running,cycling and dance,which mainly were family-based.There were statistically significant differences on preschool children′s sport types in different age groups and different degree of parental encouragement(P<0.05). Conclusion The status of outdoor activities for preschool children in Shanghai is not optimistic.It reflects the characteristics of the living environment of preschool children in Shanghai in terms of sports style,venues,accompanying people and sport event.