Independent Games for Young Children
Photo by Andrea Lacasse
Active for Life offers suggestions for fun and independent games and activities young children can play with minimal adult involvement when adults have work they have to get done.
Some of the ideas suitable for pre-schoolers include:
Water painting: If you have a safe outdoor space, a bucket of water and some paint brushes, children can have fun painting the house, the sidewalk, their toys, rocks, etc.
Keep Uppy: For kids 3 and over who can be trusted to keep the balloon out of their mouths, this game challenges kids to keep a balloon in the air for as long as possible. They can count how many hits they get and try to break their record, or play a simple “volleyball” game with a friend or sibling, taking turns to keep the balloon up in the air.
Cosmic Kids Yoga: Found on YouTube, Cosmic Kids Yoga does involve screens. Jaime, a registered children’s yoga teacher, leads kids through yoga routines by telling stories and using fun names for traditional yoga poses.
Bowling: set up some pins for your kids to roll a ball to knock them down. Show them how to reset the pins so they can play over and over again, without needing your help. You can use household items such as toilet paper rolls, empty cups, or milk cartons, as pins.
Hopscotch: Older children will likely be able to draw their own hopscotch grid outside with chalk, but it only takes a couple of minutes to draw it for younger children. To play, toss a small object (e.g. soft toy) onto the first square, then hop through the grid, skipping the square that contains the object. On the way back, pick up the object. Complete the game by moving the object to subsequent squares.
Nature scavenger hunt and craft: Provide your children with a printed list (or picture list for younger children) of common backyard items, e.g. grass, leaves, rocks, pinecones, sticks, dirt, tree bark, flowers, etc. The goal is to gather all of the items on the list and then use them to make a picture or a sculpture.