It's time to bring back the Old Favorites:
Bubbles
Babies love to watch mom/dad blow bubbles. Encourage baby to catch/pop bubbles. As baby grows older, blowing bubbles are a great way for baby to practice his oral motor skills. Choose non toxic, hypoallergenic bubbles.
Patty Cake (Hand clapping between 2 people)
Gets babies hands moving with rhymes and songs that encourage the development of hand skills.
Tug-Of-War
This simple game helps your toddler/child develop strength, balance, endurance, concentration and provides him with proprioceptive feedback. Make the game fun and keep safety in mind.
Hula Hoop
Older children love to hula hoop. Put on some music and lets those hips do the talking. This is a wonderful game to help develop body awareness, balance and motor planning.
Hopscotch
Non-toxic chalk and safe surface it all that you need to create a hopscotch court. Adapt the size of the court according to the age of the child (younger child, more court/squares). Use different color chalk to teach different colors/numbers. This is a fantastic game that encourages eye hand coordination, gross motor skills, motor planning, balance, turn taking and more.
Imaginary Play with Everyday Objects
Leaves, sticks, branches and cardboard boxes soon become houses, castles and motor vehicles. Encourage imaginary play in your children. Imaginary play helps children to understand and discover the world.
What Old Time Games do you enjoy playing in your country?
Monday
Old Time Favorites
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8 comments:
nice blog
Oh yes, the simple things I did as a kid....so much fun and I did not even know I was learning something and building skills. It seems that these simple and inexpensive games have been lost to commercial, computerized, passive toys that are not really helping growth but are passive.
I loved to play Fort (using boxes, blankets etc) as a child. Would helping to cook, by mixing things in a bowl for example, be a form of play that is building skills?
Thank you for sharing this David. As a pediatric occupational therapist, I use "play" to help babies/toddlers/children development important foundation skills. The "challenge" for me is to ALWAYS keep the activities fun for the child, so that they don't think of it as "work". Having a child help you with meal prep is a fantastic activity. Your suggestion of having a child mix things helps him to build upper extremity strength, bilateral coordination and endurance among things. Children like to feel like they are contributing, which helps to build up their self esteem. Praise the child's efforts. You can have the child sit at a table for support and place a non slip mat beneath the bowl. Keep sharp objects and heat away from the child and monitor at all times.
My children LOVE playing Hopscotch. It still amazes me how much fun they can have with a simple games. It is interesting to learn how many benefits these simple games can offer. Thank you
My baby LOVES playing with bubbles. If she is cranky, I whip out the bubbles and she calms right down. As she gets older, I will teach her about size and direction with the bubbles. She is beginning to learn to blow bubbles.
Yes, Hopscotch is a FANTASTIC activity and offers a multitude of benefits, as does blowing bubbles. To help learn to blow bubbles, you may want to "catch a bubble" and bring it closer to baby, so that she can take her own time to "blow the bubble". Have fun!
We would to play with elastics. We would take a large piece of elastics (the white one that is used in clothing) and connect the ends. Two girls would wrap the elastics around their ankles so that between them there would be a space with an elastic on each side. Another girl would have to do all sorts of jumps, either without touching the elastic, by stepping on it, or by making funny shapes with it. I would always get tied up in it, but I still enjoyed the game.
frumteacher, I used to play the same game with elastics/tubing. It is a fantastic game for developing gross motor skills, motor planning, coordination and so much more. Thank you for reminding me of that game.
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