| Simple Action Games for Young Children | ||
|---|---|---|
| Game | Gross Motor Skill | Description |
| Crab tag | Agility and coordination | One child is the crab and chases other children, who must all move with feet and hands on the floor. Crabs who are caught go to a spot designated “the net.” |
| Stop/go (red light/green light) | Agility and speed | Children stand next to each other with one child in front of the rest; when leader says “go,” the others move/run forward until the leader turns around and says “stop”; anyone then caught moving is “out.” The first child to tag the leader becomes the next leader. |
| Red rover | Power and speed | Children form two lines and link arms; one line calls a child from other line (“red rover, red rover, let [child’s name] come over”), who runs as fast as possible to try to break the chain; if the child succeeds, he or she gets to claim a child for his line; if the child fails, he or she joins other line. The game is over when only one child is left. |
| Duck, duck goose | Agility and coordination | The children sit in a circle. The child who is “it” moves around, tapping each child in turn on the head, saying, “duck.” When “it” taps a child and says “goose,” the sitting child must get up quickly, chase first child around the circle, and try to tap another before first child sits in his or her empty spot. Variation: Catch the lion tailattach a tail to the chaser, and the child tapped must try to grab the tail before going all the way around the circle. |
| Follow the leader | Agility and coordination | Children form a line and must mimic how the first child in line moves as the leader moves around the space. |
| Musical chairs | Agility and coordination | Make a circle with one chair for each child. As the music plays, tell the children to move in different ways around the circle; when music stops, each child must sit in the closest chair. Variation: place one less chair than the number of children. The child who doesn’t get a seat becomes the one to tell when music stops next time. |
| Dance party | Coordination | Play music on a CD and tell the children to freeze when the music stops. Variation: birds or airplanes the children pretend to fly (without crashing into anyone else) until the music stops and they must “land.” Variation: Jumping frogsthe children squat; when the music plays, they jump like frogs. |
| Balloon volleyball | Agility and coordination | Inflate large balloons and tell the children to try to keep them from touching the ground. |
| Relay races | Speed and agility | Using anything appropriate for passing from one runner to the next (i.e., a “baton”), the children are divided into small groups who line up facing each other. They race, one at a time, in any number of waysrunning, hopping, skipping, and so on, passing the baton to the next child. |
| Bubble wrap stomp | Power, agility, coordination | Collect bubble wrap; place it on the floor and allow the children to stomp on it until it is completely deflated. (For fine motor skill, do this on a tabletop with the children using small mallets or their fingers.) |