Go Out and Play!
The following play activities are fun for young children, while giving the opportunity to observe important developmental milestones. Although monitoring children’s motor skill development is also very important, this focuses on helping you observe less familiar social, cognitive and emotional milestones. Lists of all age-appropriate developmental milestones can be found at www.cdc.gov/actearly.
The following activities are designed for children 3 through 5 years of age; toddlers younger than 3 years of age might enjoy some of these activities as well, but might not be able to engage in outdoor play to the same degree as children a bit older. In playing any game or engaging in any activity with young children, remember that safety is the first priority.
Children often will adapt the game themselves; following their lead can be an easy way to make sure they like what they are doing and get the most from the activity.
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Scavenger Hunt – A traditional scavenger hunt easily can be adapted according to the age of the children. It also can be adapted so you can track milestones you normally might not be able to track during a traditional scavenger hunt.
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Sorts objects by shape and color: Tell the children to collect something green, something blue, and something red. When they bring the objects to you, have them make piles of the items according to color. You also can substitute shapes for colors.
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Understands concept of “2”: Instruct half the class to find two of one things and half to find two of another. While they are looking, start a pile for each object. When students return, have them place their objects in the correct pile.
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Recognizes common objects or pictures: Show children pictures of items to collect, but do not tell them what the item is. For example, hold up a picture of a flower and say, “Find one of these” instead of saying, “Find a flower.”
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Follows 2-to3-step command: Before the children begin their search, tell them what items to find and where to put the items once they’ve been found. When the children begin to return, do not repeat where they are supposed to place their items.
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Cooperates with other children: Pair the children or place them in small groups before sending them on their search. If you have pictures of the items they are looking for, give all the pictures to one child in each group and tell these children to give pictures to their team members.
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People to People – This is a game for kids who are learning their body parts.
Divide the children in pairs. Call out, or have a child call out, a body part in the following manner: “Toes to toes”, “arm to arm”, “Knee to knee”, etc. Children then stand with their partner with these body parts touching. At any time, the caller can call out “people to people,” when that happens, the children should all run together into a group. Divide the children into new teams, and start over.
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Three Little Pigs – You can engage children’s skills in imitation, pretend play, and storytelling with this role-playing game.
Divide the class into roles from the story “The Three Little Pigs”. Several children might need to perform the same role. While the teacher or another student tells the story, the children act it out, using areas designated by the teacher as the three houses (e.g., an area behind a bench could be the house of straw, behind a tree could be the house of sticks, and son on). Each time the wolf “Blows down” the “house”, all the little pigs run to the next house with the wolf chasing them. Each child caught by the wolf becomes another wolf. At the end of the story, the pigs can chase the wolves away.
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Follow the Leader – This classic game builds on a child’s ability to imitate and the development of the concepts of “same” and “Different”.
Put a new spin on this familiar game by instructing the children to do something different than the child in front of them.
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Crazy Ball – This game helps children demonstrate and develop skills such as direction following, imitating, turntaking, and being able to differentiate between concepts.
Have the children form a line, leaving a few feet between each child. Using one playground-sized ball, have each child do something silly with the ball while passing it down the line. You can change the direction to alter whether the child with the ball does the same thing or something different than the child before him or her.
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Duck, Duck, Goose – In this classic childhood game, you can build on a child’s ability to follow directions, awareness of being a boy or girl, and ability to take turns.
Making slight change to this old favorite can help you keep an eye out for some specific milestones. Tell the children that “it” can pick another child of the same (or opposite) sex only. Instead of running, instruct the children to hop, skip, or march when chasing the “goose”. Have the children make up and agree to some new facet of the game.
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Playground Equipment – The playground provides many opportunities to see children engaging in imitating, taking turns, engaging in fantasy play, wanting to please and be like friends, and cooperating with friends.
A great time to encourage children to use their imagination is when they are playing on playground equipment. Children on swings can fly to the moon, children on slides can sled down a hill, and children on a jungle gym can be monkeys in trees. Pull out your milestones lists, put on your thinking cap, and give children some hints that will start games that allow you to see if they are meeting their milestones.
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Hide and Seek – This is a favorite game of many children. It is a great game that demonstrates a child’s ability to understand placement in space, follow directions, and cooperate with others.
Hide and Seek is a wonderful way to observe how children change their manner of play over time. Younger children often hide in obvious places – sometimes in plain view – and often hide in the same place a friend was just hiding. They also tend to give away their hiding place by saying things like, “You can’t find me” or giggling while they are being looked for. As children get older, their hiding skills become more advanced, and they begin to develop strategies to reach home base without being caught.
You can track milestones by adding a little more structure to the game. For example, tell children to hide under or behind something, or have the seeker call out where they see their friends (e.g., “Joe is behind the tree.”). Place children in pairs or small groups and have them decide where the group will hide before the counting begins. Have the children choose and pretend to be characters who might look for each other (e.g., a knight searching for dragons or a mother duck looking for her ducklings).
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Animal Tag – A few changes can turn this traditional game of tag into an easy way to monitor milestones. During this game, children will show their ability to follow directions and recognize common objects of pictures, and their awareness of which sex they are.
Separate the children into small teams. Assign a different animal to each small team and instruct the children to act and make sounds like the animal throughout the game. When a child is tagged, they are “frozen” (must stand completely still). Only another child of the same “species” can unfreeze a frozen child. Children can identify their teammates by the noises they are making.
Check on object or picture recognition by giving each child a picture of an animal instead of telling the child what animal to be.
Tag also can be altered to include identifying which sex a child is by allowing only a child of the same (or opposite) sex to be the “unfreezer” (e.g., only boys can unfreeze girls, or only boys can unfreeze other boys, depending on how you establish the rules).
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Dance Party – Grab a CD player and head outside for a dance party! Dance party will showcase children’s ability to imitate and cooperate with others and dress themselves. This game also gets children to participate in fantasy roleplaying, singing, dancing, and acting.
Play music and have the children dance and imitate each other. Watch the children imitate dance moves their friends are doing and cooperate as they dance together. Encourage children to take turns showing their friends their special dance moves. If possible, allow children to “dress up” before going outside, but make sure that their costumes are safe for moving around (e.g. clothes do not drag the ground and shoes fit properly and are safe for outside play).
For more information and resources related to engaging children in the outdoors. Visit: http://www.childrennatureandyou.org
