Getting children up and moving not only provides benefits for their health, but boosts their cognitive skills, academic performance and mental wellbeing. Here are some physical literacy activities that you can do at home with your child, based on their age.
Infant Scarf Dancing: Give your infant a scarf or streamer to hold in each hand. Put on some music and dance with your infant. Talk to them about the actions you are doing together as you dance and explain your movements “We’re bouncing, shaking and twirling. The music is slow, now it’s fast,” etc.
Toddler Goldilocks Says: Following our theme this week of ‘The Three Bears’, play a game of Goldilocks Says with your toddler. Using the same rules as Simon Says, remind your child that they cannot perform an action unless you first say ‘Goldilocks says…”. Use commands such as jump, hop, stand on one foot, etc.
Preschool Outdoor Activities: Take your preschooler outside with their bike, tricycle or scooter. Ask them: What do you think would happen if wheels were square? Do an experiment with them by rolling a ball and a block down a ramp. Discuss what happens.
Pre-Kindergarten Obstacle Course: Using pillows, blocks, boxes, etc. create an obstacle course with your child. You can create different stations for various actions such as balance, jumping, crawling and tossing or rolling a ball at a target. You can change up the obstacles by encouraging your child to navigate the course backwards, or by pretending to be an animal (for example: hopping like a bunny, crawling like a turtle).
School Age Crunch Challenge: For this challenge, you can create a baseline by counting how many crunches you and your child can do in 60 seconds. Each day, attempt to increase the number you can do in 60 seconds. You can get the whole family involved by making it into a competition.