Many parents have children at different stages and it can be a balancing act to find games to amuse and entertain everyone. We have put together a list of some fun games to entice your older children to participate in games that your toddler can also play. Hopefully these will help keep the peace in your house this Easter break.
All games are designed to enhance patience, coordination, listening skills, counting skills, memory and teamwork.
Traffic Lights is a simple game that we played when I was young and is still popular with children today. One child is chosen to be the traffic lights and stands with their back to the rest of the players. When they shout “green” everyone creeps slowly toward the traffic light, but when they shout “red” everyone must freeze, move and you are out! The person to reach the traffic lights first becomes the traffic lights of the next round.
As an alternative the person chosen to be the traffic lights gives out instructions for the other players to follow. Green - run around, Amber - move in slow motion, Red - stop, Crash - everyone lies down, Bridge - everyone bends into an arch shape. The winner is the player who gets all the actions correct first and they become the traffic light for the next game.
Relay races are always good fun. Choose 3 or 4 different activities for each race and your children can play alone with others. A few ideas to get you started could include; bouncing n a trampoline 5 time, doing 5 star jumps, jumping, hopping, rolling or skipping a short distance, crawling through a tunnel made from an old cardboard box, seeing how quickly they can put on some extra items of clothing, throwing objects into a bucket or basin from a distance, running while balancing an object, walking along a rope or plank of wood, crawling a distance on all fours or like a crab, becoming a human wheelbarrow, jumping between objects without stepping on the ground, getting in and out of a hoop or spinning it until it falls or racing a 3 legged or sack race.
Or how about trying some fun throwing games? Use soft balls, scrunched paper or paired socks for these! Divide the players into teams of throwers and human skittles, the throwers have to hit the skittles who then fall over dramatically. Or have a thrower and a catcher where the thrower has to try and get as many balls as possible into a bag with a wide opening or see how many they get over a distance marked by a rope or into a small receptacle placed a distance away.
Get children weighing and measuring using dried ingredients. Younger children can fill an egg cup or cup with rice and pour onto a weighing scales then do the same with pasta or dried peas or seeds and see do the weigh the same. For older children get them to weigh say 5 egg cups and note the weight of all 5. Or tell you how many grains of rice fill the egg cup and how many pieces of past or peas it take to fill the same egg cup.
For more inspiration and fun games for children check out www.mykidstime.com
