The Snake. This game teaches children the meaning of the word slither, while also promoting cooperation and teamwork. Additionally, the cross-lateral experience (moving left leg and right arm simultaneously, and vice versa) require that the two hemispheres of the brain communicate across the corpus callosum (the matter connecting the hemispheres). This communication is essential to later reading and writing skills!

The children pair off, stretching out on their stomachs, one in front of the other. The child in back takes hold of the ankles of the child in front, forming a two-person “snake.” The object of the game is for the snake to see how far it can slither without breaking apart.

If there are more than two players available, the snake can grow accordingly!

The Tightrope. Have the children ever witnessed acrobats walking a tightrope in the circus? With jump ropes laid in straight lines on the floor, the children can pretend to be acrobats walking a tightrope. Simply ask them to explore all the different things they can do on it – including the different directions in which they can walk – and stand back and let them discover!

This game stimulates the imagination, improves directionality and spatial awareness, and develops balancing skills. To make it a bit more challenging, give each child two paper towel squares to juggle while on the tightrope! This will add visual tracking, hand-eye coordination, and overall coordination to the mix. It won’t be easy, but as long as it’s about pretend and not pressure – no emphasis placed on getting it right – your children will be more than happy to keep trying.

A great many of today’s children will grow up without such fond memories because today’s children spend far less time outdoors than did previous generations. That means, too, that they may not be getting enough of the outside light, which stimulates the pineal gland, is vital to the immune system and simply makes us feel happier. Outside light triggers the synthesis of vitamin D. And studies have demonstrated that it increases academic learning and productivity.

We also need to consider that young children learn much through their senses, and the outdoors is a virtual wonderland for the senses. There are different and incredible things for the children to see (insects, clouds, and shadows), to hear (traffic sounds, birdsongs, leaves rustling in the wind), to smell (flowers and the rain-soaked ground), to touch (a fuzzy caterpillar or the bark of a tree), and even to taste (newly fallen snow, a raindrop, or a freshly picked blueberry). Children who spend much of their time acquiring experiences through television, computers, and even books are using only two senses (hearing and sight), and this can seriously affect their perceptual abilities. Additionally, much of this learning, which falls under the content area of science, can’t be acquired indoors. Nor can children who spend most of their time indoors be expected to learn to care for the environment.

Of course, the outdoors is also the best place for young children to practice and master emerging physical skills and to experience the pure joy of movement. And it’s the place where they’re likely to burn the most calories.

Finally, Mary Rivkin, author of The Great Outdoors: Restoring Children’s Right to Play Outside, tells us there is one very basic reason that children need to experience being outside: humans evolved in the outdoors. They thus have a link with nature that can’t be replaced – in fact, will be atrophied – by technology. She asks: “…lacking intimate association with nature, can we still be fully human?”

Chances are, a bully is a bully is a bully. And somewhere, somehow, the behavior is going to show itself. We’re not eradicating the problem by eradicating recess. On the other hand, if we do see a pattern of bullying on the playground, we’re alerted to the fact that there’s a child in need of help.

Besides, there are alternatives. They may take more time and effort than simply whisking the problem under the rug, but time and effort are part and parcel of educating children. Following are some ideas:

Have more adults on the playground. In some places this has been accomplished when a mom’s efforts drew the attention of other parents, who volunteered to help out with recess.

Provide training in conflict resolution. When children are unable to resolve conflicts on their own, teachers, paraprofessionals, and parent volunteers should know how and when to intervene.

Provide “playground” training.The American Association for the Child’s Right to Play offers tips for a safe and friendly environment on its website and also provides training for “playground teacher specialists” in the schools. Physical education teachers can do similar training. When children and adults know how to use the space and equipment – and have been taught plenty of games to play – there are likely to be fewer problems during recess.

Offer recess before lunch. Chip Wood, in his book Time to Teach, Time to Learn: Changing the Pace of School, recommends restructuring the middle of the day so that recess precedes lunch. Wood has found that when children are allowed to first work up an appetite, eat lunch, and then have some quiet time, they’re “more productive and engaged in the afternoon.”

With that in mind, here are two activities that promote auditory discrimination (the ability to distinguish among sounds) and auditory sequential memory (the ability to hear and recall a series of words, sounds, or instructions).

Ready, Set, Action! Start slowly with this activity. Speak slowly and begin with only two commands at a time. When your child is ready, increase the challenge gradually.

Give your child a short list of movements to do but ask her to wait until you’ve stopped speaking before she starts doing them. Possible sequences include:

• Jump twice; shake all over.


• Clap twice; give yourself a hug.


• Blink your eyes, bend at the waist and straighten up.

For three-part sequences, put some of the above together. For example: clap twice, blink your eyes, give yourself a hug.

Musical Memory. This game calls for you to have some instruments with distinctive sounds, such as a tambourine, a drum, a slide whistle, maracas, and bells. (You might substitute such sound-making items as keys on a key chain, hands clapping, and a pot with a wooden spoon.)

Assign a particular movement to each of the instruments or sounds you’ve chosen and explain to the child that he should move that way when they hear the corresponding sound. For example, when you shake the tambourine, he should shake his body. When you bang the drum, he should stomp his feet. And when you play the slide whistle, he should move up and down in place.

Start with just a few sounds so your child will be successful, eventually mixing up the order in which you play the instruments so she won’t know what to expect. (If possible, either turn your back to her so she won’t see which instrument you pick up, or have her close her eyes.)

For an added challenge, have your child recalls sounds in sequence. Play three different sounds in a row. He should remember the sequence of the sounds and display the corresponding actions in the correct order.

In brief, the preschool you choose should be one that respects children’s intellectual, social/emotional, and physical needs. This describes a traditional, play-based preschool, as opposed to the academic-oriented education being touted – and sought after – in today’s superkid climate. So, when you visit preschools and interview teachers and directors, the word play should loom large at the top of your checklist. 

How do you know what kind of play to look for? Among other things, a preschool in which play is a priority will include housekeeping, dress-up, and other dramatic-play centers that allow children to learn about themselves and the world around them. The school will include materials, like blocks and Legos – enough to go around – for constructive play (activities in which children build or construct things). And it will be one in which the teachers play with the children! Sadly, many children come to preschool these days without having been encouraged to play, so early childhood teachers must be willing and able to show them how. They do this both by modeling and by asking questions that expand upon the children’s ideas and encourage new ones. Although they follow the children’s lead, they act as facilitators of their play and learning. 

Of course, if the idea of a play-based preschool brings to mind a total lack of organization – children running wild, bouncing off the walls, and allowed to do anything and everything they please – you’ll need to create a new mental picture. Play does not equal chaos or lack of structure; nor does an environment that is more child-centered than adult-directed. Rather, a preschool in which the children often initiate their own activities and make their own decisions will typically be more industrious than one in which children are forced to sit unnaturally still. 

There are a number of reasons for this, including the fact that children who are involved in self-initiated activities have much longer attention spans than adults typically expect them to have. Because they love learning and are fascinated by so many things, when they are allowed to choose their own projects, their absorption is a joy to behold. Although this may be a source of puzzlement to parents who are accustomed to children flitting from one thing to another, it really shouldn’t be: self-directed children are quite capable of losing themselves in what psychologist Mihaly Czikszentmihalyi calls a state of “flow!”

To put it bluntly: If you want your child to move, you’ve got to get moving, too.

Playing together is the simplest way for you and your child to get some physical activity. And, unlike efforts to get your child to eat his peas, you won’t have to worry about getting resistance from him. Children were born to move; they take to play like birds to the sky. They also love having your company and your undivided attention. Your only “problem” may come when it’s time to stop playing!

Also, to further serve as a role model, you can plan parties, outings, and vacations around physical activity. Looking for something to do on a Saturday afternoon? Go to the roller-skating rink. Planning a vacation? How about a trip to the mountains, where you can hike and swim, rather than to an amusement park, where you’ll stand in lines and then sit on rides? Will you be inviting dozens of your child’s friends to a backyard birthday party? Why not set up play stations – one with bubbles to chase, another with balloons to volley, and still another with beanbags to balance – where the children, divided into groups, play for a while and then rotate?

Remember, though: your participation and attitude alone won’t be enough; your words will also play a vital role. That means you’ll want to give serious consideration to what you do or don’t say.

For instance, a series of studies conducted in the 1990s discovered that parents’ enjoyment and encouragement of physical activity had a significant impact not only on their children’s attitude toward physical activity but also on their feelings of competence in it. Unfortunately, parents gave more encouragement to their sons than to their daughters. As a result the girls perceived they had less physical competence, and they didn’t feel as good about physical activity as did the boys.

Also, the words you choose when a child asks to go outside to play can foster either positive or negative feelings about play and movement. If you respond enthusiastically to the child’s request, positive feelings will flow. If, however, you place constraints on your permission – “OK, but don’t get dirty”; “OK, but play nice”; “OK, but stay on the porch” – you’re giving the impression that you’d rather she just stay still. And you definitely don’t want to do that!

For example, research has shown that parents’ inactivity may exert more influence on their children’s behavior than being active does. That is, if your child sees you sitting in front of the TV during all your free time – if he never sees you exercising or enjoying yourself as you do something physical – your actions (in this case inactions) will speak volumes. He’ll simply follow suit. Even if you tell him how important it is to be physically active, he’ll have no reason to believe you. (Similarly, children who watch their parents smoke while delivering a lecture on the dangers of tobacco won’t receive the message their parents intended.)

A Penn State study demonstrated that children do indeed follow the example their parents set for them. Their research, conducted over two years, established that 79% of the girls who became overweight from ages five to seven, with or without a genetic predisposition to obesity, were from sedentary families.

On the other hand, an article in the Australian Journal of Nutrition and Dietetics reports that children with active mothers were twice as likely to be active as children with inactive mothers. Children with active fathers are three and a half times more likely to be active than children with inactive fathers. And when both parents are active, their children are six times more likely to be active!

According to additional research, although today’s children aren’t usually taught how to play and be physically active, they do “catch” the attitude of their parents and siblings toward play and sports. In other words, attitude is as contagious as the common cold. So, if you want your child to have a great attitude toward physical activity, you’ll have to have one, too!

Considering the amount of time I spend at my computer, it hasn’t always been easy for me to practice what I preach. But the spring before last I discovered the joy and ease of going for a walk at the start of each weekday morning. It quickly became something I wanted to do and missed when I couldn't. So, as the temperatures plunged below 20 degrees here in New England and I discovered that 16 degrees was my limit for tolerating the cold, the question became: What now?

The answer came in the form of an old love: dancing. I simply put Ricky Martin or Ozomatli in the CD player and take to the living room floor for 25 minutes! My heart pumps, the endorphins flow, and if I close my eyes I can even imagine I'm on a tropical island somewhere!

So, if you're also a wimp when it comes to winter but want to make sure you and your family stay fit, here are some ideas:

• Set aside time every day for active indoor play. Make sure there's someplace where you and your child can safely move -- where knickknacks and sharp corners aren't a concern -- and do some dancing yourselves. You might also put on a march recording, or break out the pots and pans, and hold a lively "parade" around the house. Play an energetic game of Follow the Leader, or set up an obstacle course using furniture, empty boxes, a jump rope, and other props.


• If you've purchased active toys, be sure they're not neglected in favor of more sedentary toys and games. Play Twister as a family, join your child in juggling colorful scarves, and time yourselves to see how long you can keep a balloon in the air!


• Join a program like Gymboree, ensuring both social interaction and physical activity on a weekly basis.


• Bundle up and go outside! If I can go outdoors when it's above 16 degrees, so can you! Take a walk, play in the snow, catch falling snow on mittens or pieces of black construction paper. You can even give your little one a child-sized shovel so she can "help" with the driveway or walk!

Physical activity and spending time outdoors are both essential to your health and to your child's. Don't let him get the impression that, for three months during the year, neither is possible!

Still, there will be days when, for one reason or another, going outside isn’t possible. Does that mean your and your children should turn into couch potatoes? Absolutely not!

Following are three partner activities requiring little space, making them perfect for you and your child, or two of your children, to do together in the living or family room.

Palm to Palm. Use this simple game, which reinforces the concepts of around and how many, improves spatial awareness, and teaches cooperation, as a warm-up.

Partners stand facing one another with their arms extended and palms touching. They then drop their arms to their sides, close their eyes, turn around, and try to once again touch palms with their eyes closed! Once the children are experienced at this, the next challenge is to ask them to turn around more than once before connecting with their partner! How many times can they turn around and still come back together?

Bicycle Built for Two. This game reinforces the concepts of around and rotation and promotes counting skills, cooperation, teamwork, and togetherness. From a physical perspective, it helps build muscular strength and muscular endurance, two of the five health-related fitness factors.

Partners lie on their backs with the soles of their feet together and “pedal,” counting how many times they can go around without breaking contact!

Up We Go! This cooperative activity promotes spatial awareness, in particular the concepts of up and down, while also building muscular strength and endurance.

Partners sit back to back, with their elbows linked, and try to stand up. If they succeed, they can try to sit back down with elbows still linked. This simple game is easier said than done, but trying is half the fun!

Can your child come up with other ways to have fun with physical activity while indoors?

Neil Williams, DEd, is the creator of The Physical Education Hall of Shame, a list of childhood games he considers inappropriate for physical education classes. Games that make this list share some of the following problems:

• Absence of the purported objective of the activity or game.


• Potential to embarrass a child in front of the rest of the class.


• Focus on eliminating children from participation.


• Extremely low participation time.


• Extremely high likelihood for danger, injury, and harm.

Williams says, “As professionals, we must reexamine our practices and programs and think critically about what, how, and why we are teaching the children in our care.” I would argue that the same holds true for parents.

Currently, the Hall of Shame includes: 

• Dodgeball


• Duck, Duck, Goose


• Messy Backyard


• Kickball


• Musical Chairs


• Relay Races


• Steal the Bacon


• Line Soccer


• Red Rover


• Simon Says


• Spud


• Tag 

Games are wonderful teaching tools for children. But what are they learning when they’re battling (literally) to stay in the game or sitting miserably against a wall?

If you’re a reader of this column, you know there are simple ways to modify any game to make it more meaningful for children. For example, Messy Backyard is typically played with regular playground balls or wads of paper; but both of those can hurt if they accidentally hit a child. Chiffon scarves are much more difficult to throw for distance, but they’ll require a lot more muscle power. To play this game with a group of children, give each child a scarf, and make a line with masking tape, chalk, or a jump rope. Then divide the children into two groups – one on each side of the line.

Place an equal number of scarves on either side of the line. Set the timer. At your signal, the children race to pick up scarves on their side of the line and throw them onto the other side of the line. When time is up (say, two minutes), count the number of scarves on each side. Then divide them equally and start all over again!

• Although rewarding physical activity isn’t a good idea, using physical activity as a reward is. For example, you might suggest a family hike or a trip to a nearby pond for skating as a reward at the end of a long week. Thinking of physical activity as a reward gives it the right spin.
  
  
  
  


• Buy movement-oriented toys. If your child has more active than sedentary toys, it will limit his choices in a good way. When it’s time for gift giving, select items like hula hoops, balls in a variety of shapes, sizes, and textures, roller skates, a jump rope, juggling scarves, a shovel and pail, a little red wagon, or a wading pool or swing set. When shopping for games, Twister has more to offer then Chutes and Ladders. And CDs with lively music are a better choice than movie videos.
  
  
  
  


• Limit TV time and don’t allow a set in the bedroom.
  
  
  
  


• Don’t make a walk or a jog about exercise only. You can use this time to strengthen the bond with your child by talking to her as you stroll together. Let her choose the topic! She’ll be thrilled by your undivided attention.
  
  
  
  


• Get creative! Exercise doesn’t have to be a bore – and it shouldn’t be if you want your child to learn to love it. If you’re stuck inside and your little one hasn’t had enough movement, put a lively march on the CD player and hold a “parade” around the living room. To introduce your toddler or preschooler to stretching, pretend to be reaching for something on a high shelf, shooting a basketball, climbing a ladder, or trying to pluck a star from the sky. Play a game of point and flex, you sit facing each other with legs straddled, alternately pointing your toes toward each other and them aiming them toward the ceiling, holding in each position for a second or two. Make up a song about pointing and flexing! Turn tedious heel raises and knee bends into a game of popcorn, where you and your child stand and alternately lift your heels, lower them, and then bend and straighten your knees, pretending to be popcorn popping. Make the sounds that go with it!

If the way to develop a skill is to practice, practice, practice, then the way to get your child on the road to physical fitness is to model, model, model. As busy as you may be, if you truly want physical fitness for your child, you’re going to have to be part of the process.

If possible, post the numbers 0 to 9 or the letters of the alphabet where your child can see them. Then ask her to imagine the air in front of her is a giant chalkboard and that she has a big piece of chalk – in any color she chooses – in her hand. Invite her to select any number/letter she wants and to “write” it on the “chalkboard.” She should begin by making the numbers or letters as large as she can. Over time, you can encourage her to gradually reduce the size.

Fun alternate activities include the following:

• If you have a scarf or ribbon stick available, using it as “chalk” makes the pathways in the air less abstract, and children love these props.


• Invite your child to write with various body parts – an elbow, the nose, the top of the head, or the belly button (which will absolutely crack him up).


• Ask your child to imagine that the floor in front of her is a big piece of paper and that she has chalk, paint, or ink – in any color she wants – on the big toe of one foot. She then uses her toe to “write” any letter (in lowercase or uppercase) or number she wants on the floor.

These activities may seem silly to adults, but they help familiarize children with the straight and curving lines that make up the letters and numbers. Additionally, they promote spatial orientation, which is absolutely essential to success in reading and writing!

If your child is to derive the benefits of physical fitness, then physical activity must be habitual and lifelong. Moving should be as routine as brushing teeth and bathing. 

A Harvard study conducted in 2000 demonstrated that children regularly overestimate the amount of time they spend moving. When outlining their activities for the day before, the 45 participants (11 to 13 years old) reported an hour of vigorous exercise, like running. But they’d been wearing motion recorders on their hips that exposed the truth of the matter: they’d actually engaged in vigorous activity for two minutes. The hours of the day not spent in school (10, on average) had been spent in sedentary behaviors, like playing video games, watching TV, and sleeping. When physical activity becomes habitual, this kind of delusion isn’t likely to occur. 

If physical activity is a habit of yours – and of your family’s – it will become a habit for your child. And it will be an easy one to keep if it’s associated with pleasure rather than pain. 

A pleasant association is most likely to happen if you: 

• Choose individual and family activities that fit easily into your lifestyle.


• Select activities that are within your physical capabilities and those of your family members.


• Pace activities with fun, rather than heart rates, in mind.


• Don’t worry about scheduling; consistency is important, but it’s OK to be flexible.


• Encourage one another, pointing out what’s right about what you’re seeing.


• Don’t insist a child do something she’s not comfortable with; you can always try again in several months.


• Expose your child to a wide variety of physical experiences. Just as you wouldn’t feed him only chicken and spinach, you shouldn’t limit activity choices.


• Keep competition out of the equation. No good can come from comparing children! 

It’s important, too, to view fitness as an ongoing process rather than as a product. The latter gives the impression that there’s an end point to be reached, which is a misconception and can create discouragement. It’s also a great idea for your child to know that it’s a process for you, too! If she believes you’ve achieved some ideal standards, she’ll seek to reach perfection herself; and just the idea of perfection can prove to be overwhelming and not worth attempting. On the other hand, if she’s aware of your shortcomings (and we all have them), she’ll be motivated by your continuing commitment to improving.

• Prolonged confinement in classrooms results in restlessness and fidgeting.


• Children who are physically active in school are more likely to be physically active at home.


• The outside light stimulates the pineal gland, which is the part of the brain that helps regulate our biological clock, is vital to the immune system, and makes us feel happier.


• Outside light triggers the synthesis of vitamin D.


• A number of studies have demonstrated that outside light increases academic learning and productivity.

Too often recess is being eliminated because it’s considered a waste of time that could be better spent on “academics.” But research by Professor Olga Jarrett and her colleagues demonstrated that a 15-minute recess resulted in the children being 5% more on task and 9% less fidgety. Translation: a 15-minute recess saved 20 minutes during the day. 

A colleague gave me a wonderful example of what it must be like for children to go all day without recess. She asks parents to recall a day spent at a conference or business meeting that required them to sit and listen all day long. Unlike a typical day, during which they’re able to take breaks when needed, when at a conference or in a meeting, people are usually required to sit in one seat, with as little fidgeting as possible, for hours at a stretch. Invariably, they’re far more tired at the end of one of these days, but because they’ve done nothing but sit, they’re mystified as to why. The reason, according to educator and author Eric Jensen, is that sitting for more than 10 minutes at a time “reduces our awareness of physical and emotional sensations and increases fatigue.” 

Because increased fatigue renders concentration difficult (if not impossible), doesn’t it make more sense to provide children with breaks than to force them to remain in situations that can’t possibly be productive?

• Greg Norman, one of professional golf’s foremost money winners, never touched a golf club until he was 16.


• Karrie Webb, the world’s number one woman golfer, started at age eight.


• In his sophomore year in high school, Michael Jordan was cut from the varsity squad.


• Cynthia Cooper, twice the most valuable player of the Woman’s National Basketball Association (WNBA), picked up a basketball for the first time at age 16.


• NBA all-star Hakeen Olajuwon started playing basketball in his late teens.


• Tom Brady, three-time Super Bowl-winning quarterback, had his first football experience in ninth grade – as a linebacker.

As you can see, there’s no need to worry if your child doesn’t get a “jump start.” Studies conducted with twins have demonstrated that even when one child is trained to perform a skill at an early age, in the end there’s no difference in how the children perform. As a parent, you also have to consider the frustration factor involved for your child when trying to perform a skill ahead of the developmental curve.

The first step in preparing your little one for sports, most of which involve an object, is to help her begin to be comfortable manipulating an object. With throwing, kicking, and ball rolling, children should be concerned with distance before accuracy; so you can invite your child to throw, kick, or roll a ball toward the outside wall of your house – at first while standing relatively close to it. Since the side of a house is a difficult target to miss, success is likely! As your child continues to experience success at this task, she can gradually move farther away from the “target.”

If you think your child would eventually like to play soccer – or if you just want to have some fun that improves his foot-eye coordination – give him a beanbag, which is significantly less dynamic than a ball, to practice with. Once he’s had considerable success with the beanbag, he can try controlling a small beach ball or a playground ball eight to 12 inches in diameter with the inside and outside of his feet.

The rule of thumb is: fundamentals first. After all, you wouldn’t ask your child to try diving before she knew how to swim!

Don’t get me wrong; it’s not my contention that you shouldn’t roll a ball or play catch with your child until she’s achieved total mastery of the locomotor and nonlocomotor skills. Ball rolling is a great eye-hand-coordination, cause-and-effect activity that you can even do with a baby. And what dad doesn’t want to go out and throw the ball with his son or daughter? What I want to emphasize is that the manipulative skills are too often the sole focus of a child’s movement experiences. And even then the child usually isn’t taught how to perform them correctly; he’s just expected to perform them!

Stories like that of Tiger Woods, who started playing golf at age three and went on to become the world’s greatest golfer, have led some people to the fervent conviction that a child who doesn’t get the same early start will never have a chance. Nobody, it seems, stops to consider that perhaps Tiger was a rare exception. And there are certainly millions of stories – all of them unheard – of children who started before they were ready and quit out of frustration. Don’t let one of those stories be your child’s! There is no scientific evidence that getting an early start leads to improved sports performance. There is, however, research showing that children who learn skills when they’re developmentally ready learn them more easily!

In my next column, I’ll offer suggestions for some fun, simple, and developmentally appropriate ways to introduce your child to sports-related skills

Well, parents can take comfort in the fact that children do learn from having fun and playing games – but only if we choose them wisely! Far too many children’s games involve children chosen last for teams; children eliminated and sitting against the wall; and children engaging in the most atrocious behaviors to ensure they’re not kept from playing.

These games teach children, but not necessarily what we’d like them to learn! Still, parents arrange for them to be played at birthday parties and play dates without a second thought to the fact that they exclude children. After all, parents participated in these games when they were children, and they see no reason not to perpetuate the tradition.

Here’s a modified version of Hot Potato that instead of eliminating children reinforces the concept of around, teaches sequencing, provides an opportunity for children to practice tossing and catching, and creates feelings of belonging! You’ll need two beanbags or small balls, a CD player, and some music.

As the music plays, the children stand in a large circle and pass the beanbag from one child to the next, imagining the beanbag is a hot potato. When the music stops, the child holding the beanbag gives it to the child beside her, steps inside the circle, and is given a second beanbag. As the game/music starts again, the child inside the circle tosses and catches her “hot potato” by herself. When the music stops again and a second child is left holding the beanbag, he also steps inside the circle and the two “insiders” begin tossing their beanbag back and forth to each other. As the game progresses, it eventually reverses itself, with the children “inside” forming a circle and fewer children “outside” tossing to one another, until the final child joins the new circle.

What would we like children to learn from playing games? How about self-confidence, problem solving, cooperation, trust, and movement skills? None of that is likely to happen while a child is battling (literally) to stay in the game or sitting miserably against a wall.

To make this game about reading as well as about word comprehension, you’ll need a large piece of paper and a marker. Write the following words on the paper (along with any others you care to add), and put the paper where the children can see it. Ask the children to demonstrate the words with their bodies or body parts. If your children can’t yet read the words, say them aloud as you point to them on the sheet. 

• Up/down


• Large/small


• Long/short


• Forward/backward


• Happy/sad


• High/low


• Front/back


• Tiny/enormous


• Wide/narrow


• Top/bottom 

Here are some variations you can offer once the children are comfortable with the above. 

Ask the children to work in pairs to demonstrate the opposites. For example, if you call out, “high,” one partner forms a high shape, such as standing on tiptoe with arms above the head. As that partner holds her position, call out “low,” which her partner demonstrates (perhaps by crouching near the floor). In this way, it’s possible for the children to see the contrast between the two words. 

For a greater challenge, don’t reveal the opposite of the word given. For instance, if you’ve called out “forward,” one child should act out the word and his partner should act out the opposite, without being told the word “backward.” Call out another word, which the second partner demonstrates. The first partner then demonstrates its opposite. 

You can also turn this into a game of Charades. The children take turns acting out one of the above words, with the other children guessing the word. 

To add a literature component to your children’s exploration of the concept, you might choose to read Opposites by Sandra Boynton or Elephant, Elephant: A Book of Opposites by Francesco Pittau.

Ring Around the Rosie reinforces the concepts of up, down, and around, which fall under the content areas of language arts and mathematics, and exposes children to rhyming. In the social/emotional domain, the children experience a sense of belonging. And, under physical development, children experience spatial awareness and perform low-intensity exercise. 

To play, the children stand in a circle and hold hands, singing the following lines and falling to the floor on the last line. They then get up and do it again!

Ring around the rosie,

Pocket full of posies,

Ashes, ashes,

We all fall down!

For variation, you can change the tempo of the song as you go along, meaning the children will explore the musical element of tempo and the movement element of time; and they’ll have even more fun! Start by singing it very, very slowly. Then, with every repetition of the game, sing it a little faster.

You can also play this game with a parachute. The children hold the chute with one hand and walk in a circle on the first two lines. On “ashes, ashes,” they stop and wave the chute up and down twice. And, of course, on the last line, they all fall down!

The traditional version of London Bridge Is Falling Down is mostly sedentary for the children who act as the bridge and for those subsequent children who are “captured.” With a slight modification, the children can move almost continually, which means they’ll get more physical activity. This game also reinforces the concepts of through and under, creates feelings of belonging, and offers practice taking turns.

Select two children to stand facing each other, hands linked and arms raised, creating the “bridge.” The rest of the children form a single-file line, and as they move under the bridge, everybody sings the song. Make sure everyone gets a chance to make the bridge.

London Bridge is falling down,

Falling down, falling down.

London Bridge is falling down,

My fair lady.

Every time “My fair lady” is sung, the arches of the bridge come down (the two children forming the bridge lower their arms), capturing a child inside. That child then takes the place of one of the children forming the bridge, and the child who is replaced goes to the end of the line. Invite the children to walk under the bridge at first, but later they can march, jump, gallop, hop, or skip!

Ready, Set, Jump

Select a starting point and two spots in the yard (or on the playground), somewhat equidistant from the starting point, that can serve as markers (for example, the swing set, the oak tree, or the monkey bars). At your signal, your child walks rapidly toward the first marker and jumps from there to the second, and then jogs back to the starting point. You can repeat these actions for as long as he stays interested, or you can substitute any other locomotor (traveling) skills with each round of play. 

A game like this gives your child an opportunity to practice large-muscle movement and to burn calories. And if you join her in the game, you can benefit as well! 

Jump the Rope

This simple game gives your child an excuse to do one of his favorite things – jump! 

Hold one end of a jump rope with the other end lying on the ground (a plastic one with handles works well for this game). Start turning yourself around so the rope approaches your child’s feet. He jumps over it as it reaches him. When he’s become accomplished at this, pick up the pace! 

Hoops

“Hoops” is a nickname for the game of basketball. But because everything about the real game is too advanced for young children, this game will give your child a chance to at least say she played a game that involves throwing something through a hoop. 

Stand a few feet from your child, holding a plastic hoop upright. Your child tosses either a small ball or a beanbag through the hoop. Take turns holding the hoop and tossing the ball or beanbag. As your child becomes comfortable, gradually widen the distance between the two of you. 

It’s a simple game, but it reinforces the concept of through, teaches the arts of cooperation and taking turns, offers practice with underhand throwing, and develops hand-eye coordination.

Games can help! Statues, for example, which I’ve mentioned in this column before, requires that children possess enough self-control to stop moving when the music stops and to hold their position until it starts again. Similarly, playing Simon Says involves thinking before acting. If a child wants to succeed at the game, she must regulate herself. 

Red Light, Green Light (a modified version that involves greater participation and thus physical activity, as well as more learning concepts) is another game that can help foster self-regulation skills. To play, ask the children to line up side by side. Then, acting as the “stoplight,” you stand a distance from the children, with your back to them. When the stoplight (you) says, “Green light,” the children run or tiptoe toward you. When the stoplight suddenly turns and says “Red light,” everyone must freeze in place and hold very still. 

If you see players who haven’t been able to stop in time, designate them to be “yellow lights,” which means they must walk in place until the signal to go is given again. When someone finally reaches the stoplight, the game starts all over again with someone else acting as stoplight. 

Self-regulation skills are not only critical to becoming a functioning member of society; also, they are essential to a child’s academic success. A child who can manage his emotions is better able to pay attention, which translates into greater success in school. In fact, self-regulation skills are a better predictor of success in school than a child’s IQ.

The following activities expose children to oral language in general and to rhythm, rhyme, and syllables specifically. Most importantly, because they’re fun, they foster a love of language!

The Name Game. Children love to hear their own names. Sit with your child and clap out the syllables of her first name, saying the name aloud. For example, Jen-ni-fer would have three claps. After clapping the name, ask your child to mimic you. Then do your first name.

When your child is adept at the above, there are a couple of ways you can make it more challenging. First, add last names! You can also add foot stamping. Your child will best be able to do this while still seated but may eventually be able to clap and stamp while standing.

Echo. Sit with your child and explain that he’s going to echo what you say and mimic what you do. Recite the following nursery rhyme, breaking it into small pieces and clapping one clap per syllable as you say the words.

Mary had a little lamb,

Its fleece was white as snow;

And everywhere that Mary went,

The lamb was sure to go.

He followed her to school one day;

Which was against the rule;

It made the children laugh and play;

To see a lamb at school.

"Why does the lamb love Mary so?"

The eager children cry;

"Why, Mary loves the lamb, you know,"

The teacher did reply.

Pause after each word or set of words so your child can repeat what you did. For example, clap twice as you say “Ma-ry” and invite your child to mimic you. Clap twice again as you say “had a,” which your child repeats. Continue this pattern throughout.

This exercise in the rhythm of syllables uses “Mary Had a Little Lamb,” but you can do this activity with any popular nursery rhyme or poem that your child enjoys.

Rock My World. To introduce your child to Newton’s law, simply sit facing her, with the soles of your feet together and your hands grasped in front of you. Then rock back and forth. When you lean back, your child must lean forward; and the reverse. Begin by moving slowly and gently. How slowly can she go? When you feel she can handle it, pick up the tempo a bit.

By the way, playing on a seesaw is also an example of action and reaction. And it teaches lessons about balance and levers, two more scientific principles!

The Gravity of Gravity. Give your child a chiffon scarf to toss into the air as “hard” as he can. Does it come back down slow or fast? Does it make any difference in how fast it comes down if he throws it more gently?

Next, invite your child to try the same with a lightweight ball and, finally, with a beanbag. Of the three items, which came down fastest? Which came down slowest? Why does she think that might have happened? Why does she think everything eventually comes down? (This question could provide some interesting answers!)

You can also conduct a similar experiment with a parachute, first using cotton balls and then beanbags. Which are hardest to lift into the air? Which comes back down to the parachute most quickly?

Finally, ask your child to jump as high as he can into the air. Why does he think he can’t stay “up there?” What does he think would happen if he could?

P.S. These activities may offer lessons in science, but when you encourage these kinds of discussion you’re also providing an opportunity for your child to learn important lessons in problem solving and communication!

Give your child a balloon and invite him to toss it into the air and watch it float. Can he make the balloon go higher by throwing it harder? How else can he make the balloon go higher? How can he keep the balloon in the air longer? (Because hand-eye coordination does not fully develop until age 9 or 10, your child may not yet be able to volley—strike in an upward direction—his balloon successfully, but that doesn’t mean he won’t have fun trying.) Can he change the balloon’s direction by blowing on it? 

Next, invite your child to catch her balloon as it floats down to the ground. Have her try to catch it at four different points: while the balloon is still high in the air, when it’s at shoulder-height, when it’s at her knees, and when it’s are almost touching the ground. 

Later, you might want to read Albert Lamorisse’s The Red Balloon, a classic balloon story that makes a perfect accompaniment to this activity. Another book possibility is Jamie Lee Curtis’ Where Do Balloons Go? 

To help your child understand that things are moved by air, to strengthen his powers of observation, and provide an opportunity to get some exercise, take an “air walk!” Simply go for a walk with your child, challenging him to find everything he can that’s moved by the air. Possibilities include flags, trees, leaves (both on and off the trees), clothes on a clothesline, flowers, and litter, which you can collect and deposit in a trash bag you’ve brought along for the purpose! The latter has the additional benefit of helping your child understand the importance of caring for the environment.

"This Old Man." This familiar song uses nonsense words (which young children love). Until your child can sing it herself, sing it to her, inviting her to clap (or tap, if she has rhythm sticks) to its rhythm. When she hears the number in each verse, she holds up that many fingers (making this a math experience as well). On the last line of each verse, she can roll her hands or rhythm sticks. Here are the words:

This old man, he played one;

He played knick-knack on his thumb.

With a knick-knack, paddy-whack

Give the dog a bone,

This old man came rolling home.

Additional verses are:

This old man, he played two…he played knick-knack on his shoe…

…three…knee…

…four…door…

…five…hive…

…six…sticks…

…seven…pen…

…eight…gate…

…nine…rise and shine…

…ten…hen…

If your child is so inspired, he might choose to move his whole body to the song’s rhythm.

"Little Miss Muffet." This traditional nursery rhyme is fun to say aloud and to act out. Talk to your child about such unfamiliar and old-fashioned words as tuffet, curds, and whey. (A tuffet is a low seat, like a stool. Curds and whey are the parts of milk used to make cheese, such as cottage cheese.) Then simply read one line at a time, inviting your child simultaneously to repeat it and act it out.

Here are the words:

Little Miss Muffet sat on a tuffet

Eating her curds and whey.

Along came a spider

And sat down beside her,

And frightened Miss Muffet away!

"Do-Re-Mi." The notes of the musical scale (do-re-mi-fa-so-la-ti-do) may seem to be about music only, but singing these notes helps children learn to enunciate, as it also familiarizes them with vowels.

Sing each note of the scale, with your child echoing each note as clearly as she can. Once she knows the scale well and can sing it along with you, try it backward! Also, once she’s familiar with long and short vowels, sing the scale slowly, asking her to make her body long on those notes with long vowels and to make her body short on those with short vowels.

Marco Polo. Often played in pools and lakes, this game is also suited to large outdoor spaces and is great for improving auditory discrimination and spatial awareness. It can even help create empathy for the visually impaired. 

Ask all of the children except one to stand and close their eyes. The remaining child, who is “It,” chooses a spot to stand, at a distance from the other players. The players then repeatedly call out “Marco, to which “It” responds “Polo.” Using their listening skills only, the players must try to find “It.” The first child to do so becomes the next “It.” 

This can also be played as a partner game, with one partner trying to find the other. 

Ready, Set, Jump. It is in the outdoors that children are best able to practice large-muscle movement and to expend the most energy. This game gives them a reason to do both, while also teaching them to follow directions. 

Select a starting point and two spots in the yard or on the playground that are somewhat equidistant from the starting point (for example, the swing set, the oak tree, and the monkey bars). These serve as markers. At your signal, the children walk rapidly toward the first marker, jump from there to the second, and then jog back to the starting point. They can then repeat these actions for as long as they stay interested, or you can substitute any other traveling skills with each round of play. 

Crossing Over. This game helps children identify colors, improves their listening skills, enhances feelings of belonging, and provides an opportunity for them to practice running and dodging. 

Designate a starting and ending line, with the children standing side by side on the starting line. Stand in the center of the playing area, facing the children. They call out, “Is it safe to cross over?” You then respond by saying, “Only if you’re wearing [blue].” The children wearing the color you’ve indicated walk safely to the other side. But the children who aren’t wearing that color have to try to get to the other side without you tagging them. If you do tag them, they stay in the center with you and also become taggers!

You can use this activity anywhere – counting the number of steps it takes to cross the playground, to circle a room, or to move down the hall and out the door. You can also use this as an opportunity to practice other motor skills. Instead of steps, invite your child to discover how many jumps or hops it takes to get from one place to another. 

Pop & Count. Chasing bubbles promotes cardiovascular endurance (running) and muscular strength and endurance (jumping), but when you add counting to the mix, it becomes a mathematics experience! 

You’ll need a bottle of bubble solution and an outside space for this game. Simply blow bubbles for your child to chase and pop. Each time he pops one, he counts it. When you reach numbers that are too high for him to count, you can help out. 

If you have more than one child playing, make it a rule that no child is allowed to pop two bubbles in a row. Also, each child increases the previous number by one. For example, if your child pops the first bubble, she calls out “one.” If her friend pops the second bubble, he calls out “two.” 

Count the Claps. Because this is an active listening experience, it falls under the heading of language arts as well as mathematics. To play, simply sit with your child and, without counting aloud, clap your hands a certain number of times (starting with low numbers). Your child then claps out the same number of claps, counting aloud as he does. 

Such activities often seem simplistic in nature to adults, but the truth is that children learn far more from active learning experiences like these than from activities involving rote memorization or from computer software that doesn’t engage children in the way that simple, everyday experiences can.

Clouds. Ask your child for his impression of clouds. How many different kinds has he seen? What does he think clouds are made of? Then ask him to move like the following: 

• Big fluffy clouds


• Wispy clouds


• Dark storm clouds


• Clouds drifting and slowly changing shape 

If you have a group of children playing together, ask each child to begin as a single cloud and then gradually drift towards other children, moving together and apart to form larger and then smaller clouds. Sometimes two “clouds” will drift together to form a floating shape; other times, larger groups of clouds will join and separate. 

After this activity, take your child outside for some “cloud appreciation.” Ask her what kinds of clouds she sees, what color they are, and at what speed they’re moving. Then lie down and look for objects and animals! 

Over the Rainbow. Talk to your child about rainbows. Then invite him to make the shape of a rainbow with his body. Can he do it both while standing up and lying down? With how many body parts can he form the shape of a rainbow? 

Sunrise and Sunset. After discussing the rising and setting of the sun, invite your child to get into a very small shape on one side of the room or yard. She then pretends to be the sun slowly rising over the horizon. Once she’s fully “risen,” she moves in very slow motion – shining all the while – across the “sky” (to the other side of the room or yard) and begins setting, until the sun is no longer in sight! 

If you like, you can accompany this activity with a piece of slow, soft music to help set the mood and tempo. And because this is a great winding down activity, you can use it any time your feel your child needs to relax a bit!

What Do You Hear?

This simple activity invites your child to identify sounds. Choose objects with familiar sounds (for example, keys on a keychain, a whistle, a bell, and so on). After your child closes her eyes, make a sound, and ask her to identify it.

A more difficult challenge is to use a tape recorder to record familiar sounds your child might hear around the house and to identify it on tape. Possibilities include a drawer closing, a vacuum cleaner, a phone ringing, a clock ticking, an electric can opener, or a doorbell. 

Where Is It Coming From?

Choose an object with which you can make a sound (for instance, a ball, tambourine, maraca, or rattle). Ask your child to close his eyes. Then tiptoe to one part of the room and make a sound with the object. Your child (eyes still closed!) turns and points to where the sound is coming from. Invite him to open his eyes to reorient himself and to determine whether or not he’s guessed correctly. Then have him close his eyes again as you tiptoe to a different area of the room and make the sound again. 

Who Said That?

Play this game when you have a group of children together (it will work best with children who know each other well enough to recognize one another’s voices). While the previous activity requires children to determine where a sound is coming from, this one asks them to determine where and who it is coming from. 

Invite the children to spread out around the room, and then stand with their eyes closed. Tiptoe to one child and tap her on the shoulder. She then opens her eyes and doesn’t speak until you’ve tiptoed to the center of the room. Silently motion to the selected child to speak aloud a few predetermined words, such as “Mary had a little lamb.” The rest of the children then open their eyes, point to the child whom they believe was speaking, and say her name aloud. Then ask them to close their eyes again for another round!

Ask each child to step inside a plastic hoop, pick it up, and put it around her waist. Then challenge the children to imagine they’re each inside either giant bubbles or cars on the highway (whichever image you think will work best with your group). Challenge them to move around the room without touching anyone else’s bubble or car. 

Stand with your arms out to your sides, acting as a “wall,” beyond which they can’t pass. Gradually, begin reducing the size of the area in which the children have to move by taking the occasional step forward. Be sure to stop when the children are still able to move around without touching another person’s hoop! 

If you don’t have hoops, the children can still play this game by extending their arms out to their sides. In this case, instead of avoiding contact with other hoops, they’ll be avoiding contact with other hands. 

Either way, to make the game more challenging, once they’ve experienced ample success with moving in a forward direction, ask them to try not touching one another while moving throughout the area in a backward direction (with the back of the body going first). Can they do it with one (and then the other) side of the body leading? 

The proprioceptive sense refers to the sensory input an individual receives about his movement and his position in space. For example, it’s what allows people to walk without having to look at their feet, to write without having to watch the hand move, and to know where their limbs are in relation to the rest of the body. Games like The Shrinking Room can help promote a child’s awareness of his position in space, and can help you detect any possible problems with this important sense. And, of course, it helps children learn to function as a group!

According to Alfie Kohn, in No Contest: The Case Against Competition, in our society the idea that competition is good, necessary, and inevitable “is drummed into us from nursery school to graduate school.” These beliefs are promoted so regularly – in both subtle and not-so-subtle ways – that they’re rarely questioned. Even if children were inclined to question a belief held so strongly by their parents and other role models, they don’t possess the mental ability to do so until the damage is already done. No, children figure out early that their parents, teachers, and coaches want them to “eat or be eaten.” 

Yes, children eventually will need to learn it’s a competitive world and that they won’t always succeed at everything. But isn’t it far more imperative that children learn to cooperate – to learn how to be and work together? After all, life requires cooperation between spouses and among family members. Coworkers need to learn to collaborate. How about members of a community dedicated to the goal of making their area a better place to live? Or committee members working together toward the completion of a project? 

Since cooperation must be learned (as does competition), I’m a big fan of cooperative games in early childhood. The research of sports psychologist Terry Orlick has demonstrated that young children exposed to cooperative games are later more likely to engage in cooperative behavior than children with no experience with these kinds of games. 

Musical Hugs is a game that’s as simple as they come, but it has a lot to offer! Whenever you’ve got a group of children together, put on some music, inviting them to move around the area in any way they wish. When you stop the music, the children hug whoever is closest to them! For a more challenging version, ask two children to hug with the first round, three children to hug with the second round, four with the third round, and so forth, until there’s just one big group hug! 

In addition to being a “feel-good” game that generates feelings of belonging and positive physical contact, Musical Hugs helps develop listening skills, particularly with the differentiation between sound and silence. It also provides moderate-intensity physical activity and offers practice with starting and stopping, which promotes self-regulation skills. All of that with one simple game!

Among the more famous of musical fingerplays are “Where Is Thumbkin?” and “The Eensy-Weensy Spider.” The former, as I’m sure you recall, involves asking the whereabouts of thumbkin, pointer, middle finger, ring finger, baby finger, and the “whole family.” Your child responds by displaying the appropriate finger and saying, “Here I am, here I am.” And to the question, “How are you this fine day?” he sings, “Very well, I thank you.” (This fingerplay has the added bonus of helping to promote fine motor control.) 

Following are the words and actions for “The Eensy-Weensy Spider”: 

The eensy-weensy spider went up the waterspout.

[Creep your fingers upward.]

Down came the rain and washed the spider out.

[Show falling rain with your hands.]

Out came the sun and dried up all the rain.

[Use your arms to form shape of sun above your head.]

And the eensy-weensy spider went up the spout again.

[Creep your fingers upward once more.] 

To help your child learn this and other fingerplays, demonstrate the actions while speaking or singing the words. Then repeat the process, encouraging your child to perform only the actions. On the next repetition, if she wants, she can participate with both actions and words. 

An alternate, related activity is to ask your child to demonstrate with his whole body some of the words from the rhyme. From this one you might choose the words eensy-weensy, up, down, falling rain, sunshine, and spider. And as a bonus, you might also want to read Mary Ann Hoberman’s The Eensy Weensy Spider, which offers the familiar song as well as additional adventures for the famous arachnid!

First, some background information: 

• Metamorphosis is the word used to describe the life cycle of a butterfly. There are four stages: egg, caterpillar, chrysalis, and butterfly.


• The egg is very tiny and is usually laid under the leaf of a plant.


• The caterpillar is long and tubular in shape, and it has six eyes on each side and several pairs of legs.


• The chrysalis hangs from a tree by a silken thread and represents the “resting” stage; the butterfly begins to form inside the chrysalis.


• Finally, an adult butterfly emerges from the chrysalis. It has bright, colorful wings that are exactly the same on both sides. While resting, the butterfly holds its wings vertically, almost touching each other over the back of the body. 

Talk to your child about all of these aspects of a butterfly and its life cycle. Then explain that she’s going to act out this cycle, beginning with the egg. Ask her to make herself as small as she can and pretend to be a tiny egg underneath a leaf. The “egg” then turns into a long and tubular caterpillar. Ask her to show you how a caterpillar moves. 

Next, invite your child to experience the motionlessness of being a chrysalis, either by lying on the floor or by pretending to hang from the branch of a tree from a silken thread. Finally, he moves like a butterfly, alternately pretending to fly, drink nectar from flowers, and rest. 

When the pretending is completed, go outside and search for the real thing! Active learning on both of these levels will make this science lesson come alive for your child.

Each of us solves many problems a day. It can be as simple as producing a decent meal from leftovers, or figuring out where to look for the answer to a question, to the more complex dilemma of balancing a budget, or salvaging lost data from a crashed computer system. For some of us, problem solving involves getting along with difficult coworkers or family members. For others it involves launching a spaceship or ridding the world of cancer. 

Our children, of course, aren’t facing such problems yet. But they will one day, and unless they’ve had some practice, they’re not likely to suddenly acquire problem-solving skills as adults. 

How do you provide practice in problem solving? There are actually multiple answers to that question! 

True problem solving is the result of what’s called divergent production – the ability to find multiple solutions to a single challenge. Those who study creativity tell us that creative thinkers possess “ideational fluency,” which means they can produce numerous ideas. To help promote creative thinking in your child, when you’re doing chores or going for a walk or a drive together, make a game of trying to think of all the things that are round, for instance. Or in what ways are a cat and dog alike? What things move on wheels? Don’t make it a contest – just something fun to do that also happens to stimulate the mind. 

And don’t forget the power of the question, “Can you find another way?” If, for example, your child is walking along a low balance beam, a curb, or the edge of a sandbox, acknowledge what you’ve seen. Then ask, “Besides walking, can you find another way to move along the beam in a forward direction?” Possibilities include scooting on the bottom, hopping, sliding on the tummy, and tiptoeing. Possibilities for getting from the front door to the mailbox include jumping, walking backward, dancing, and jogging. Possibilities for making a crooked shape are seemingly endless! 

When you present your children with such challenges and validate all the different responses they offer, they become assured that there’s always going to be more than one way to meet a challenge. And as their confidence grows, they’re willing to take greater and greater creative risks. 

Divergent – or creative – thinking isn’t essential to the arts only. We need creativity in science, medicine, technology, and education. And, as you can see from the examples given at the beginning of this column, creativity in everyday life comes in handy, too!

When my brothers and I were kids, we used to play it in the car when the family was heading to Nana’s house or somewhere else that took longer than a few minutes to reach. We searched for things that began with specific letters, things that were specific colors, or cars of different makes! It was fun and educational, and playing it together fostered communication and strengthened the bond among my brothers and me. (For all those reasons, I’m definitely not a fan of DVDs in family vehicles!) 

Obviously, then, I Spy is a game that can promote letter and color (and car) identification. But it’s so versatile that you can use it for any number of educational purposes. One is to introduce and create awareness of early geometry. 

Because geometry starts with simple lines, you can play I Spy to help children identify various kinds. To play, simply chant “I spy with my little eye, a line that is curving (straight; zigzag; crooked). The children then look around the room or playground, move to whatever they believe it might be (it’s best if there’s more than one possibility) and take on the shape of the chosen object. As children become familiar with more difficult terms, you can invite them to spy lines that are diagonal, vertical, and horizontal as well. 

You can apply the same concept toward the identification of different geometric shapes by inviting children to spy something that’s a square, circle, triangle, and so forth. Again, it’s best if more than one possibility exists. 

To add a literature component to the games, share Jean Marzollo’s and Walter Wick’s series of I Spy books with your children. Or choose from any number of books focusing on shapes, including Tana Hoban’s Shapes, Shapes, Shapes and The Shape of Things, written by Dayle Ann Dodds and illustrated by Julie Lacome.

From a whole-child perspective, there are a number of problems with this version. Children who are thought to be the weakest are called upon first. Similarly, they look to break through what they believe to be the weakest link in the opposing team. And, of course, children get hurt.

If you’ve been reading this column, you know I’m not one of those people who believe all children should win all of the time in order to boost their self-esteem or prevent them from childhood bumps and bruises. But modifying this game not only makes it more enjoyable for the children, but also provides an opportunity for them to practice motor skills. Further, it offers an educational component in that it improves listening skills, color discrimination, and counting ability.

The arrangement in the modified version is the same as that of the traditional game: the children standing in two side-by-side lines facing each other. (Holding hands is optional.) Children takes turns being the “caller” (perhaps moving from left to right down each line). But before the caller says anything, you designate the way in which the children are to move to the other line. (Possibilities include tiptoeing, jumping, hopping, skipping, galloping, backward, sideways, crouching, and so on.)

The child whose turn it is calls out, “Red Rover, Red Rover, send [blue] right over,” choosing any color she wants. All the children on the other side wearing blue – anywhere on their outfits – cross over to the other line, in whatever way you’ve designated, and join the players on that side. The game continues with a player in the second line calling out a different color. (No color can be used twice in a row.) When the children determine that “all” colors have been called, the game is over!

To adults, this version may seem bland and unexciting. But to a young child who’s never played the original version, the modified game offers plenty of fun and challenge.

One possibility is tapping to the rhythm of rhymes and poems, which develops temporal awareness and an internalization of their rhythm. Simply read a children’s poem or nursery rhyme aloud, choosing one with a fairly even rhythm throughout and with at least a few stanzas so your child has time to get the feel of it. Then suggest that she tap or clap along to its beat. (If tapping, she can use her hands on her thighs or knees, rhythm sticks, pencils, or wooden spoons.) A later challenge, after she’s had ample experience clapping or tapping, is to ask her to use her whole body, moving around the room to the beat of the poem or rhyme. It doesn’t matter if she’s not “on the beat;” it only matters that she experience it in some way.

Songs like “Pop Goes the Weasel” and “Five Little Monkeys” are also great for promoting rhythmic awareness. Sing or play a recording of “Pop Goes the Weasel.” Your child walks around the room during the song and jumps into the air every time he hears the “pop.” The next challenge is to jump and clap with each “pop” and finally to jump, clap, and change direction with each “pop.” (This process takes a while.) Or chant the lyrics to “Five Little Monkeys” (you can find them easily on the internet) with a steady rhythm, and ask your child to jump to its beat.

All of these activities help “imprint” rhythmic awareness on a child’s body and in her mind. And they offer a bonus in that they also promote active listening, another essential ingredient of emergent literacy.

I recently received an e-mail from a trainer at a fitness center who said he was amazed by the number of parents who want their children to “pump up.” In other words, they’re asking fitness professionals like himself to offer strength training. And while these parents only want the best for their children (strong muscles, after all, are necessary for performing certain tasks, for preventing injury and maintaining proper posture, and for increasing strength in tendons, ligaments, and bones), we can’t view strength training for kids in the same way we do for adults. Adults’ bodies are fully developed; children’s aren’t. 

As such, the best strength training for children involves the use of their own weight in physical activities they’d be performing anyway, like climbing the monkey bars, playing tug-of-war, and pumping higher and higher on a swing. Jumping is perhaps the best strength training of all for young children! 

Of course, jumping continuously can be tiring. And if it’s being done just for the sake of jumping, it’s not much fun. To give your child a reason to jump, ask him to pretend to move first like a kangaroo and then like a rabbit. Young children enjoy pretending to be animals, and alternating between jumping heavily and jumping lightly makes it possible to sustain the movement longer. 

Before beginning, talk to your child about rabbits and kangaroos. Which is the bigger and which is the smaller? Which would be the heavier of the two? Which would then jump most heavily? 

Between the activity and the brief discussion, you’ve given her a quick and easy lesson in the mathematics concepts of light, heavy, and size. She’s given some consideration to two animals that have both similarities and differences, and she’s had an opportunity to practice the locomotor skill of jumping. Best of all, she’s experiencing “strength training” that’s appropriate for her age and stage of development.

Outdoors, children have the opportunity to practice and refine their emerging motor skills and to burn calories – an excellent and easy antidote to overweight and obesity. Performing large-muscle skills, like running and jumping, also strengthens bones and muscles, improves aerobic endurance, and stimulates growth of the heart, lungs, and other vital organs. Additionally, research has found that spending time in nature reduces stress, enables children to be less affected by stressful situations, and alleviates some of the daily pressures that can result in depression. And the outside light triggers the synthesis of vitamin D. 

Of course, such activities as running and jumping also send “food,” in the form of oxygen, water, and glucose, to the brain, optimizing its performance. 

With all that in mind, along with the fact that spring has sprung even here in northern New England, I’m going to optimistically assume that your children and their playmates will be spending a lot of time outdoors and will enjoy a rousing game of tag. The possibilities include the following: 

Freeze Tag. This is the classic cooperative tag game. One player is It. Tagged players must remain frozen until another player comes along to touch them. For a more challenging version: tagged players must remain frozen, feet apart, until another player crawls under their legs. If It can freeze everybody, the last player to be frozen gets to be It for the next game. 

Reverse Tag. Everyone but It counts to five, during which time It runs as far away from the group as possible. The child who manages to tag It then becomes It and must run away from everyone else. 

Blob Tag. One child begins as It, but then everybody tagged also becomes It. The result is a cluster of children that keeps growing until there’s just one big “blob” running around together. The last person tagged is the first person to be It in the next round. For a more challenging version, tagged players hold hands with It and all others tagged. 

Now send your child outside to play!

• Eye-hand coordination isn’t fully developed until the age of 9 or 10.


• Figure-ground perception – the ability to distinguish an object from its surroundings – doesn’t reach maturity until 8 to 12 years old.


• Depth perception – the ability to judge distance in relation to oneself – isn’t usually mature until about age 12. 

The skill of receiving and controlling an object with the hands requires children to focus on the approaching object and make the adjustments necessary to receive it. The above developmental factors conspire to make that a difficult task, which often results in fear of the approaching object.

It makes more sense for the child’s early experiences with ball handling to be with rolling a ball. Like throwing, ball rolling involves moving a ball away from the body with the hands, but rather than through the air, the ball travels along the ground. Ball-rolling skills are most often associated with games like bowling and kickball but are also used in such activities as boccie, shuffleboard, and curling. The basic pattern is also seen in underhand throwing. 

To practice this skill, play a game of Soda-Bottle Bowling. To improve her eye-hand coordination, set up large, empty soda bottles in the backyard, hand her a beach ball or a big playground ball, and let her bowl to her heart’s content! 

If you want to play the game with your child – or there are two children to play it together – arrange two to three soda bottles in close proximity to the players. One player stands near the “pins” while the other bowls (rolls the ball and tries to knock the bottles down). The second player then retrieves the ball while the first resets the pins. Then the second player takes a turn at bowling. The players continue in this manner, taking turns for as long as they stay interested! 

This simple game contributes to the development of eye-hand coordination and visual tracking, helps make children comfortable with ball handling and the underhand motion, and offers an experience with cause and effect. Moreover, if children play it with someone else, they learn a valuable lesson about teamwork.

When you and your baby make faces at each other, you’ve already begun. Children learn much through imitation; they’re genetically programmed for it, so even though making faces at your infant may feel like just a silly game, in fact you’re setting the stage for imitative learning – as well as bonding and communicating. 

And the learning doesn’t have to stop when your child becomes a toddler or preschooler. You can still make faces at him and ask him to imitate them. At this point, though, you can being “labeling” the faces as sad, mad, scared, tired, and so forth. In this way you’re providing opportunities for expressive language and introducing early social studies, which begins with a child’s self-discovery. 

The next step is to play the Mirror Game, in which you stand facing your child and explain that you’re going to pretend you’re looking into a mirror and she’s your reflection. That means she must imitate everything she sees you do! You then make simple movements – raising and lowering an arm, lifting a knee, or bending to the side – that she copies. When she expresses a desire to try leading, you can reflect her movements. (This game offers an opportunity to playfully introduce the scientific concept of mirror reflection.) 

Another possibility is the Shadow Game (which introduces the scientific concept of shadows). It’s similar to the Mirror Game, but you’ll stand with your back to your child and perform various traveling movements around the house or yard that your child “shadows.” Again, you’ll eventually reverse roles so you each have a chance to both lead and follow. 

Have two children who are bored and can’t find anything to do? Suggest they play these games together, and they’ll additionally be learning wonderful lessons in cooperation!

When we were young, we couldn’t have imagined how drastically childhood would change. Today’s kids don’t have the time for such leisurely pursuits. And because neighborhoods aren’t what they used to be, jump rope chants and other games aren’t being passed down from older children to their younger counterparts. 

Sadly, there’s more being lost than just tradition. Children aren’t getting the opportunity to interact as we did when we were their age. They don’t have the same chances to become skilled at the fine arts of cooperation, conflict resolution, and problem solving. And they don’t have the same chances to simply learn in natural, developmentally appropriate ways. 

Take hopscotch, for instance. There may be no older children in the neighborhood to teach it to your child, but he can certainly learn it from you. 

On the sidewalk or driveway, with chalk, draw a hopscotch grid. (In case you’ve forgotten, it’s 10 squares, numbered consecutively, with the numbers 1, 2, 5, and 8 in single squares and the numbers 3 and 4, 6 and 7, and 9 and 10 in side-by-side squares.) You or your child then tosses a beanbag or small stone onto the square marked with the numeral 1. The player hops over that square (when possible, there should be no touching down on the square with the beanbag/stone on it), lands on one foot in the square marked 2, jumps in the squares marked 3 and 4 (a two-footed landing with the left foot in the left square and the right foot in the right square), hops (one-footed landing) in the square marked 5, and so on up the grid. At the top of the grid, the player turns and follows the same pattern back to the beginning, once again hopping over the first square. The next player tosses the beanbag or stone onto the number 2 square. 

This traditional game provides practice with the motor skills of jumping and hopping, as well as with number recognition, counting, and sequencing. But a child who plays it has no idea she’s learning so much!

Sit on the floor with your child. Place a hand on one of your knees and demonstrate how you can “walk” your hands down the length of your lower leg. Count how many “hands” it is from your knee to your toes. Invite your child to do the same – to find out many hands is it from his knee to his toes. Now find out how many hands it is for both of you from a hip to the toes. 

The next step is for your child to lie face up on the floor and have you measure her from head to toe. Then switch roles! 

To introduce your child to measuring with a yardstick or tape measure, substitute one of those objects for the hands. Show him the numbers – even though he’s not yet likely to understand the concept of inches – and help him figure out how many “numbers” his leg is. Once this task is accomplished, other items to measure include the following:

• shin (from knee to ankle)


• pointer finger


• pinky finger


• foot


• you! 

Set your child free around the room to determine the length of any object she wants to measure. She’ll love the importance of this task. And if you write down her findings, it will add even more value to her “work.” 

In this age of accountability and standardized testing, teachers – even at the preschool and early elementary levels – are facing enormous pressure to use seatwork and worksheets to help children meet standards and pass tests. Many believe they no longer have time for the kind of active learning described here. But despite the ever-changing priorities of adults, children haven’t changed the way they learn best. They’re still experiential learners who retain more when they use multiple senses in the learning process. They still need to experience concepts physically to fully understand them. Because of this, experiences like those described here will contribute to your child’s mathematical knowledge far more than any seatwork or worksheets could!

The weather report, which is sometimes wrong and sometimes right, predicts many different occurrences that can vary according to the area you live in. But even if your child hasn’t experienced some elements firsthand – like tornadoes or snow – he’s likely to have some understanding of what they’re about. And asking him to imagine them will strengthen his creative skills and give him an opportunity for self-expression. 

Talk with your child about the weather elements listed below, especially those with which she may be unfamiliar. To strengthen her communication/language skills, be sure to ask her impressions of them. Then ask her to depict/move like them! 

Possibilities include:

• Rain falling


• Sunshine


• A hurricane


• Freezing cold


• Fog rolling in


• Snow falling


• Hail


• A tornado


• Thunder


• Lightning


• The 3 H’s: hot, humid, and hazy 

When you’ve got a group of children together, another weather-related option is to create a “snowstorm” with either a parachute, or sheet and cotton balls, or Styrofoam peanuts. Place the “snowflakes” on the parachute or sheet and encourage the children to create a snowstorm by bouncing the cotton balls or peanuts up and down. Challenge the kids in two different ways, one after the other: to see how long they can bounce the “snowflakes” and keep them on the parachute or sheet, and to see how quickly they can make them fly off! 

Of course, the best way for children to learn about the elements of weather (which fall under the content area of science) is to experience them firsthand – physically. Children learn much through their senses. So be sure, as often as possible, to go for a walk in the rain, make angels in the snow, and play shadow tag in the sunshine!

If we modify the game a bit, it can be played by just “Mother” and child. Also, it can contribute to listening skills, the ability to follow directions, and counting skills.

Let’s assume you’re going to be playing this with several children. Stand about 20 feet away, facing them. Give an instruction for them to take a certain number of a certain kind of movement. For example, “Children, take five steps on tiptoe.” Or: “Children, take three jumps backward.” The children then ask, “Mother, may I?” before doing as directed. The game continues until the children reach you. You can then start again with someone else acting as Mother.

If you’re playing with just one child, the only modification is that, when that child reaches you, the two of you switch roles. You can continue to play as long as the child stays interested!

There are other rewards to this game, in addition to those cited above. If you play it outside, the children will benefit from the fresh air and sunshine. (This is more than just an expression, as the outdoor light stimulates the pineal gland and helps produce vitamin D, among other things.) Having to stop to ask for “Mother’s” permission contributes to self-regulation skills, which are so important to a child’s ability to control his impulses when necessary, to delay gratification, and more. And, of course, this is a fun way for children to practice their emerging motor skills. All you have to do is be sure your directions include a variety of them. Moreover, you can make this an experience in emergent literacy by adding adjectives and adverbs to the game. For example, don’t simply ask the children to take steps; ask them to take big, small, tiny, giant, quiet, or noisy steps. Or invite them to “jump heavily,” “hop lightly,” or “step slowly.”

Who knew that one simple game could offer children so much!

Are you in the pasta aisle? Challenge your little one to pretend to be uncooked spaghetti. How stiff can he be? Now, what if he were spaghetti that had been placed in a pot of water? Ask him to show you a soft, “wobbly” piece of spaghetti. How would he walk if he were cooked spaghetti? 

How would she move if she were a piece of celery, or soup sloshing in a bowl? Other possibilities include moving in the following ways:

• like the odor of food floating through the air


• as though moving through peanut butter or marshmallow fluff


• like a fizzy drink


• as though walking through mashed potatoes


• like popcorn popping


• as though stomping grapes

Granted, those last two possibilities will be a bit noisier than some of the others. But better the sound of creativity than the embarrassment of an eruption. And following the grape stomping, you can always invite your child to show you how he would move if he were walking on eggs and didn’t want to break them!

You can use similar strategies in the department store, as you walk through the parking lot on the way to the store, or even in places where you want your child to be especially quiet, like in the library.

In the store, challenge your child to imagine she’s a tightrope walker; or give her a problem-solving challenge, like moving in a crooked shape or being as tall as she can be. Make up a song for the parking lot. To the tune of “Hail, Hail, the Gang’s All Here,” sing: 

And for those times when you need your child to be extra quiet: Encourage him to move like a whisper, a butterfly, a ghost, or a quiet librarian!

Yes, you’ll be using these activities to distract and entertain your child. That’s to your benefit. But your child will be benefiting, too, from the opportunity to use her imagination, to solve problems, and express herself!

Choose a piece of music that conveys a specific mood. For example, Bach’s “Musette in D-Major,” Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy,” Scott Joplin’s “The Entertainer,” and Bobby McFerrin’s “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” evoke happy feelings. Samuel Barber’s “Adagio for Strings” and funeral marches convey sadness. An eerie piece of electronic music can evoke “scared,” while “silly” might come to mind upon hearing “Baby Elephant Walk,” “Syncopated Clock,” or “Do Your Ears Hang Low?”

Listen to the piece you’ve chosen with your child. Then ask her to describe how the music makes her feel. After you’ve talked about it, invite her to move to the music in the way it makes her feel. (If you think she’ll be shy about this, make it a game of Statues in which she moves in any way she wants while the music is playing and freezes into a statue when you pause it. Playing a game tends to be less intimidating than “dancing” or “interpreting the music.”) Move with her, imitating her actions whenever possible – until she’s comfortable with finding her own way to move and not imitating you.

Repeat this activity often, using pieces that convey different moods. Try to use two opposite pieces during the same playtime. For example, immediately follow a happy piece with a sad piece. Go back and forth in this manner so your child can fully experience the contrast. (End with the happy piece!)

Not only is this a great introduction to music appreciation (the arts have so much to offer children); it also is an experience in both emergent literacy and social studies. It’s the former because it’s both an active listening and a speaking activity and, if you contrast musical moods, a lesson in opposites. It’s the latter because it deals with moods and self-expression. Allowing children to express emotions in a safe environment helps them better understand and cope with feelings – their own and others’ – in any environment. And according to research – and teachers – good social/emotional development is an important factor in academic success.

Point to the coffee table, couch, lamp, television, or rug; and have some fun taking on those shapes. Bring the teapot in from the kitchen and play your own version of “I’m a Little Teapot.” What other objects lend themselves to the game? Possibilities include a pencil, knitting needle, or book. 

Point out something with angles, and invite her to try making angles with her body and body parts. Show her such geometric shapes as squares, triangles, rectangles, and circles; and challenge her to replicate those. Use the proper words for the shapes she’s making, and she’ll be experiencing an early lesson in geometry.

Kids love to make different shapes with their bodies, and when they do so, they’re experiencing a lot more than fun. If you show them a shape and ask them to copy it, they have to physically replicate what their eyes are seeing. This is a skill necessary for learning to write and for such artistic endeavors as drawing and painting. If you challenge them to come up with multiple solutions, as suggested above, you’re encouraging divergent production. The ability to produce multiple responses is necessary for creative thinking and problem solving. Shape, of course, is a concept that falls under the content areas of art and math. And, last but not least, when children take on various shapes with the body, they’re gaining flexibility, one of the five health-related fitness factors.

Unfortunately, a number of “party” games, like traditional Musical Chairs, feature elimination. What, then, are you to do with a gathering of children looking for entertainment? Play Ducks, Cows, Cats, and Dogs – and I guarantee you’ll be plenty entertained as well!

Here’s how to play: With the children seated and scattered throughout the room, whisper the name of one of the animals in each player’s ear. Once each child has been assigned an animal, ask the children to get on their hands and knees and close their eyes. When you give the signal to start, they begin moving about the room with their eyes closed, making the sound of their animal and trying to find the other animals like them!

When all the dogs, for example, have found each other, let the children know. They can then sit and watch the others who are still searching. When all the animal groups have found one another, ask the children to count the number of “animals” in their group. If they’re up for another round, play it again, assigning the children different roles!

By the way, this one activity can cover all seven primary content areas. Of course, physical education is covered because the children are practicing the motor skill of creeping (moving on “all fours”). Because it’s a cooperative game, it falls under the heading of social studies. Because it’s about auditory discrimination, it belongs under language arts (listening) and science (the sense of hearing). Science is additionally addressed because the game focuses on animal behavior, the counting brings in math, and the creation of sound touches on music. The only content area left is art, and you can include that after the game by inviting the children to draw the animal(s) they got to be!

A pair means there are two matching objects – like a pair of socks. But if you start with pairs of body parts, you’ll be addressing science as well as mathematics. Ask your child to point to the pairs appearing on her body, as you call out the names of these parts. Possibilities include:

• eyes


• ears


• hands


• feet


• knees


• legs


• arms


• elbows


• shoulders


• pointer fingers


• nostrils

More challenging, of course, is to ask him to find pairs of body parts on his own. Try this after you’ve played the above game a few times. Then, once your little one is familiar with the concept, invite him to travel around the area looking for pairs. He might possibly discover a pair of: faucet handles, shoes, salt and pepper shakers, lamps, end tables, or candlesticks. (If he discovers pants or scissors, you’re on your own when it comes to explaining why they’re called pairs!)

To explore the concepts of once, twice, and more, all you need to do is ask your child to perform something simple, like taking a step forward or lifting an arm. Then challenge her to show you she can do it twice. Can she do it once more?

By the way, there are many children’s books that deal with these concepts. Among them are A Pair of Socks, written by Stuart J. Murphy and illustrated by Lois Ehlert, A Pair of Red Clogs by Masako Matsuno, and “More More More,” Said the Baby by Vera B. Williams. Because the second explores the concepts of shoes around the world, it’s also relevant to social studies. And, of course, if you extend the above activities with relevant books, you’re incorporating language arts (emergent literacy) into the learning and doing it all in a way that’s developmentally appropriate for young children: with active, enjoyable experiences!

Other quantitative concepts include high, low, light, and heavy. To explore the first two with your child, invite her to show you how high she can make her hands go. How low can they go? Repeat, asking her to get her nose, elbow, belly button, and whole body as low and high as possible!

Then, using the slide whistle or your voice (humming or intoning), begin with a low note and get increasingly higher, challenging your child to start in a squatting position, rising along with the notes. When the notes get as high as you can go, reverse the process with descending notes. Repeat this several times, varying the tempo. Not only does it help your child better understand high and low; it also helps with flexibility (one of the five health-related fitness factors). Do it with him, and you’ll get part of your exercise for the day!

To promote comprehension of light and heavy, invite your child to sit and tap her fingers lightly on the floor in front of her. Next, ask her to pound her fists on the floor. Continue to alternate between the two, varying the amount of time she gets to do each.

Other possibilities for exploring this concept include doing the following:

Challenge your child to move his arms as lightly as possible, imagining that they’re butterfly wings. Now ask him to pretend his arms are the propellers of a helicopter. Continue to alternate between the two.

Ask your little one to move as lightly as possible around the room, imagining she’s walking on eggs and doesn’t want to break them. Now invite her to move while making as much noise with her feet as she can. Continue to alternate between the two.

Alternate between pretending to be a kitty cat and a dinosaur!

Both of these sets of activities involve opposites, so they’re experiences in emergent literacy as well as mathematics. In other words, your child will get plenty of bang for the buck with these simple games!

Preschoolers are just learning to identify and locate body parts. By age seven, the majority know their large and small parts. Still, many a student has arrived in the early- and even upper-elementary grades not knowing, for example, his elbows from his shoulders. As it regards games and athletics, when such a child is in a situation where he’s expected to respond quickly to a teacher’s or coach’s instruction involving body parts, taking the time to think about what he’s being asked to do could make the difference between success and failure. As it regards the rest of life, knowing what and where his body parts are contributes to one’s self-concept (early social studies). Body-part identification also falls under the content area of science.

With an infant, to promote body-part identification, play a simple game of “I’ve got your nose (toes, fingers, etc)!” With toddlers, play Head, Belly, Toes, in which you call out the names of these body parts and your child touches the part being named. Start slowly, saying the parts in the same order each time. Then, as she gains experience, vary the tempo and the order. A bit more challenging is Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes because it involves four body parts.

With a preschooler, play Show Me, in which you invite him to show you various body parts, like nose, toes, fingers, knees, ears, and legs. More challenging for him to identify could be shoulders, elbows, wrists, hips, shins, and ankles. Trade off, taking turns issuing the invitations. For older children, a more difficult game involves inviting your child to place a shoulder on the floor, an elbow on a foot, or the nose to a knee, for example.

Of course, Simon Says is the ultimate body-part identification game for a group of children. However, as I’ve mentioned before, the children who most need to practice this skill (and active listening) are usually the first to be eliminated. But if the children are divided into two groups instead of one, a child who moves without Simon’s “permission” simply goes from one group to the other and has plenty of opportunity to practice and learn!

It makes sense. When you’re constantly being rewarded and positively reinforced, regardless of what you do or the effort you do or don’t put forth, intrinsic motivation – the good feeling that results from doing something for its own sake – shrivels up and dies. And a life without intrinsic motivation – the satisfaction that flows from within – means a life in which extrinsic rewards provide the only incentive for doing something. Why work hard at a project if there’s not a significant amount of money involved? Why run the race if you can’t be assured of a first-place ribbon? Why volunteer your time and energy if being helpful is the only payoff?

Kids easily become addicted to praise. The more they get, the more they need. But isn’t it better for them to become addicted to the good feeling that comes from doing things for their own sake?  How do you help that happen? Here are a few examples: 

• As an alternative to praising or rewarding your child for reading, you can snuggle together on the couch and read with him. You’re modeling positive behavior and helping him associate reading with good feelings.
  
  


• When you want your children to play together, offer a small selection of games, inside or outside, to choose from. Choice is a necessary ingredient in fostering intrinsic motivation.
  
  


• When you want your child to clean her room, make a game out of it by putting one of her favorite songs in the CD player and challenging her to pick up before the song ends! Don’t turn it into a race, but if you join in – emptying the dishwasher, for example – the sense of togetherness adds to the experience!

You can buy one that’s brightly colored and child-sized, or you can simply grab an old sheet from the closet! Then, next time you have a gathering of children at your place, instead of the traditional – and often developmentally inappropriate games, like musical chairs – they can gather around the parachute and play games like Let It Snow.

For this game, in addition to the parachute, you’ll need cotton balls or Styrofoam peanuts. Place the cotton balls or peanuts on the parachute. Next, encourage the children to lift the parachute carefully. Challenge them to move it up and down in little waves, creating a “snowstorm” and working together to keep all the “flakes” from falling off the parachute. Ask them to count the number of times they can move the parachute up and down without any of the snowflakes falling off. (You might want to give them a set time period, marking the beginning and end with a signal.) Gradually, challenge them to toss the snowflakes higher while still keeping them on the parachute.

• Play the game in the opposite way – challenging the children to see how quickly they can shake the objects off the parachute!


• Turn this into a seasonal game by using items like fallen leaves in autumn, a small beach ball in the summer, and flower petals in the spring.

Moving the parachute up and down offers the children upper torso exercise. But when you add the seasonal elements, the counting, and the cooperation, you’re also offering children experiences in science, math, and social studies, too!

Do I think young children should be learning to multitask? No! But that doesn’t mean that there can’t be multiple benefits derived from a single task! Consider how much can be learned as children practice the skills of balancing, rolling, and volleying.

A game called Beanbag Freeze calls for children to walk around while balancing a beanbag on various body parts. They have to stop if they drop the beanbag and can’t move again until another player recovers it for them. This game teaches balance and body control, both of which are helpful in any number of sports – and in life!

A log roll involves a long, stretched body with arms overhead and is a fundamental skill in educational gymnastics. Once children are able to keep their body and pathways straight while performing log rolls, they can try it in pairs, lying on their backs with the soles of their feet touching. The goal is to see how far they can roll without disconnecting!

Volleying involves striking an object in an upward direction with the hands or other body parts (excluding the feet). It’s best to begin with lightweight, colorful objects like balloons. Once children have had enough experience hitting a balloon upward with the hands, one hand, and other body parts, they can play Keep It Afloat. This game challenges partners to keep a balloon in the air for as long as they can, without either of them touching it twice in a row. This improves hand-eye coordination and visual tracking (skills required in writing and a number of other activities) as it offers practice with volleying!

As a bonus, all of the above are cooperative games, which means they teach an important social skill and offer experience with problem solving. Now that’s my kind of multitasking!

The problem with many organized sports is that they inherently demand – rather than teach – greater movement skills than young kids have, and this can lead to frustration and failure for a child.

By focusing on the fundamentals first – by allowing your child to practice emerging skills through play – and by taking the time to play with him – you can help ensure that your child feels comfortable with and confident in his movement abilities. Joining your little one in play allows you to model skills that your child has yet to learn, like a gallop or a skip. But it must honestly and truly be play. No expectations, no pressure. So if you demonstrate galloping or skipping, they should only be fun activities that you’re encouraging your child to try. He doesn’t have to do it if he doesn’t want to, and if he wants to try, he doesn’t have to get it right the first – or the second or third or fourth – time!

If we liken movement to grammar, the skills themselves (running, jumping, etc.) are the verbs and the elements of movement (space, shape, force, flow, time, and rhythm) are the adverbs. For example, if your child were jumping around the backyard, you might ask her – playfully – to try jumping backward, sideward, or around in circles (the element of space), while being very big or very small (shape), as lightly or strongly as possible (force), with pauses in between (flow), slowly or quickly (time), or to the beat of your clapping hands (rhythm). Keeping the elements of movement in mind as you play ensures that your child will get to experience the full range of possibilities for each movement. This also contributes to the fun and will benefit him in all future physical activities!

The research shows that the most active children are those whose parents encourage and expect them to be active. So one step in the process is simply to encourage and expect. A second step involves being active yourself, as the research also shows that the most active children are those whose moms and dads are active.

In the same way I encouraged you in an earlier column to buy active gifts, I hope you’ll consider active weekends and vacations. For example, rather than going to amusement parks, where you’ll stand in line so you can sit on rides, plan vacations at the beach, in the mountains, or taking walking tours. Instead of limiting recreation time to the movies or video arcades, go roller or ice skating, hiking, or sledding.

Simplest of all is making a daily walk part of your routine. Not only will this provide much-needed exercise and fresh air, it also can strengthen the connection between you and your child. Use it as an opportunity to have a conversation, letting your child choose the topic!

To get started – and to ensure this is seen as something fun – take “concept” walks. I’ve told you before about listening walks, during which you discover how many different sounds you can hear while on a walk. You can also take an “air” walk, watching for all the things that are moved by air (a concept that falls under the heading of physical science). Possibilities include clothes on a clothesline, trees, flowers, leaves (both on and off the trees), and even litter (which you should collect in a bag you’ve carried for the purpose). Or how about a shadow walk? How many different shadows can you spy? (Remember that objects, like trees, buildings, and flagpoles also cast shadows.)

They say it takes doing something for about a month before it becomes a habit. It may not be easy to establish a physical activity habit for your family, but the most worthwhile things usually take some effort!

Of course, because body-part identification, awareness and understanding of the senses, and the discovery of the limitations and capabilities of the body and its parts fall under the content area of science, it can be said that every time a child moves he’s exploring scientific, as well as physical, concepts. His senses are conveying information to his brain and body. He’s experimenting with muscle tension. He’s experiencing changes in heartbeat and breathing. He’s figuring out where his body parts are and how to use them.

But there are also specific scientific concepts that are developmentally appropriate for young children to explore. In an earlier column I recommended letting your child “paint” the outside of the house with a brush and a bucket of water. That simple activity involves the scientific concept of evaporation. “Fun with Fruits and Vegetables” offers lessons in nutrition. The exercises recommended in “Help Your Child Relax” include awareness of the muscles and lungs.

Gravity is another scientific principle your child can – and does – explore. She may not yet be ready to grasp the concept (who among us does?), but she can experience it. For instance, gravity is involved when she jumps into the air and returns to the ground!

To further explore this principle with your child, give him a chiffon scarf, a lightweight ball (like a beach ball), and a beanbag. Invite him to toss the scarf into the air as “hard” as he can. Does it come back down slow or fast? Does it make any difference how fast it comes down if he doesn’t throw it hard? Now ask him to try the same with the ball and, finally, the beanbag. Of the three items, which came down fastest? Which came down slowest? Why does he think this might have happened? Why does he think everything eventually comes down?

Thankfully, you won’t have to provide a scientific explanation to your child – because it’s too soon for her to hear it! But it’s not too soon for her to experience and consider gravity’s effects.

Today, time spent with “educational” products is replacing these active, sensory experiences with passive experiences. And it’s easy to be convinced that flashcards, DVDs, and computer programs are giving kids an edge. Four-year-olds can name obscure geometrical shapes as they pop up on their computer screen. They can say their ABCs and count to 50 – in two languages. But this and similar feats represent rote learning – the result of sheer memorization. Authentic learning involves comprehension. And until a child is developmentally ready to understand what the numbers, letters, or words represent – until the information has some relevance to her life – there can be no comprehension. 

Years of play research, as well as recent brain research, have determined that Mother Nature had it right all along: children, as with other baby animals, learn best through their play, movement, and tactile experiences. And learning in three dimensions trumps learning in two.

So what can you do about it? Try this: Give a child a paintbrush and a bucket of water and let him play painter for the day. He can “paint” the outside of your house, the swing set, or the trunk of a tree. Help him experiment with different shapes—circles, squares, straight lines, or curves. But also let him just experiment, without agenda. Not only are kids and water a natural combination, but all this fun also ensures he’ll get some upper-torso exercise while simultaneously learning lessons about absorption and evaporation.

And why not bring back the blocks, the jigsaw puzzles, and the finger paints, too? A recent study determined that playing with blocks promotes language development as well as spatial reasoning. But even if it didn’t, the creativity, problem solving, and fine motor development fostered by playing with these materials would be reason enough to add them to your child’s toy box!

Three of the most popular cold-weather activities are skiing, skating, and sledding. Talk to your child about the differences among these activities, especially emphasizing the movements that each requires. If you can, show your child pictures of the three different activities. (This is especially helpful if you don’t happen to live in an area where these activities are common!)

Teach your child the following song, sung to the tune of “Farmer in the Dell.” Then encourage her to act out the sport mentioned in each verse! Leave enough time between verses so that she can adequately experience the movements involved in depicting each sport.

Believe me, I understand. But if you give in to the temptation to hibernate and allow your child to join you, he’s going to get the impression that physical activity is only something you do when you feel like it. And that’s not a great message to send. Physical activity should be as much a daily habit as brushing teeth! Moreover, your child will go an entire season without reaping the many physical, emotional, and cognitive benefits that movement offers.

What’s a parent to do? Getting out from under the afghan is the first step. Then bundle up and go outside! I know, I know; it’s cold out there. But it’s important not to give your child the idea that she can’t go out just because it’s cold. Take a walk anyway. Play in the snow: building snow people, making snowballs and angels. Catch falling snowflakes on mittens or on the tongue! Give your little one a child-sized shovel so she can “help” with the driveway or walk. (Young children love to help!)

The second step is setting aside time every day for active indoor play. Make sure there’s someplace where you and your child can safely move – where knickknacks and sharp corners aren’t a concern. Then choose some of the activities I’ve mentioned in this column: holding a pots-and-pans parade; playing a game of Statues, where you move while the music is on and freeze into a statue when the music is paused; playing Follow the Leader or Catch Me If You Can; setting up an obstacle course using furniture, empty boxes, a jump rope, and the like.

Finally, to avoid cabin fever and ensure that socialization is part of your winter routine, you can join a developmentally appropriate organized physical activity program, like those offered by Gymboree, which you can attend at least once a week!

Put it all together and you’ve got a winter season that’s just as active, fun, and healthy as the other three seasons of the year!

In a poll conducted in 2004 among early childhood professionals, “family stress” was rated as the number one challenge to the well-being of today’s children, with “hurried childhoods” ranking second. Here are some other interesting findings:

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  In a 2004 Washington Post article it was reported that the use of antidepressants among children grew three-to ten-fold between 1987 and 1996, and a newer survey found an additional 50% rise in prescriptions between 1998 and 2002.

  
  


• 
  

  Preschoolers are being diagnosed as having post-traumatic stress, bipolar disorder, and anxiety disorders, among other psychiatric ailments.

  
  


• 
  

  Many young children’s brains now look remarkably like the brains of overstressed adults, with excess levels of cortisol and adrenaline.

  
  


• 
  

  A 2006 study conducted by KidsHealth revealed that more than four in 10 children feel stressed most, if not all, of the time. More than 75% surveyed expressed a longing for more free time.

  
  

Clearly, children are in need of downtime. That’s why I recommend finding creatures in the clouds. First, although it may be truer in the past than it is today, kids have always enjoyed lying on their backs and finding creatures – bunnies, dragons, ghosts – in the clouds. Simultaneously relaxing, stimulating, and pleasant, cloud watching provides children with time just to be and to let their imaginations roam.

Second, the concept of finding creatures in the clouds implies an appreciation for nature. I propose that children should be encouraged to spend as much of their downtime as possible outdoors, not only because we’re creatures of nature in danger of losing an essential part of ourselves, but also because the outdoors has so much to offer kids, not the least of which is stress reduction.

Finally, speaking of stress, finding creatures in the clouds is just one way children can recharge their batteries and avoid burnout and depression. Lying back and looking up at the sky helps children practice the important skill of relaxation – a skill they can use throughout their lives to ensure that the success they achieve doesn’t come at a cost that’s just too high!

Before hitting the stores, however, consider the fact that many of the so-called educational, as well as the popular, products involve sedentary participation. Then give some serious thought to how much time your child spends being physically active versus time spent stationary. The National Association for Sport and Physical Education, along with other health organizations, recommends that children engage in at least 60 minutes and up to several hours a day participating in unstructured physical activity. They further recommend that children not be sedentary for more than 60 minutes at a time except when sleeping.

Is your child meeting these recommendations?

We have a childhood obesity crisis raging, of course. But even if weight isn’t a problem for your child, you should know that physical activity is as necessary to optimal health as the foods you provide. The human body was meant to be active! Recent research, in fact, links sitting with disease! And if it’s “educational” that you want, consider the fact that numerous studies have demonstrated that the most physically active children show greater academic performance, have higher test scores, and maintain a better attitude toward school. Part of the reason for all this is that moderate- to vigorous-intensity physical activity supplies the brain with oxygen, glucose, and water – “brain food.”

So, as you go off to the stores, think about movement-oriented toys and gifts. Select a hula hoop; balls in a variety of shapes, sizes, and textures; roller or ice skates; a jump rope; juggling scarves; a shovel and pail; a little red wagon; a tricycle or bike; or a wading pool or swing set. When shopping for games, Twister has more to offer than a traditional board game. And CDs with lively music to dance to are a better choice than music videos!

Your child may be disappointed not to unwrap the most-advertised thingamajig, but she or he will thank you in the long run – and have a lot of fun, despite the initial disappointment, in the short run!

Music also contributes to children’s cognitive development. It’s vital to the development of language and listening skills and improves attention and memory. Also, because music and language both consist of symbols, when used in combination, abstract concepts become more concrete. The concept of slow, for example, is much more meaningful to children when they’re hearing slow music. And it’s even more meaningful when they’re accompanying the slow music with slow movement.

Body-Part Boogie is a musical activity that focuses specifically on listening skills while also helping children identify and isolate body parts (which falls under the content area of science for them), follow directions, express themselves, practice stopping and starting (which contributes to self-control), and experience the mood-altering properties of music.

All you need to do is to put on a piece of music and designate just one body part that your child should move (for example, the head, an arm, a foot, a leg, fingers) while the music is playing. When you stop the music, your child freezes. Start the music again, designating a different body part.

Every time you play this game – or within the context of a single game – use different styles of music to inspire different kinds of movement and to broaden your child’s musical education. Also, for an additional challenge you can assign different pieces of music to different body parts. For instance, when your child hears the classical piece, she’s to move one arm. When she hears the rock-and-roll piece, she moves a leg; and so on. This will really help her become a discriminating listener!

• Eliminate elimination. With simple modifications, almost any game can be played without the elimination process. Why does that matter? Because often, the children eliminated first are the ones that need to keep playing most. In the traditional game of Simon Says, for example, the first kids to get cut are the ones who most need to work on their body-part identification and listening skills! With Simon Says, you can arrange the children in two circles. When a child moves without Simon’s “permission,” that child simply goes from one circle to the other. Everyone keeps playing, and practicing, too!



 



• Think cooperation – not competition. Children will have plenty of time to experience competition, which isn’t developmentally appropriate for early childhood anyway. To help them learn how to work together successfully, which is preparation for becoming a part of society, play plenty of cooperative games. Not only will they not mind removing the “winner” and the “loser,” but research shows preschoolers actually prefer cooperative to competitive games.



 



• Take it outside! Whenever possible, that is. Today’s children are spending less time outdoors than at any other point in history. As a result, they’re losing their connection with nature and missing out on the sensory experiences only the outdoors can provide. Besides, playing a game outside can add a whole new element to it. With Follow the Leader, for instance, new obstacles create new pathways and challenges.



 



• Keep a repertoire handy. Keeping a ready repertoire of games means you’ll always know just what to do when the opportunity to play arises.



 



• Have fun! If fun – for everyone – is the main, or only, objective of a game, it’s worth playing. After all, fun is the primary definition of a game!

Here’s some examples of what marching can offer children:

• An energetic march can be considered moderate- to vigorous-intensity physical activity, which contributes to cardiovascular endurance, one of the five health-related fitness factors.


• Because the child will be using her body weight in an energetic manner, marching will also contribute to muscular strength, another of the fitness factors. And if she marches for a sustained length of time, muscular endurance, a third fitness factor, will be impacted.


• Marching is a cross-lateral movement in that the right arm and left leg, and the reverse, are used simultaneously. Cross-lateral movement requires the two hemispheres of the brain to communicate across the corpus callosum, which stimulates learning and is critical to reading and writing skills.


• Marching provides experience with rhythm, which is necessary to speaking, reading, and writing, three of the four components of the language arts and emerging literacy.


• If your child is following and imitating your movements, he’ll develop his ability to replicate with his body what his eyes are seeing. This is a skill necessary for such tasks as copying letters and drawing.


• Moderate- to vigorous-intensity physical activity “feeds” the brain with oxygen, water, and glucose, all of which are necessary for optimal functioning!

If a simple – and fun – activity has all of this to offer, you’ll certainly want to make sure your child experiences it. So, put on a lively recorded march or break out the pots and pans. Lead your child around the house or yard in a “parade,” encouraging her to lift her knees and swing those arms. Then do it again tomorrow – or as often as your child wants. If there’s one thing all early childhood professionals will tell you, it’s that young children learn a lot from repetition.

Fruits and vegetables, of course, aren’t typically among children’s favorite foods. But they’re among the most important of foods, so it’s helpful if your child has a pleasant association with them. Usually that involves eating them, if possible in a variety of ways, and learning to enjoy the taste of them. But you can also play games that help your child think about fruits and vegetables in a different way and that make them seem fun and friendly.

For example, you can ask your child to demonstrate the shapes of various fruits and vegetables with her body or body parts. Possibilities include bananas, pears, zucchini or squash, and carrots. You can ask her to show you the shape and size of grapes, oranges, and pumpkins consecutively, which means you’ll also be offering her experience with the important math concepts of size and shape.

A more challenging alternative is to talk to your child about the “before” and “after” of some fruits and vegetables and ask him to depict them for you. Possibilities include:

• an apple hanging on a tree, or applesauce simmering on the stove (or being poured from a jar)


• a tomato (ketchup) being squeezed out of a bottle


• an orange being peeled, or orange juice being poured


• a potato being peeled or a potato being mashed

It doesn’t matter how your child chooses to depict these images. Accept any interpretation! What matters is that she enjoys the activities.

And, of course, the final step is to actually prepare some of these fruits and vegetables together and to have a tasting party. Because they’ve become his “friends,” it’s unlikely your child will reject them!

We give a lot of lip service to the importance of creativity in our society. But the truth is, we value conformity more. If we didn’t, the schools wouldn’t be implementing standardized curricula that demand all children respond in the same way to all tasks. And teachers wouldn’t be required to “teach to tests” that require one “right” answer to all questions.

Self-expression is an integral part of the creative process. And the creative process is as necessary to business and industry, science, medicine, technology, education, and everyday life as it is to the arts. Still, many parents and educators knowingly and unknowingly discourage self-expression.

Here’s an activity to help promote it. Choose two recordings – one you consider to be a very “happy” piece (such as Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy,” Scott Joplin’s “The Entertainer,” or Bobby McFerrin’s “Don’t Worry, Be Happy”) and one that feels very “sad” to you (such as Samuel Barber’s “Adagio for Strings” or a funeral march). Then alternate between the two, inviting your child to move in whatever way the music makes him feel. His responses may or may not be what you would expect, but as long as he’s expressing himself, that’s all that matters!

Later, you can choose pieces of music that demonstrate other feelings your child can relate to: scared (an eerie piece of electronic music), proud (a patriotic march), or silly (“Baby Elephant Walk,” “Syncopated Clock,” or “Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini”). As your child interprets the mood she finds in each, she’ll not only be validated in her need for self-expression, she’ll also be engaging in active listening and exploring her emotions in what she considers to be the safest of environments: your presence!

All you need are two people to play, a scarf, and designated starting and ending points. Partners stand side by side, with their inside legs gently tied together with the scarf. At the signal to go, partners head for the “finish line.” And if you want them to practice one-to-one correspondence, simply ask them to count how many steps they take from start to finish.

Of course, you can also use this game to help your children practice and refine other motor skills. Instead of running three-legged, they can try three-legged jumping, two-legged hopping (lifting either the inside or outside legs), galloping (with either the inside or outside feet leading), or skipping!

Although you’ll know how much your kids are learning, they’ll think they’re just having fun. Moreover, having never seen three-legged races before, they’ll think they’re playing something new!

In a previous column I told you about turning traditional Musical Chairs into Cooperative Musical Chairs by challenging children to find a way to share the remaining chairs. Here are two more possibilities for keeping kids in the game:

• Turtle Tag. This game is played just like the traditional game of Tag, with two exceptions: If a child is being chased, she can be “safe” by lying on her back like an upside-down turtle. Also, the game is timed. If “It” hasn’t tagged someone in a certain amount of time (say, a minute and a half), at your signal, “It” gets into the turtle position. You then choose another child to be “It.”
  
  
  
  


• Duck, Duck, Goose. Usually this game involves physical activity for only one or two players and a lot of waiting for the rest. In the modified version, the children stand, rather than sit, in a circle and walk in place. One child, who is “It,” walks around the circle, tapping the other children’s shoulders and saying either “duck” or “goose.” When she taps someone and says, “Goose!” that child chases “It” around the circle, trying to tag her. If he does tag her, she stands in his original place and he gets to be “It.” If he doesn’t tag her, he returns to his spot and she gets to be “It” again. An important rule: “It” can’t choose someone who’s already been a “goose” until everyone has had a chance!

Just before bedtime is perfect for practicing relaxation techniques. Set the stage by darkening the room, speaking slowly and softly, and moving gently. You can use music to promote tranquility, choosing pieces with which you’re familiar and that you’ve found to be peaceful and soothing. Or you can use imagery to promote relaxation. Ask your child to pretend to be a rag doll, a wet dishrag, or cooked spaghetti. You can also paint a picture in her mind. Ask her to lie on the bed or floor and imagine, for example, that she’s at the beach. Talk to her (softly) about the warmth of the sun, the cool breeze, and the gentle sounds of the waves and the gulls circling overhead.

You may think of geometry as being all about shapes, but understanding spatial relationships is essential to early geometry. Among the space concepts listed in Principles and Standards for School Mathematics are:

Riding a bike is an example of what education specialist Eric Jensen calls implicit learning. At the opposite end of the spectrum is explicit learning, like being told the capital of Peru. To explain the difference, Jensen asks whether you would still be able to ride a bike if you hadn't done it in five years (I don’t know anyone who’s forgotten how). And if you hadn’t heard the capital of Peru for five years, would you still remember it? (In my case, the answer would be no.)

Put another way, this is the difference between active learning and rote memorization. The former makes a more meaningful and longer-lasting impression. The latter doesn’t necessary result in comprehension, so it may or may not stay with you.

To make adjectives and adverbs more meaningful to your child and promote his emergent literacy, you can easily employ active learning. For example, during your playtime together, ask him to show you the following adjectives (remembering that there’s no wrong way for him to respond: it’s all a matter of interpretation):

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  strong
  
  


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  floppy
  
  


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  enormous
  
  


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  tiny
  
  


• 
  
  excited
  
  


• 
  
  droopy
  
  


• 
  
  gentle
  
  


• 
  
  smooth
  
  

To explore adverbs, ask your child to show you how she would do the following:

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  Walk lightly.
  
  


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  Walk heavily.
  
  


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  Walk slowly.
  
  


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  Walk quickly.
  
  


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  Stomp loudly.
  
  


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  Tiptoe quietly.
  
  


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  Walk angrily.
  
  


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  Move tiredly.
  
  


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  Walk sadly.
  
  


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  Walk happily.
  
  

You can supplement these lessons with such books as Brian P. Cleary’s Hairy Scary, Ordinary: What Is an Adjective? and Dearly, Nearly, Insincerely: What Is an Adverb? Remember, though, that your “lessons” will reap the greatest results if they’re in the guise of play and don’t appear to be lessons at all!

There are any number of reasons for this phenomenon. Among them is the fact that many babies are spending so much time in things (or “containerized,” as a colleague puts it), which limits their mobility. Car seats, for example, can restrict movement of the head and even prevent peripheral vision from fully developing. And then there are the number of hours children are spending with their eyes glued to television and computer screens, which can create a condition called “ocular lock.” (Dr. Carla Hannaford discusses this in her excellent book, Smart Moves: Why Learning Is Not All in Your Head. )

As I’ve mentioned in previous columns, directionality is a significant part of a young child’s emerging literacy, with left to right being of particular importance. So here’s an activity you can do with your little one before he even knows his left from his right. Not only is this excellent preparation for reading and writing left to right; it also provides an opportunity to cross the body’s midline--the invisible line which divides the body into left and right halves.

Stand facing your child and designate something on her left (your right) as the starting point (for example, the living room windows). Do the same with the ending point, which will be on her right and your left (for example, the living room wall). Then, doing it with her, invite her to perform the following from “the windows to the wall”:

• Turn the head.

• Draw a line on the floor with the big toe.

• Move both arms. (Do this at various levels in space: at shoulder height, above the head, and below the waist.)

• Move one arm at a time.

• Take several steps to the side.

• Jump, hop, and/or slide.

With enough experience, your child will be able to do this without you demonstrating. You should also eventually begin incorporating the words “left” and “right” into the activity. All of this will ensure your child will never feel uncomfortable with this important direction!

Some people believe that even babies feel empathy – that empathy is what they’re experiencing when they begin to cry in response to another infant’s tears. At two, toddlers certainly become more aware of one another. Although there’s little interaction, they move on to the stage of parallel play and tend to imitate what others are doing; and they begin to understand that other children have feelings, too. Preschoolers can empathize with such simple feelings as happiness, sadness, and anger. And by age six or seven children are usually able to understand what others are thinking and feeling.

Because empathy is such an important character trait, you’ll want to do everything you can to promote it. And there are plenty of ways in which to do it, including the tried-and-true methods of teaching respect and positive reinforcement when your child shares or demonstrates concern for someone or something else. But you can also promote empathy by strengthening her imagination – because it’s not possible to empathize unless you can imagine others’ feelings!

One simple activity is to invite your child to depict the actions of various members of the family, or of the community. Can he pretend to be Mommy exercising? Daddy loading the dishwasher? How about Grandpa gardening or Grandma playing golf? Along similar lines, ask your child to show you actions that might be performed by a carpenter, painter, dancer, musician, baker, police officer, firefighter, hair stylist, and a mail carrier, among others. And don’t forget the animals! When you challenge your child to move like a cat, an elephant, a snake, a frog, and a kangaroo, you’re not only helping her imagine what it’s like to be the animals, you’re also encouraging her to practice and build their various movement skills!

Do you know people who just don’t hear you when you speak to them? Others who seem totally unaware of the sounds around them, whether it’s birdsong or songs emanating from the radio?

I’m a big fan of listening carefully (not that I couldn’t use some improvement in that area myself!). But whether we’re talking about music, the sounds of nature, or words being spoken, I think it’s important to be a good listener. And as I mentioned in an earlier column, listening is one of the four components (along with speaking, reading, and writing) of the language arts – of the child’s process of becoming a literate person.

So how do you help your child become a good listener – someone to whom this important facet of communication comes naturally? By encouraging her to listen actively. Can she close her eyes and identify various sounds you make (rattling keys, clapping hands, a spoon hitting a pot)? If you leave out a line from a favorite story or nursery rhyme, will she notice?

Here’s a game to promote active listening and auditory discrimination. It’s called musical movement, and it requires that you have a small variety of instruments or sound-producing objects available.

To begin, assign different movements to different sounds. For example, when you play the slide whistle, your child is to move up and down while standing in place. When you hit the pot with a wooden spoon, your child stomps his feet. Shaking a maraca or rattle tells him to shake his body. Then begin making the sounds, with your child moving in the appropriate way to each!

If she can’t remember which is which at first, it’s okay to remind her. Repetition will help improve her memory. Eventually change the “instruments” and the movements, even letting her choose her own way to move to each sound. As you continue to play this game, she’ll become a better listener…but she’ll just think she’s having fun!

Rather, when we consider developmentally appropriate aerobic activities for children (to promote cardiovascular health), we should be thinking along the lines of moderate to vigorous play and movement. Physical activity that’s moderately intense will increase the heart rate and breathing somewhat, while vigorous-intensity movement takes a lot more effort and will result in a noticeable increase in breathing. Riding a bicycle, swimming, walking, marching, playing tag, dancing to moderate- to fast-paced music, and jumping rope all fall under the heading of moderate- to vigorous-intensity exercise for children. In other words, it’s anything that keeps the child moving continuously – sometimes strenuously and sometimes less so.

To get your child’s heart rate up in a way that makes exercise feel like fun, play a game of Follow the Leader in which you start off very slowly and gradually increase the tempo of your movement. Continue until you’re moving as fast as you can (or want to) go and then reverse the process, gradually slowing down. End by collapsing in a heap on the floor or ground!

An alternative (although it doesn’t include reversing the process) is to move to “Beep Beep,” a song by The Playmates that was a Top 40 hit in the '50s. Download it from the Internet and then have a blast pretending to be cars moving at faster and faster speeds. The song is hilarious and your child will love the beep-beep sounds!

Activities like these not only improve cardiovascular endurance; they also have the added bonus of introducing your child to the musical elements of tempo and accelerando (a gradual increase in tempo) and the movement element of time. And playing Follow the Leader of any kind will help your child physically replicate what the eyes are seeing (a skill that's necessary to writing) and to follow directions. But, really, it’s all about the fun!

So any physical activity that allows your child to experience spatial orientation and direction will help later with his reading and writing.



Singing the alphabet song teaches your child to memorize the order of the letters. Drawing and scribbling helps her feel comfortable holding an implement, and gives her the fine-motor coordination needed for writing. But, to help with letter recognition try something more physical. Show your child a letter and then ask her to create its shape with her body or body parts. Invite her to demonstrate both uppercase and lowercase letters, and be sure to accept her own special interpretations of what she’s seeing. Even if you can’t recognize the letter for what it’s supposed to be, support her efforts. If she takes on the straight and curving lines with her body now, she’ll later find reading and writing easier because of it.



An alternative to this game is to create a large letter with a jump rope and invite your child to travel its shape by walking, tiptoeing, or hopping on it.



Whichever game you choose, you’ll be helping to “imprint” the information on your child’s body and in her mind. So get your kids moving through their letters. Their minds are listening!

So pull out that crazy mamba you've been doing in the shower. Let loose with a yodel in the kitchen. Show kids your silly side. Because there's enough stress waiting for them in adulthood. They don't need to get a head start.

Thinking about it will probably stir up some warm, fuzzy feelings. What it probably won’t evoke is how much you learned – because we typically don’t associate playing with learning. Rather, when we think about play and physical activity, physical development comes to mind – not cognitive, or intellectual, development. But more and more research – including new brain research – is determining that the mind and body are not separate entities. In fact, the functions of the mind are quite dependent on the functions of the body.

These days, time spent with “educational” products is on the rise. And what that means is that active, sensory experiences are being replaced with passive ones. But screen time, computers, videos, and flashcards don’t engage children in the way that simple play activities can. Through play your child can discover such concepts as:

• Flotation (“What happens when I put these things in the bathwater?”)


• Balance (“How far can I lean in this direction?”)


• Time and space (“What’s the fastest way to get from here to there?”)


• One-to-one correspondence and quantitative concepts (“How many steps does it take to get across the yard?”)


• Color (“What if I mix the red and blue paint?”)


• Sound (“What will I hear if I shake the oatmeal box?”)


• Texture (“What will this clay feel like if I dunk it into water?”)

The good news is that it doesn’t take much to turn things around. We just have to make sure our kids are physically active! Following are some tips for making that happen:

• Turn off the TV! Research shows children are being electronically entertained an average of five to six hours a week. Without electronics, they’ll have to find other ways to keep themselves entertained.

• Encourage your children to engage in active play. Research has demonstrated that the most active children are those whose parents have encouraged them to be active.

• Play with your children! Blow bubbles for them to chase, play tag and hide-and-seek, put on an up-tempo song and boogie in the living room, or break out the pots and pans and hold a parade around the house!

• Serve as a role model, taking part in physical activity yourself – cheerfully! Take the children to parks, playgrounds, or beaches; on hikes, bowling, or skating during vacations and weekends.

• Don’t send the wrong message about physical activity by endlessly circling the parking lot for the spot closest to the door. Instead, make a game out of parking as far as possible from the door and finding different ways to get to it (walking backward, tiptoeing, jogging, or skipping).

• When it’s time for gift giving, select items like hula-hoops; balls in a variety of shapes, sizes, and textures; roller skates; or a wading pool or swing set. When shopping for games, Twister has more to offer than a board game. And CDs with lively music are a better choice than movie videos.

• Don’t expect organized sports to take care of your child’s physical activity needs. There’s more waiting than moving in most structured, adult-directed games.