August has officially arrived. Since this is the last official month of summer, we encourage you to make the most of your time with your little ones.
One of the best gifts parents can give their children is attention and time. Think about ways you can create some final summer memories together and get outside to enjoy the sunshine while also adding in exercise. Here are some of our favorite summer games.
- Red light, green light. For this game, one child acts as the stoplight and all of the other children line up across the yard. The person who is the stoplight will call out “red light” and “green light.” Children get to move on green light and must stop on red light. The person who is the stoplight will start the game by facing the kids. He then jumps around saying green light and let’s the children run. Then, he will turn around and say “red light.” Children who don’t stop can be asked to take steps backwards or go back to the start line. The first child to tag the stoplight gets to be the stoplight next.
- Hide and seek. Children will take turns hiding around the house. One person will be “it” and seek to find all of the children hiding. The person who is it needs to count to 10, 20 or 100, whatever number you prefer. When the seeker is done counting, she will say “ready or not, here I come.” She then proceeds to search around the yard to find the hiders. The last one to be found becomes the next searcher.
- Hopscotch. This is a great game to learn writing, numbers and add in movement. Start by creating your own hopscotch board on the sidewalk or driveway using sidewalk chalk. Next, write the numbers 1-10 in the squares. Practice jumping on one foot then two feet and one foot again all the way across the board.
- Tag. In this activity, one child will be the person tagging the other children. Have the person who is “it” count to 20 while the other children run farther away. When the person who is “it” catches someone else, they become the tagger. The game continues until everyone has been caught and has been it or until you get tired.
- Statute swing. This was one of our favorite games growing up. Start by having one person spin all the other people around. We would hold hands criss-crossed and spin around in a circle. You spin until you can’t hold on anymore. When you stop, this is your statute pose. You need to hold this pose until everyone is swung into position. The person to fall out of their pose first becomes the next spinner. You can also try holding the poses the longest.
- Jump rope. Get a long rope and have two people hold the ends. Say rhymes as one person jumps in the middle. You can swing the rope to the jumper’s waist or go over the head of the jumper. Take turns jumping and swinging the rope.
We hope you enjoy playing these old-fashioned, fun games with your children. We appreciate that many of the games are ones that have been around for generations. Ask your children what they like about the various games and also tell them stories of when you played your favorite games growing up. Enjoy making memories this week with your children.
© Let’s Talk Kids, LLC 2015