Importantly, there are plenty of opportunities for active play and stimulation without the use of toys. There are many inexpensive items you can use as well as things you find around the home or in your local outdoor environment to stimulate your child’s play. Here are just a few ideas to get you started:
- Children love to be outside, simply taking them to a park, playground or oval is exciting for them. Take a ball to chase around the oval together or play ‘follow the leader’ around the trees. Have races to the slide or practice balancing along the garden edging.
- Use a scarf or piece of fabric and hide it amongst the playground or backyard for them to run around and find.
- Let your child’s creative side out by turning your yard, footpath or a local play area into a work of art with chalk. Chalk is inexpensive, and bright and stimulating for your child. Encourage them to make big pictures or draw the longest line they can to encourage movement. Later you can draw a line for them to practice jumping over, squares for them to use like stepping stones and snakes for them to avoid stepping on!
- Scavenger hunts are a source of great fun for kids. Find a natural space outside, the local park or your backyard, and list a few simple items for them to find, for example a forked stick or a coloured flower. To keep them active, get them to run between items, or put a time limit to increase excitement. You can run along with them to help!
- If stuck inside the house, set up an obstacle course with chairs, toys and cushions for them to tackle. Once you’ve helped them through it a couple of times they will be able to tackle it again and again themselves.
- Children love music and they love to dance. This is a great way to get them active and having fun. They’ll love it if you join in too! When they get bored with free-form dance you can try some musical games to keep the active play going.
Musical games
- Musical statues: A fun game to play with favourite songs is musical statues. Get your child to dance around and then stop and stand still like a statue when you pause the music. Toddlers won’t stand still for long so start the music up again quickly to keep them engaged.
- Animal moves: Another idea is to show them animal moves to try, like pretending to be a hopping bunny or a jumping tiger. You can pause the music between ‘changing’ animals or just call out the next animal for them to try. Join in too so they can copy you!
- Take the dancing fun outside when the weather is nice. Let your child try dancing on different surfaces to improve their balance e.g. bricks/concrete, grass, the trampoline!
