Thursday, January 19, 2012

Just for Fun - Preschooler Games without any "Stuff"


Before bed every night, my son wants to play on the bed.  We have a king sized bed, and he loves to get wild and crazy on it.  If he is playing with daddy, that works.  They rough house, create obstacle courses and even do running flips to try and touch the ceiling!  But if daddy is working late, then mommy sure doesn’t want to pillow fight.  So I am constantly trying to think up games to play that require no tools (ie, I can lounge on the bed and only use my voice, little energy required.)  I realized recently that I have quite a few.  You can also play these in the car, while waiting in line at the grocery store or when trying to calm down your wired preschooler before bed.

Anything Alphabet – The child starts with A and says “a is for apple.”  Then mom says “b is for baby.”  You can adapt this to Beach Alphabet, School Alphabet, Animal Alphabet, Name Alphabet, City Alphabet, Christmas Alphabet, Sports Alphabet and my son’s very favorite, which he came up with “Stinky Alphabet.”  If you want to make it more challenging, you can repeat every letter by playing the “I’m Going to the Store Game”.  Kid – “I’m going to the store and I am buying an apple.”  Mom – “ I’m going to the store and I’m buying an apple and a basketball.”  Kid – “I’m going to the store and I’m buying an apple, a basketball and a crayon.”

What age will your brother be? – My 5-year old has just become a big brother and he is very excited.  He is also really into people’s ages.  He recently introduced my dad to his babysitter and said “this is my grandpa, he’s 64.”  That is how this game started.  I said, when you are 10, how old will your baby brother be?  OR, when your brother is 8, how old will you be?  He got so into it, we started doing crazy ages like 64, 88 and 105.  And I taught him how to subtract on his fingers by five (their age difference.)

Rhyme Time – If mom says rat, kid says bat.  Or, if mom says log, kid can try and come up with as many rhyming words as possible – dog, fog, bog.  And then this game adapted further to “Silly Rhyme Time.”  This came from that Yanni song, you know the one… “Have you ever seen a cat, wearing a hat?”  OR “Have you ever seen a whale with a sock on his tail?”

Last Letter – Mom says elephant, then kid has to know what the last letter of that word is (T) and then say a word that STARTS with T.  To make this harder, do only animals, only kid’s names, places you have visited, etc. 

Check back, I will add more games as we invent them!