Hobbies And Interests
Simon Says
This is a classic listening game that most five-year-olds already know. One person is "Simon." Simon calls out a command such as "Simon says touch your nose" and visually demonstrates the command. The rest of the group must imitate Simon and follow the command. The exception is when Simon does not say "Simon says" before the command. In that case, the group should not follow the command. Anyone who accidentally follows the command is out of the game. Play until one participant is left. That person is then the next "Simon." As a variation, the person playing Simon can substitute her own name, such as "Kara says."
Tag Variations
Any tag game is best if it is held on a playground or a place where children can hide behind objects or climb. One child is "it" and must chase the other children. When the child who is "it" successfully touches another child, that child is now "it" and continues chasing all of the others. This game works best when there are physical boundaries so children do not run so far away that it ceases to be fun.
For variations, have more than one child be "it" at once and encourage them to work together. You can also play a last-man-standing version in which children who are tagged are out of the game. In another version, the children who are "it" stay "it" even when they tag someone. Soon most of the children are "it" and chasing after a decreasing number until everyone is tagged. Finally, there are many variations of "freeze tag." If you are tagged, instead of becoming "it," you are frozen in place. Other participants can "unfreeze" you by either tagging you or doing a silly stunt such as crawling under your legs or slapping your hand.
Duck, Duck, Goose
In this game, all the participants sit in a circle. One child, the tapper, walks around the outside of the circle. He taps each child on the head as he moves and says "duck" with each tap. He does this until he decides to say "goose" instead of "duck." The child who was tapped as a goose gets up and chases the tapper. The tapper runs around the circle one time until he reaches the spot where the goose was sitting and sits down in that spot. If the goose can tag the tapper before he can sit down, the tapper has to sit in the middle of the circle and is out of the game. Whether he was able to successfully make a tag or not, the goose now becomes the new tapper and repeats the game. Whenever someone is tagged, he replaces the child in the middle of the circle, and the child in the middle takes the open seat.
Red Light, Green Light
In this running game, participants line up in a row, preferably on a visible line like a boundary on a gym floor. Either the supervising adult or one child stands within yelling distance of the row on another line, facing the other children. This person is the "traffic light." Whenever she yells "green light," she faces away from the others, and the rest of the participants can move forward. When she says "red light," she turns to face them again and all participants must freeze. If the traffic light sees that anyone failed to freeze, that child has to return to the starting line and start over. The first child to reach the line on which the traffic light is standing wins the game and becomes the new traffic light for the next round. For variations, the children must skip, jump or move in some other way besides running.
Easy Board Games
Five-year-olds do well with board games that are short in duration and involve either spinners or drawing cards. In "Chutes and Ladders," players use a spinner to determine how many spaces to move on the checkered game board. When their piece reaches a ladder on the board, they can move up a certain number of rows, but when it reaches a chute, they must "slide" down a few rows. The first person to reach the top of the board wins. "Candy Land" is similar in that the winner is the first person to move her playing piece to the top of the board. In this game, players draw cards with colors on them and move to the nearest matching color. With special cards they can move to one of several special spaces that are located across the board. Both games require two to four players.
Go Fish
You can use a regular deck of cards for this game or use a set made especially for it. This game works with two to four players. Deal each player seven cards and put the remaining cards face-down in the middle. The object is to match all the sets of numbers and face cards. When you have a complete set, you can remove it from your hand and start a pile of your sets. The person with the most sets at the end of the game wins. To start, one player asks another player of his choice if she has any of a particular set. For example, he might say, "Sally, do you have any kings?" If Sally had any kings, she would hand them over and the player could ask her for another card or the player could ask another player for a particular set. If he asked anyone for a set and that person did not have it, the person would say "Go Fish," and he would have to draw a card from the middle. His turn would be over and play would move to the left.