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Pre-K Outside Games & Activities

Preschool children often love the outdoors, and there's no doubt that their overall health benefits from going outside to run around and explore their environment. Numerous outside games and activities get them moving, burning energy and learning in the process. Some of the activities take just a little planning, but most don't require much forethought.

Ball Games
- Balls have a variety of uses outdoors.
  
  Balls have a variety of uses and many benefits. The benefits include improved hand-eye coordination, balance, motor skills and developing muscles. To practice ball handling skills, introduce children to different sizes and shapes of balls in the normal bouncing, kicking and catching games. Children also enjoy sitting in pairs with their legs spread open on the ground with their feet touching as they roll the ball back and forth to each other.
Water Play
- The outdoors provides a suitable environment for water play. Preschool children often enjoy playing in the water, which provides a convenient learning opportunity. A small plastic pool or large bucket filled with water will serve the same purpose as a manufactured water play table at a lower cost. Fill the container with water and provide the children with plenty of measuring spoons, cups and funnels to explore with the water. An adult can also place varying objects into the water to show how some objects float and some sink.
Hide-and-Seek
- Children enjoy seeking out an object.
  
  Over the years, hide-and-seek has provided many hours of entertainment. However, the often unequal adult to child ratio in preschool may make a typical outdoor game of hide-and-seek unsafe for this age of child. Instead, children can play a variation of the game by using a toy as the hidden object. The children can turn their backs, close their eyes and count to a predetermined number while the adult hides the toy. Together, the children will then search for the object. This helps the children practice counting and prepares them for later playing the more typical form of hide-and-seek.
Chalk
- The imagination can come up with many uses for chalk outdoors. An adult can write the alphabet largely on the ground for the children to see. This can then become a game where the children wait in line for their turn to run to their letter. For the first child in line, the teacher calls out a letter and the child quickly runs to and stands on his letter. That child will then call out another letter for the next child in line. In a similar game, shapes or numbers can replace the letters.

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