Hobbies And Interests
Single Player
One-player game ideas are useful when a child's friends can't come over to play. These games require only a few inexpensive materials. A jump rope can provide a variety of games for one person and offers an invigorating workout. Encourage the child to practice jumping normally before moving on to harder challenges such as jumping backward or on one leg. Use a jump rope in a soft, grassy area in case of falls. Hopscotch is an excellent single-player game as well. The child can try to hop the entire set of squares without stepping outside the lines, or roll two dice to see which number they must hop to. For an extra challenge, let children use chalk to draw the hopscotch squares in any pattern they want.
Two Player
When your child has a friend over, you can suggest some two-players games to keep the kids entertained with more than just cartoons. Hide-and-seek is a classic favorite for children and can work just as well with two people as with multiple players. Designate a certain spot in the yard, such as a tree or the front porch, as home base; the hider must try to make it to home base without the seeker catching her.
Play a game of Horse using a basketball and goal. For each shot one player makes, the other player must shoot the ball from the same location and in the same position. If they miss, that play gets an "H" and so on until someone gets the word "Horse" and loses. Let a child pick his own word to use; this challenges spelling skills as well. If you don't own a basketball, use a Frisbee. The children toss it back and forth, each time stepping farther away from each other. When one player misses, he gets a letter.
Multi-Player
Tag and freeze tag are classic multi-player children's games. You can create an exciting variation called Pick-Pocket Tag, as described on Disney Family.com. Each child places a piece of cloth in his back pocket, so that it is hanging out but won't fall out when running. Children try to take the cloths from other players while guarding their own cloth. When everyone has lost their cloth or time is up, the player with the most pieces of cloth wins.
Other multi-player games include Simon Says and Red Light, Green Light. For Simon says, one person is Simon and the others must follow Simon's commands if the sentence starts with "Simon Says." If players perform an action that didn't start with "Simon Says," they're out for that round. In Red Light, Green Light, one child is the caller. When the caller says "green light," the other children run toward him. When he says "yellow light," they must walk and when he says "red light" they must stop. If the caller catches someone who is running after yellow has been called or moving at all after red has been called, the player must go back to the starting point. The first person to reach the caller wins. Have children stand around the caller in a circle to make it harder to catch players who are moving.