Preschool Games for Lining Up

Train

• A good way to practice line up is to teach children to form a straight line. Make a line on the floor with masking tape. Let children sit down and wait for you to call out their names. Give each child a paper ticket and tell her that she is waiting for the train. The first child is the conductor. Call out the children's name, one by one, and ask them to climb aboard the train. Let children line up in different ways, for example, stand on the line, or one foot on each side of the line. Ask the conductor to collect the tickets and to make sure everyone is standing the way she is supposed to. The "choo choo" train also is fun to play, where children run in a line, making train noises as they follow the child in front of them.

Work in Pairs

• Listening skills are important for a successful line up. Let children work in pairs and tell them to hold hands. Spread them out in the room and stand in the middle. Call the names of the children in a pair, and tell them to walk, run, or skip to you, holding hands. Let children go back to their places. Call out all the children names and vary the voice so that they have to listen to you. Use normal voice and mix it with a whispering voice. Change the game and let the pairs stand and wait in a line after you have called their names.

Marching

• Marching together in pairs is a fun and exciting game. Put on some marching music, and let children march around in the room, holding hands. When the music stops, children have to find another pair. From the beginning, let children simply find another pair. When their skills improve, tell them to form a train in which one pair stands behind another pair.

No Peeking

• One of the hardest things about lining up is that it is difficult to know what the children in front or behind you are doing. Play a line up game where you use masking tape as a guide and line up children one after the other. Tell children to close their eyes. Ask the child at the back to open his eyes and walk to the front. On the way up, he can see if someone is peeking and not closing her eyes. The child who is caught peeking has to stand in the front of the train.

Follow the Leader

• Walking in a line is difficult and requires patience to get children to follow the person in front of them. Play follow the leader where a child is holding her hand on the child's shoulder in front of her. Tell the train to move in different directions; ensure that you show the children what you mean by walking forward, backward, to the left and right.