Family Natters

There are lots of good reasons to play outdoor games with your children.  It exercises them and so prevents obesity, it teaches them about rules and social skills, they love having your attention… and it’s fun!  Here are some ideas to get you started: 

 Hide and Seek: The person who is on closes their eyes and counts to 20 while everyone else hides.  When he or she finds someone they also join the search.  The person who is last to be found is the winner.  Children of many different ages enjoy this.  Small children can hide or seek in partnership with an adult.  You can use it as an opportunity to practice your child’s maths by saying the person who is on has to count down from 2o, or in 2s, or whatever is appropriate.

Tig: one person is ‘on’ and has to run after everyone else and try and touch them.  When you do, you shout ‘tig’ and that person is now ‘on’. 

Ball tig: similar to tig but you run and throw a softball to try and tig people

 Bull dog: one person stands on a line or imaginary line and can only move sideways along the line.  He shouts bulldog and everyone else has to run past him without being tug.  Anyone who is tug joins the original bulldog standing on the line.

More games will follow.