Physical activity is so important for those growing preschool bodies to stay healthy and strong. Winter brings ice and freezing temperatures and preschoolers are indoors for days on end, it can become challenging for the students and the teachers. We always tell kids not to run inside but hey, sometimes a little organized chaos it good. Here are few ideas for some movement games kids can play indoors. From tried and true to new to you, it helps to have a list of movement activities planned for winter.
Hip, hip, hooray! It’s a marching band parade day.
Hand out those musical instruments and turn on some music. Work on opposites like big and small (steps), fast or slow and forward and backward. Let kids take turns being the leader of the marching band.
Play Simon Says with some big and fast movements.
Make Simon Says fresh by creating a game to go with your teaching theme. If G is for Garden dig, water, weed and pick. If A is for animals climb, hop, gallop or swim.
Set up chairs in a line and make a transportation movement game.
Kids can enjoy movement even in a chair. First pretend you are on a plane and make soaring wings. Next row, row, row the boat and then chug, chug, chug those arms like a choo choo train. Even setting up the chairs in a line and returning them to table is a mini work out for preschoolers.
Play the “run for the colors” game.
Put out a box or pile of colored blocks on one end of the room and put colored scraps of paper in a bag for drawing on the other end of the room. Kids draw and run to retrieve the matching color. Then they add it to the stack until they finally the blocks “all fall down.”
Teach kids how to play “four corners.”
Create fun signs for each corner of the room like rain forest or dessert or pizza palace or ice cream shop and divide the kids among the corners. Hold up a sign with a child’s name and name a corner for them to run to. This works on name recognition while letting those legs stretch too.
One way or another, kids are going to get their wiggles out. On cold and wet days, teachers can choose between chaos and organized chaos, so planning ahead for a variety of movement games between activities can save the day.