Play-based physical activities for children

Main areas to address in this article

• Everyday physical activities for children can be creatively mixed with play activities and converted into a meaningful everyday physical session
• Play activities enhance the emotional  well-being of your child
• The tummy time should be extended up to 30 to 40 minutes every day to help your baby’s growth and development
• Energetic Play activities should be given to children aged 1 to 5 years for at least three hours each day( toddlers ).

Everyday Physical activities for kids

As parents, you should choose fun physical activities every time babies are preschoolers and schoolers. If your children do Particular activities with fun, let them do it and that will increase their confidence, self-esteem, and decision-making ability.

“Physical activity plays a vital role in your child’s growth and development which can be started at the very early stage of your child’s everyday life”

How can physical activities be used for infants and babies

You should make more opportunities for the babies aged 0 to 12 months to maximize their free body moments and lots of floor play on the mats. Here, you should ensure a safe environment for the infants and the baby.

Other basic gross motor movements like reaching, rolling, sitting up, crawling, pulling up, and walking can be encouraged by giving adequate support to your infant & babies below 24 months. You need to encourage those by removing environmental barriers.

Promoting these outdoor activities can give endless opportunities to your kids to use their lower limb and upper limb movements to use their muscles for various gross motor tasks. This also enhances their thinking capacity for problem-solving and that will lead to enhancing their self-esteem.

It is not essential for your kid to wait until walking on stage to play. Your infant can stretch and play. Those stretchy movements can be used as active playtime. What opportunities should be created by the parents?

You can use a large mat or rubber sheet on the floor and create a safe tummy time. This opportunity allows the child to perform their head lifting activities and that will eventually strengthen their muscles. At least 30 minutes of tummy time like this allows your child to perform free body movements and limb patterns with total emotional engagement.

How can we use a blanket to encourage our infant’s activities?

It makes a huge advantage for your baby to allow them to play on a mat on the floor. The rolling, creeping, and sitting abilities will improve eventually when the child is on the mat and trying to perform various movements.

You can use simple colorful toys to place on the mat and allow the child to reach them, then the child is putting extra effort to complete the given task. That will enhance the self-esteem of your child step by step.

Also, you can place plastic boxes on the mat and place very bright color toys and rattles inside the box. you can use rattles with various sounds, shiny surfaces, changing textures, and other bright colors inside the box and create an opportunity for the kid to explore that one by one.

You can encourage your child by clapping, then the baby will look at targeted objects by asking them with a few babbling sounds. So that is the foundation step to improve the communication of your child.

Please make sure to remove potential hazards down at the baby’s level.Sit with your baby all the time on the mat and try to engage in the activities.

How to encourage when the baby starts to walk

Try to keep the child outside the stroller for plenty of time. Then allow the child to walk independently. This is a great time to improve the vision in various planes. Then the child will get to know about climbing a slide or a few steps on outdoor or indoor playgrounds.

“PLAYING WITH YOUR CHILD AND PRAISING THEM WITH THEIR EACH AND EVERY ATTEMPT TAKES VITAL IMPORTANCE TO LEARN FASTER THE ACTIVITIES SUCH AS RUN, DANCE, JUMP AND THROW.”

Physical activities for toddlers ( 1-5 years )

Within this age, the child needs plenty of free time and specified spaces to play with various run-around activities. Open spaces such as playgrounds, adventure play areas, school playgrounds, parks, sporting fields, trails, and beaches can be used as ideal places for children of this age.

How can we use open play areas to play activities?

As parents, you need to create various creative physical activities for the fun play of kids. You can use large,light-weighted softballs to practice kicking, hitting, bouncing, and other various gross motor activities. Always try to use objects that can be easily grasped and handled like little bean bags, spongy big balls, etc.

Try to maximize the movement patterns while doing those fun games. For this, you can create bubble-chasing activities, walk alone in straight lines, jump over puddles, collect stones and seashells, or jump over small heights on the playground.

Adding sensory inputs with play activities

Try to provide various auditory sensory inputs ( various sounds ) by playing different kinds of music using your voice or various instruments. Try to give a sense of rhythm and various dancing patterns with various bodily movements with your kids.

Teach various silly walking patterns and various funny movements pretending with your kids. Here you can organize various animal games and can use various puppet clothing to run like a monkey or rabbit and jump like a bunny and flap like a bird.

Eventually, you can give your child practice riding a tricycle, bike, or scooter. Meanwhile, you can give big toy trucks and lawnmowers to play with independently and with friends.

Make a timetable to walk with your kid to the local parks, libraries, or shopping malls. you can arrange these little walks with or without strollers. That will enhance the self-confidence of your kids.

“As toddlers and preschoolers your kids need at least 2-3 hours each day to play  and that time period should spread throughout the day.”

Organized physical activities with problem-solving activity

This can be done simply with sports activities with your kids. It is better to start with a non-competitive sport and try to enhance the participation of the kids. Here, use modified sports with your pre-schooling kids.

Grasshopper soccer, and little kickers, are such sports with modified versions for preschoolers. Also, you can do swimming, gymnastics, or dancing activities with your kids.

These organized, structured sports develop the physical and social-emotional skills of your children. they also enhance self-esteem, building confidence, and team spirit within your kids.

Here, it is essential to focus on the fun aspect and be active in the play only. you should not force them to achieve perfect techniques or win and lose.

You can make a group of kids by talking to other parents and participating in their kids in an organized sport. These activity programs or classes are very much beneficial for improving peer group interactions within the same age category

A sign of a good physical activity program is children having fun and emotional sharing

Final thoughts

Play activities together with physical activities enhance the emotional well-being of your kids. you can start with non-competitive sports activities to enhance your kid’s participation. Then you can move into organized and structured sports activities to enhance participation and various other benefits.