Excellent Outdoor Games for Preschoolers

Play is one of the most educational things you can do with your child. It involves their imagination and promotes fine and gross motor skills, social, cognitive, and mental development. When this play is done outdoors at a school playground, the benefit is immensely more massive. Fresh air, sunlight, and the soothing sounds of nature is excellent for a child's overall health.

If chosen correctly, the games you play with your young child can simulate almost every aspect of their development. Naturally, they are great fun too!

Here are some games you can play with your children at the playground or even in the garden and some of the skills these games develop.

This game is excellent for children learning their colors! Choose a color and ask your child to identify a piece of playground equipment with that same color! If they get it right, they can use that playground equipment – so go for a slide or swing on the monkey bars!

For a bit more complexity, have them try and identify colors in the rainbow order!!

This is a great learning game and stimulates their mental and physical development.

This is a great musical game that will get parents involved. A parent playing with a child says, "I love you!" and strengthens the parent-child bond. 

While holding hands, dance, or skip in a circle while singing the ring-around-the-Rosie song. When the song ends to fall with your child and enjoy a little giggle, you can even try and change up some of the words to make your children laugh – for example, "pocket full of sweeties – we all stand still!" Encourage your child to make up their own words!

This game challenges their imagination, physical, and cognitive skills. Any singing and dancing also foster a love for music and arts.

This is an excellent game for older preschoolers as it involves balancing and counting. Draw a hopscotch grid with some colored chalk or even in the sand. Ask (or show) your child to jump through the network, identifying numbers as they go. For extra fun, you can design jumping patterns based on color or numbers.

The game can be adapted for smaller children by asking them to identify colors instead of numbers and standing on color instead of jumping on it.

This game is physically and mentally challenging while stimulating creativity.

This is a classic game and can be done with great fun outdoors. Have a relaxing sit on the grass and challenge your child to identify what you are 'spying' by describing colors, shapes, and functions of objects in your immediate environment. Have your child do the same to encourage their language skills and attention to detail.

This is a great physical game and will have you and your child laughing and running with great delight. Try and catch or 'tag' each other while running around outside. 

This game can be varied if you have some softballs that you can try and throw at each other – so the ball 'tags' you instead of the person.

This game encourages physical development and hand-eye coordination or gross motor skills.