[Childcare] Recommended for 3-year-olds! Play ideas everyone can enjoy
Three-year-olds start interacting much more with friends and teachers.
You want to watch them grow through a variety of play activities, right?
But when you’re busy every day, it’s hard to come up with new ideas for play…
For teachers with that concern, we’ve gathered play ideas recommended for three-year-olds.
Each idea is something the whole group can focus on and enjoy, so try choosing based on the weather and your class’s mood.
If one becomes a favorite, the children might say, “Teacher, let’s do that again!”
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[Childcare] Recommended for 3-year-olds! Fun group play ideas (1–10)
Cat and Mouse
If you’re looking for a game that lots of people can enjoy, we recommend “Cat and Mouse.” The rules are very simple—it’s a game similar to tag.
Each time the facilitator says “ne,” both the cat team and the mouse team take one step forward.
When the two teams get close enough, the facilitator calls out either “cat” or “mouse.” If they say “mouse,” the cat team chases the mice, and the mouse team tries to escape back to their territory without getting tagged by the cats.
It’s also fun to have the facilitator say unrelated words like “nezuko” to raise the difficulty a bit.
Drop the Handkerchief
Here’s a game I recommend that can be played both outdoors and indoors: “Dropping the Handkerchief.” The rules are very simple.
Everyone except the ‘It’ sits in a circle facing inward with their heads down.
‘It’ runs around the outside of the circle and secretly drops a handkerchief behind someone.
When the person notices the handkerchief, they chase ‘It’; if they manage to tag them, they’re safe.
If they can’t tag ‘It,’ they switch and become the new ‘It.’ Players try to spot exactly when the handkerchief is dropped, while ‘It’ can pretend to still be holding it even after dropping it—making for a fun game of bluffing and strategy.
Color-finding game
This is a color-hunting game where children can learn color names while having fun! Place pieces of colored paper of various colors on the floor, and have the children collect the color the teacher calls out.
If you play the game to the song “What Color Do You Like?”, their interest in colors will grow as they wonder, “What color is next?” As an introduction, it’s recommended to talk about colors while looking at picture books or drawing pictures, or to move around the colored papers in circles to music.
After the game, you can have a discussion about favorite colors or try drawing pictures with the crayons of the colors they learned.
[Childcare] Recommended for 3-year-olds! Play ideas everyone can enjoy (11–20)
big-game hunting
Mōjūgari is very simple: at the end of the chant “Let’s go hunting for wild beasts,” the teacher says the name of an animal, food, or something similar.
Then the children form groups with as many people as the number of syllables in that word.
For example, if the teacher says “raion” (lion), the children form groups of four.
Before forming groups, there’s also a part where everyone has fun together—teacher and children do the chant with choreography while calling out various names.
Rock-Paper-Scissors Train
A great game to recommend for preschools and kindergartens is “Rock-Paper-Scissors Train.” While singing, the children in the class play rock-paper-scissors.
The child who loses lines up behind the winner like a train, and in the end, the one who keeps winning becomes the leader of a single long train.
The key point is that everyone can enjoy a sense of unity by singing together and forming the train.
It’s a game where children can have fun while learning rock-paper-scissors.
Let’s all get excited together!
Newspaper play
When you don’t have time to make or prepare toys, we recommend this “newspaper play.” As long as you have some newspaper, you can start right away.
As the name suggests, newspaper play involves using newspaper to experience various kinds of play—pretend the newspaper is a futon or clothing and enjoy make-believe.
Children can fully take on roles like teachers or friends, and they can also craft the items needed for their pretend play out of newspaper.
There are so many ways to have fun with it!
Red Light, Green Light
A game very familiar to Japanese people, “Daruma-san ga Koronda.” Recently, with the drama “Squid Game” becoming a craze, adults have been playing it too.
One feature of “Daruma-san ga Koronda” is that, because the rules are simple, it’s easy to add variations.
For example: instead of the tagger turning around, no one may move while holding a ball; or place hula hoops on the floor and require players to step inside one whenever the tagger turns around.
Even with such rule tweaks, the game is sure to be a hit.