A collection of ideas for infant/toddler play, recreation, and games
Play and games help keep children’s minds and bodies healthy and lively.
They nurture physical activity, thinking skills, imagination, and the ability to get along with friends.
Here, we’ve gathered activities and games that preschoolers can enjoy.
There are many kinds: group games, traditional play, pretend and make-believe activities, and sensory play.
You’ll find lots of favorites from nurseries and kindergartens, as well as easy games you can do at home.
Choose fun activities that match your child’s age and development, and enjoy them together!
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Ideas for Toddler Play, Recreation, and Games (131–140)
Coloring book
A coloring activity where you add colors to black-and-white drawings.
Try taking on coloring using pictures of your favorite characters! Doing coloring serves as fine motor training and leads to improved abilities in writing and drawing.
You’ll also gradually learn to distinguish between colors and learn their names and how to use them.
On top of that, it boosts concentration and builds confidence—so many benefits! Coloring is also a great stress reliever for adults, so be sure to try it together as a parent and child!
water gun
Speaking of water guns, they’re a classic summer pastime, but you can enjoy them in the bath too, so they’re fine even in winter.
There are plenty of store-bought options, but up until around the 1960s, many Showa-era children often made their own using bamboo.
That said, as long as the water squirts out, it works—so you can easily make one using mayonnaise or ketchup bottles.
Magnet Play
Magnets are ordinary objects for adults, but for small children they can be fascinating and spark curiosity.
By playing various games with magnets, children can learn about their properties, and by using them creatively, it’s interesting to see how their learning ability can improve.
A tray that spins using magnetic force could also be turned into a merry-go-round through a craft project.
Color water play without using paint
Colorful and visually fun colored-water play! Normally, you’d dissolve paint in water to make colored water, but you can actually make it without paint.
We’ll use “ohana-gami” (tissue paper for crafts), which you can buy at 100-yen shops, to create the colors.
Fill a plastic bottle with water, tear the tissue paper into small pieces, and put them into the bottle.
Screw the cap on tightly and shake—done! The tissue paper is thin and dissolves easily in water, so you can make colored water with no fuss.
As the paper breaks down, the water becomes slightly thick, which also makes it fun to play with.
Try mixing different colors and enjoy!
Fishing game
Let’s use everyday scrap materials to make a fishing game! Take those round capsules from capsule toys that kids love and tend to accumulate, attach a paper clip to each one, put a piece of clear film inside, and add eyes and tail fins to turn them into cute fish.
You can also make an octopus out of a paper cup.
For the fishing rod, tie twine to the end of a stick like a pair of disposable chopsticks, and attach a magnet to the other end—that’s it! Prepare fish of various sizes and compete to see how many you can catch.
The length of the fishing line changes the difficulty, so try making several versions.