Useful for childcare! Today’s recommended recreational activities, including fingerplay and games!
We’ve introduced some recreational activities to enjoy today.
Planning daily activities for a nursery or kindergarten can be quite a challenge when you’re constantly thinking, “What should we do today?”
In this article, fun recreation ideas are updated every day, so before you start brainstorming, take a quick look here!
Some activities require materials, but once you decide on what to do, things will move along smoothly—so please make good use of this article.
By enjoying a variety of activities every day, children gain lots of new experiences, and teachers can expand their repertoire, too!
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- Popular hand games and hand game songs for toddlers and children! Full of ideas for childcare/early childhood education.
- [Childcare] From small to large groups! A collection of fun game ideas
Useful for childcare! Today’s recommended recreations such as hand-play activities and games! (11–20)
Hoop Musical Chairs
Let’s play using both our bodies and brains! Here’s an idea for a hula hoop musical chairs game.
Prepare about 10 small hula hoops in various colors.
As everyone hums a song with a deserted island theme, walk around the hula hoops.
When the teacher calls out “1, 2, 3,” everyone jumps into a hula hoop island.
It gets more exciting if you gradually reduce the number of hula hoops! Once everyone gets used to the game, try specifying which color hula hoop to enter, or call out items related to a color to decide which hoop to use.
Color hunt to the rhythm
This is a game where you look for colors posted on the wall and point to them.
Move your body to the music and announce the colors during the song.
While singing, move to the rhythm and look for the colors on the wall.
Even if you find where they are, pointing is not allowed while the music is playing.
When the music stops, everyone points to the colors on the wall together on the count of “Ready, go!” If you post lots of colors and increase the number, you can play longer.
It’s a game that’s fun with small or large groups.
It’s especially recommended for children who are just starting to learn colors.
Animal Role-Playing Game
This is a circuit-play activity where children pretend to be different animals as they move through a course and clear obstacles.
Use long benches, colored cones, and blocks to create the course and set up obstacles.
Since they crawl on all fours or jump while acting like animals, they can get plenty of exercise even indoors.
Imitating a flamingo by standing on one leg also helps develop balance.
It might be great for expanding children’s interests to have them try animals they don’t know, too.
Hand game ‘Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Clap’
Let me introduce “Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes,” a game played to an English folk tune! In this activity, you touch different parts of your body with your hands in time with the song.
Infants can enjoy it as a bonding game with their parents, and preschoolers will have fun moving their hands quickly to different spots with the rhythm.
Because it’s a bright, upbeat song, performing it at an entrance ceremony would instantly make the atmosphere lively and festive.
Sing, play, and have fun together!
Hand play ‘The Flower Smiled’
How about enjoying a hand-play activity with the children’s song “Ohanaga Waratta,” which is perfect for spring entrance ceremonies? You can make flowers with your hands and open them with a pop—it’s a very simple and cute choreography.
Playing it together with children who may be nervous in a new place, or having teachers perform it, could help ease some of that tension.
This song might also convey that kindergarten or nursery school is a fun place.
Please consider it as a performance idea.