The following use divergent production (multiple possible responses) to stimulate children’s imaginations and problem-solving skills.

Making Shapes. Ask a group of children to create shapes with their bodies and you’re likely to get as many different shapes as there are children! Ask them to show you the following:

• round
• flat
• high
• low
• wide
• narrow
• pointed
• crooked

You can also ask them to take on the shapes of pencils, tables, chairs, teapots, and rugs!

The Color of… Invite children to show you with their body what comes to mind when you say the color yellow [blue, green, red]!

Happy Endings. Start a story about anything at all. After a sentence or two, stop and point to a child, who picks up the thread and adds her own next line. Whether you have just one child there and the two of you go back and forth, or you have several children who each take a turn, the story’s likely to go in unexpected ways. Once it’s completed, act it out!

Spring Has Sprung. Talk to the children about the planting of seeds in the spring. Then invite them to imagine they’re tiny seeds under the earth. With you alternately acting as the sun and the rain, the “seeds” begin to slowly grow into beautiful trees and flowers. What would the trees and flowers look like if a warm spring breeze were blowing them? What if there was a lot of rain and it made the plants and flowers “droopy?”

Moving with Limitations. Challenge children to find two different ways to move:

• at a low level in space
• at a high level
• in a round shape
• in a pointy shape
• in a crooked shape
• using both the hands and feet
• using any body part(s) but the feet

I’ve discovered that my son’s school is abusing the daily recess time and I want to do something about it….His teachers are using recess to punish kids. For example, if they either forget to bring in homework or fail to do it, they miss recess. If they misbehave, they miss recess. Any of his teachers have the power to deny recess...

Father of a 5^th-grade student

Today I was taken out of class and called before the principal and his assistant to be questioned about my practice of rewarding good behavior and hard work with “extra recess.” I was told I am NO LONGER allowed to do this except as a very rare exception as our students have a short enough day as it is….HELP!!!

3^rd-grade teacher

At the beginning of every new school year, more and more parents discover that recess is disappearing from the landscape of their children’s school days. If this is the case for you – and you’ve seen the impact it has on your child – following are seven steps you can take to fight this trend. 

1. Do your homework. First, find out about recess at your child’s school. Do they have it? How often does it occur? How long does it last? What happens on the playground? Find out from other parents what their children are experiencing. Are children ever kept from recess? Why?
    
2. Be sensitive. When talking with your child’s classroom teacher, remember that most teachers today are under tremendous pressure to achieve nearly impossible objectives. They could use a break, too!
    
3. Don’t go it alone. One concerned parent can be considered a rabble-rouser, but several concerned parents have influence. Recruit the parents of your children’s friends and classmates. Contact the president of the schools’ parent or parent/teacher organization to discuss your concerns. With the help of the association, set up a meeting with the school’s principal.
    
4. Do some more homework. If you don’t like the answers you’re receiving and you want to bring about change, you’ll need backup in the form of research and respected professionals. Go to the websites of the American Association for the Child’s Right to Play (www.ipausa.org) and Rescuing Recess (www.rescuingrecess.com) and use the information they provide. If possible, find a local professional who feels strongly about the need for recess and play in early childhood and recruit him or her to address school administrators and/or the school board if necessary.
    
5. Educate! Make copies of the information you’ve accumulated, highlighting the important points, and distribute them among administrators, faculty, and other parents. Whenever possible, speak one-on-one with teachers, school board members, and parents.
    
6. Alert the media! Write letters to the editors of the local newspapers, submit an opinion piece, or just call and tell them your story. Contact local radio and television stations. Invite a television feature reporter to experience recess with your child. Or, if your child’s school has no recess, invite the reporter to join your child’s class for a day without breaks.
    
7. Thing big! Work with your elected officials and school board members to ensure recess is available for every child every day in every school. Ask your PTA to include, within its state resolutions, recess as a mandatory part of each school day. Become a recess advocate for your state. You can learn how at the website of the American Association for the Child’s Right to Play. There you’ll find a comprehensive packet – free – to anyone who asks!

Initially, a child who hasn’t had enough practice in self-sufficiency is going to need help generating ideas of things to do. When that happens, you can offer her choices, but keep it to a minimum of two or three so she doesn’t feel overwhelmed by the decision making. Point out that she has a new book waiting to be read. Offer to get her set up for finger painting. Or ask if she would like to help with something you need to get done – making cookies or raking the leaves, for instance. If none of these choices appeal to her, stay your course. If you assure her that you have every confidence she can find something to do, she may be initially stumped, but because she’ll want to validate your belief in her, she’ll find something.

 Boston Globe parenting columnist Barbara Meltz suggests that a parent sit down with a child to brainstorm a list of activities the child enjoys. If you write them on slips of paper and put them in a jar, the next time he’s bored he’ll have plenty of ideas to choose from. And having helped create the list, he’ll take pride in it and feel empowered.

 Boredom in the family car is too often cured with DVD players – an item I’d happily ban if I had my way! They promote the idea that being electronically entertained is more important than families talking to one another, and more important than taking in the surroundings, no matter how beautiful they may be. The next time you’re on the road with your family or child, fill as much time as you can with conversation. When that runs its course, play a game of I Spy (for example, “I spy something that begins with the letter f,” for field or flowers). Whoever guesses what the other person has in mind gets to start the next round. Not only does this draw attention to what’s outside the vehicle’s windows, but it also reinforces letter awareness. To promote color recognition and appreciation, challenge passengers to see how many green, red, blue, or yellow things they can find. And when the conversation and games run out, don’t be afraid of a little quiet time. It’ll give your child a chance to think or simply rest.

 An age-old favorite for counteracting boredom in the outdoors is to find creatures in the clouds. But don’t make it an assignment! If you send your little one outside to find creatures in the clouds, simply make it a suggestion and, perhaps, provide a blanket for her to lie on. If you join her in the activity, resist the temptation to turn it into a contest to see who can find the most creatures. Instead, lie beside her and quietly describe what you’re seeing. And if neither of you discovers any creatures, it’s okay to just lie there looking.

The following activities are adapted from Jump into Literacy: Active Learning for Preschool Children by Rae Pica (Gryphon House, 2007). Included are one each from the four main sections: Listening, Speaking, Reading, Writing...

What Do You Hear? In this simple activity, children identify sounds. Ask them to close their eyes. Make a sound, inviting the children to try to identify it. Some sounds to try are rattling a keychain, clapping your hands, ringing a bell, opening and closing a drawer, or blowing a whistle. Identifying sounds with eyes closed requires careful listening!
      A more difficult challenge is to use a tape recorder to record familiar sounds children might hear both in and out of the classroom. Possibilities include a vacuum cleaner, a door closing, a phone ringing, a clock ticking, an electric can opener, or a doorbell. You can also invite the children to demonstrate each object they identify by pretending to be the object or pretending to use it. For example, if one of the sounds is a vacuum cleaner, the children can act like a vacuum cleaner or pretend to be vacuuming.

Do-Re-Mi. The notes of the musical scale (d0-re-mi-fa-so-la-ti-do) may seem to be about music only, but singing these notes helps children learn to enunciate as it also familiarizes them with vowels. Ask the children to echo what you sing as clearly as they can. Then sing each note of the scale, with the children echoing each note.
     Once the children know the scale well and can sing it along with you, ask them to place their hands on their laps and to raise them a little higher with each note. Explain that their hands are ascending along with the notes. When the children have had a lot of practice with the scale, try it in reverse. Tell them that this is known as descending.
     When the children are familiar with long and short vowels, since the scale slowly, asking them to make their bodies long on those notes with long vowels and to make their bodies short on those with short vowels. (It doesn't matter that mi is spelled m-i, as the children won't yet know that and will hear m-e.)

Top to Bottom. Reading (and writing) involves going from the top to the bottom of a page. This activity provides practice with the experience of moving in a downward direction. The more children physically experience directionality, the more it is imprinted on their bodies and in their minds. This means that the more comfortable children are with moving their bodies in a downward direction, the more comfortable they will be moving their eyes in that direction.
     Invite the children to move the following from up high to down low: one (the other) hand, both hands together, the nose, a shoulder, their belly button, their whole body (then pop up and do it again!).
     For a greater challenge, combing top-to-bottom spatial orientation with word comprehension by asking children to show you the differences among these words by moving from high to low positions: shrink, melt, collapse, shrivel.

Open & Close. With fewer opportunities to swing across monkey bars or climb trees, today's children need as many hand-strengthening activities as we can provide for them. This simple activity is good for strengthening the muscles of the hands.
     Lead the children in opening and closing their hands at varying tempos, alternately stretching fingers to their limit and then clenching fists tightly! Use the words open and close to reinforce these opposite verbs.

Alphabet Fun. Singing the alphabet song helps children memorize the order of the letters. To help promote letter recognition, and therefore pre-reading and pre-writing, play a game in which you show the child a letter and then ask her to create its shape with her body or body parts. You can also create a large letter with a jump rope and invite your child to travel its shape by walking, tiptoeing, or hopping on it. Activities like these will help “imprint” the information on the child’s body and in her mind.

Sound Games. To promote active listening, play sound games. With baby lying on his back, shake a rattle or other noise-producing object above his head or to his side, encouraging him to locate the sound. When he’s crawling, hide behind various pieces of furniture, whispering his name until he finds you. Ask an older child to close his eyes and try to identify what’s producing the sound you make. Then jingle car keys, clap your hands, cluck your tongue, or tap a drinking glass with a spoon. You can also take a listening walk, during which you identify all the different sounds you hear. For a greater challenge, bring a handheld tape recorder with you. See if you and the child can identify the sounds recorded once you’ve returned from your trip.

Everyday Science Experiments. Give the child a paintbrush and a bucket of water and let her “paint” the outside of the house or school building. She’ll get some upper-torso exercise while simultaneously learning lessons about absorption and evaporation. Playing with bubbles or chiffon scarves teaches lessons in flotation and gravity.

Problem Solving: Storytelling. Read a story and invite the child to make up his own ending. Or invent a story of your own, going back and forth between the two of you, one line at a time.

Problem Solving: Movement Challenges. Present challenges that have more than one response. For example, invite her to discover two different ways to move on four body parts. (Possibilities include moving on hands and knees, hands and feet, or knees and elbows.) If she’s walking the curb, the edge of the sandbox, or a low balance beam, invite her to find other ways to move along it in a forward direction. (Possibilities include tiptoeing, galloping, hopping, or scooting on the bottom or tummy.) Whenever there’s more than one way to do something, gently urge the child to “find another way.” With any kind of problem solving, it is the most obvious solutions that first come to mind. A child will need encouragement to look beyond the obvious.

Above activities excerpted from A Running Start: How Play, Physical Activity, and Free Time Create a Successful Child (New York: Marlowe & Company, 2006).

Hoop Hop.  Give each child a plastic hoop to lie on the floor.  The child hops in and out, all the way around it.  Having completed the circle, she should reverse direction and repeat the exercise on the other foot.  (Note: If a jump isn't yet hopping, she can jump all the way around the back.)

"Pop Goes the Weasel."  Ask the children to walk to this familiar melody, jumping into the air each time they hear the "pop."  You can hum or sing the song or lay a recording of it.  Once children have mastered the challenge to jump on the "pop," ask them to jump and change direction, too.

Running across the Country.  With primary-grade children, you can challenge them to race across the country, plotting their daily progress on a map, thereby integrating physical fitness with geography and math lessons.  Once around the gym or playground area might, for instance, equal a mile on the map.  With preschoolers, you might use a puzzle map instead.  Every day they run around the designated area, or for the length of a favorite recording, another state is placed on the puzzle to show their progress.

Rabbits & 'Roos.  Children love to pretend to be animals.  Ask them to jump like rabbits and kangaroos, alternating from one to the other.  Which is the larger of the two animals?  Which would jump the heaviest?

Statues.  Making a game out of moving to music can free even the most inhibited of children.  Put on a lively piece of music, and instruct the children to move in any way they want while it's playing.  When the music stops (you press the pause button on the CD or tape player), they must freeze into statues and stay that way until the music begins again.  To ensure this falls into the moderate-to-vigorous-activity category, keep the pauses short and the musical segments long!

Visual Tracking.  Provide your baby with bright, colorful objects to watch.  Finger puppets or a brightly colored sock placed on your hand can be used to gain and keep the baby’s attention.  Slowly move your hand up and down, in circles, and to the right and left.  You might also play “sound” games with your baby.  Shake a rattle or other noise-producing object above the baby’s head or to his side, encouraging him to locate the sound.  This provides practice with both visual tracking and sound discrimination.

Body Awareness.  Sing and demonstrate “Where Is Thumbkin?”  Play games like “This Little Piggy” with both toes and fingers.  Touch her nose, exclaiming, “I’ve got your nose!”  Then proceed to play the game with such other body parts as toes, ears, fingers, and legs.  When the baby’s developmentally ready, ask her to find your nose, ears, mouth, and so on.

Individuation.  There’s nothing like the tried-and-true game of peekaboo to help the child begin to see himself as a separate individual.  It also makes babies laugh!  Once the baby is familiar with this game, you can move on to “Where’s Mommy [Daddy, Nana, etc.]?”  Begin by placing your hands over your face, just as you would with peekaboo.  Later, hide your whole self behind a piece of furniture, asking, “Where’s Mommy?”  You then pop up, answering, “Here’s Mommy!”

Eye-Hand Coordination.  Any activity in which the baby is reaching for or batting an object promotes eye-hand coordination.  Another option, appropriate for infants as young as three months, is to sew a bell or bells onto an elastic band that you can slip on your baby’s wrists or ankles.  Once on, gently shake the body part until the baby looks at it.

    Also, when your baby is able to sit unassisted, make him comfortable on the floor, legs apart.  Sit opposite him in a similar manner and roll a large, brightly colored ball toward him.  Describe what you’re doing and encourage him to push it back to you.

Another possibility: Give her two large paper or plastic cups, one of which is filled with dry cereal; and encourage her to pour the cereal from one cup to the other.  Since can be a messy activity, it’s best to first prepare the floor area with a large vinyl tablecloth!

Imitation.  Babies are great at mimicking, and at about ten months of age they have a greater understanding of what they’re doing and really enjoy it.  Surprisingly enough, imitating is an important skill, as the ability to physically replicate what the eyes are seeing comes in handy later for things like writing and drawing.  Also, imitation helps confirm for babies that they’re like other people.

Play the mirror game with your baby while sitting and facing each other.  Stick out your tongue, wiggle your fingers in your ears, wave your arms up and down, all while encouraging the baby to do likewise.  When your baby is ready to figure out how the game is played, encourage him to lead while you imitate.

Later, when your baby is mobile, “Follow the Leader” is a wonderful game to play.  It will encourage imitating and also provide practice with walking.  Be sure to vary the speed of your movements, the pathways you take (possibilities are straight, curving, and zigzagging), and your body’s shape (big, small, wide, etc.).

Duck, Duck, Goose.   This game appeared in the PE Hall of Shame because, traditionally played, it involves physical activity for only one or two players and a good deal of waiting for the rest.  Also, some players were repeatedly chosen to be the “goose” – sometimes friends of the player who’s It and sometimes the slowest children, who had little chance of catching It.  And tagged players were relegated to the center of the circle, singled out as “failures.”  This revised version changes all that!

    Instead of sitting motionless in a circle, the children stand in a circle and walk in place as the game is played.  One child, who is It, walks around the circle, tapping the other children’s shoulders and saying either “duck” or “goose.”  When someone is assigned to be “goose,” she chases It around the circle, trying to tag him.  If she does tag him, he stands in her original place and she gets to be It.  If she doesn’t tag him, she returns to her spot and he gets to be It again.

    An important ground rule: It can’t choose someone who’s already been a “goose” until everyone’s had a chance.

 Cat & Mouse I.  The original game involves all players, with the exception of the “cat” and the “mouse,” simply standing in a circle.  And they can be standing there for quite a while, depending on how long it takes the cat to catch the mouse.  With two simple modifications, there’s more active participation for all!

    Choose two children – one to be the cat and one to be the mouse.  The remaining children stand in a circle, slightly apart, and sway side to side.  The object of the game is for the cat to catch the mouse on the inside of the circle.  But this is harder than it seems because the mouse can run between two players, who then join hands, keeping the cat from passing through.

    Time the children, giving each cat one minute (or more, if you feel it works better) to catch the mouse.  If the cat can’t catch the mouse, the mouse becomes the next cat and another mouse is chosen.  If the cat does catch the mouse, they both rejoin the circle and a new pair is chosen.

 Leap Frog.  This game is played pretty much in the traditional way.  It does require a bit of waiting, though; so if you have a large group, you’ll want to divide them into smaller ones.

    The children form a circle, crouched on their hands and feet and facing someone else’s back.  Designate one child to start as the “frog.”  That child leaps over the child in front of him, and each succeeding child, by placing his hands on the children’s backs for support and straddling his legs as he goes over them.  When he returns to his original spot in the circle, the child behind him acts as the frog.

Over & Under.   You could play this game in a straight line, but playing it in a circle adds to the feeling of togetherness and better enables the children to see what’s going on.

    Hand a playground or small beach ball to one child, who passes it backward over his head to the next child.  The ball goes all the way around the circle in this manner.  The children then stand with legs apart and pass the ball behind them, under their bodies.  When the children are comfortable with both of these ways of passing the ball, have them do it in alternation: one child passing it overhead and the next passing it through the legs.

The Snake.  The students pair off, stretching out on their stomachs, one in front of the other.  The child in back takes hold of the ankles of the child in front, forming a two-person “snake.”  The object of the game is for the snake to see how far it can slither without breaking contact.  Once the children have mastered the challenge of slithering in pairs, invite the two-person snakes to connect with other two-person snakes and to practice slithering at twice their original lengths.  Eventually you can challenge the children to keep connecting until they’ve formed one big snake!

Sticky Popcorn.  Talk to the children about the process of cooking popcorn – from kernels in the oil, through heating up, to becoming full-fledged pieces of popcorn.  What would happen if something sticky, like butter or caramel, was poured all over the popcorn?            Invite the children to lie on the floor, in the smallest shape possible, imagining they’re tiny uncooked kernels of popcorn.  Then the “oil” they’re lying in starts to heat up, and they start popping.  They keep popping – all over the room!  You then “pour” butter or caramel over them, making them very sticky.  When that happens, every time they come near another kernel, they stick to it – until there’s just one big, stuck bunch of popcorn!

Beanbag Freeze.  This game requires the children to each walk around the room with a beanbag balanced on a specific body part.  If the beanbag falls off, the player has to freeze in that spot and wait until another player has retrieved the beanbag for her or him.  The catch is that, if the second player’s beanbag should also fall, that player will be frozen, too, until help comes along.

     Hand out the beanbags and explain the rules to the children.  Invite them at first to balance the beanbag on a fairly simple body part, like the palm or back of the hand.  Then give them the signal to go!

    Make this game even more challenging by asking the children to balance the beanbag on such parts as the top of the head, a shoulder, or an elbow.

Three-Legged Creatures.  The object of this game is for two children to maneuver together as one three-legged creature.  It should get the heart rate up and the giggles going!

      With the children paired up and standing closely, side by side, gently tie their inside legs together with a scarf.  Challenge the children to count how many steps they can take in a predetermined amount of time; then give them the signal to go!

     This game also lends itself to locomotor skills other than walking.  Challenge the children to perform, three-legged, other skills they’re able to perform as individuals.  Possibilities include jumping (in this case, on three feet), hopping (on two feet, lifting either the inside or outside legs), galloping (with either the inside or outside feet leading), and skipping.  (Don’t invite them to try this unless they’re already skipping on both sides of the body, with the correct rhythm, which most children can’t do until they’re at least 5½ years old.)

Art: Color & Shape Awareness.  Show the children pictures or examples of objects in various colors – one at a time – and ask them to demonstrate the shape of each object.  Possibilities include a yellow banana, a green plant, a red apple, an orange, a bunch of purple grapes, or a white snowflake.

 Language Arts: Auditory Sequential Memory & Listening Skills.  Tell the children you’re going to give them a list of movements to do but that they’re not to start doing them until you’ve finished speaking.  Start with a short sequence, for example: clap twice, blink eyes.  When the children are ready, lengthen the sequence; for example: clap twice, blink eyes, turn around (jump in place, sit down, etc.).

 Math: Simple Computation.  Have the children sit in a circle on the floor or the ground.  Call out a child’s name.  The child gets up and stands in the center of the circle.    Ask the children how many are in the center.  When they’ve responded correctly, call out another child’s name.  That child joins the child already in the center.  Ask the children how many are in the circle now.  Continue adding – and subtracting – children, each time asking the group to tell you how many are standing in the center.

Science: Flotation.  Demonstrate for the children how bubbles, feathers, and/or chiffon scarves float through the air.  Is the movement light or heavy?  What are words they would use to describe the movement? 
                If you have scarves available for the children, hand them out and let each child explore for himself or herself how the scarves gently float back down to the ground – no matter how hard they may toss them up.  Challenge the children to pretend to be floating in the air.  Is the movement strong or light?  Are their muscles tight or loose?

 Social Studies: Occupations.  Talk to the children about various occupations frequently associated with one gender or another, without mentioning gender (e.g., chefs, homemakers, hairstylists, police officers, firefighters, carpenters, and dancers).  Ask them to tell you some of the tasks performed by people in these occupations.  Challenge the children to act out some of these tasks, one at a time.