Resources

Play Ideas by Age

Nurture confidence and competence
in the primary school years: ages 5 to 8
- Play dress-up with mom's or dad's old clothes and act out stories from books you've read together or that your child makes up.

- Make a meal together. Let your child invent a new kind of sandwich or draw faces on hamburgers with ketchup or decorate rice cakes with peanut butter, raisins, and fruit.

- Get outdoors for a treasure hunt! You or your child can make a list of things to find (or draw pictures of them)-things like leaves, a stone, or a twig.

- Build a safe outdoor obstacle course with nearly anything you've got on hand-stones, lawn furniture, wastebaskets, hula hoops, boxes! Your child can make up rules for the course and change it to keep it challenging.

- Play storytelling games anytime-in the car, at bedtime,

Keep kids playing in middle childhood: ages 8 to 12
- Have your child draw a map of your route to school, grandma's or some place you visit often.

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