Women Mommy and me / preschool games

[gymisforeveryone]

I'm coaching preschool and rec gymnastics summer courses this summer. One course is 4 days long and they have one class a day. Some kids only come to one course but some attend to 2-4 courses. I've coached them for one week now. I would love to find more games to play with the kids, especially the mommy and me class (kids 2-4 years old) but also the preschool class (kids 4-6 years old).

The games I already have in mind:

Color game: when music plays they run in the gym freely, when it stops I say a color that they have to find and touch with their hand/foot/head/tummy etc.

Animal game (different variations for preschoolers without a parent): Again when music plays they run freely and when it stops they find their parent. We have 5 different "moves" for different animals: 1) A flying bird (parent lifts the kid up in the air and kid pretends to be a bird), 2) Monkey in a tree (A kid goes to her parents piggyback and pretends to be a monkey) 3) Crabs on the beach (parents and kids pretend to be crabs) 4) A fish under a bridge (Parent goes to a push up position and the kid pretends to be a fish swimming under the bridge) 5) Kangaroo baby and her mother (A parent makes a hoop out of his/her arms and the kid jumps inside the hoop)

Musical chairs using pit blocks: Again when music plays they move around the gym the way I ask them to (run, jump, bear walk etc) and when the music stops they try to find a free block to sit on. There are as many blocks as there are kids. The moving style changes every time.

Car game: I give all of them a steeling wheel (a round piece of carpet) and make them run the road that I have marked in the gym. When I show them red color card (and also call the color) they have to stop. When I show a yellow card they run in place. When I show a green card they continue to run. I may also ask them to park somewhere in the gym or make an U turn.

That's pretty much all I have. I would love to have more games because I'd like to start and end the class with a game. Stretching games would be much appreciated too. I currently do have two different stretch routines (baking pizza and trees in a storm) but I don't want to use the same routines all summer when some of the kids (and their parents) attend to more than one course.

We don't have a full size floor to use, only two strips of floor next to each other but there's a gap between them so I don't like to use that area for tag games with the little ones.

We have the whole gym to use. There's a pretty large pit also if you know any games to play there? I can use music but I don't like singing in front of people myself so I try to avoid games that involve singing

I posted this here so parents and gymnasts can answer too. I hope it's ok.

 

[txgymfan]

Have you looked on Pinterest? There are tons of ideas there.

 

[gymisforeveryone]

Have you looked on Pinterest? There are tons of ideas there.

No I haven't! I'm going there now, I hope I'll find something nice

 

[coachmolly]

I made 2 dice out of foam (you could use pit blocks if you have them, we don't have a gym so I just cut foam into squares)- one has numbers 1-6, the other has pictures of different shapes or basic skills taped on it. The number cube tells them how many to do, the skill cube tells them of what. So a kid who rolls a 6 and a tuck jump picture would do 6 tuck jumps. I don't remember what else was on there- but you can really use whatever shapes or skills the particular group is focusing on. I think there might have been a beginner hollow hold (bent knees) and the number would be how many seconds they would hold it.
Follow the leader and Simon Says type games are also fun for little ones.