Children’s psychomotor games
Child psychomotor skills relate the motor, affective and intellectual development of children, these are some games and activities that are used to promote it.
The psychomotor is the relationship established between mental activity (thinking, attention, memory, thinking, language, spatial and temporal organization) and voluntary movement of the body (crawling, walking, running, jumping, writing …) of so that, for example, when a child thinks of taking an object, it does so appropriately with total precision. Child psychomotor skills currently occupy a prominent place in the education of children, since there is a great interdependence between motor, affective and intellectual development .
From the moment the child is born and comes into contact with the world around him, he begins to explore and know his environment from the perception and manipulation of objects. So as you develop more motor skills, your vision will develop and you will become more and more able to move and move around. The child will be more and more autonomous, and will acquire new experiences that will serve as the basis for their mental development.
Children’s psychomotor skills acquire different functions depending on the child’s stage of development. During the first year of life, the child is when he needs more body contact with the adult, so the games played with him will be to swing him to the rhythm of the songs, carry him in his arms from one place to another, interact with objects, hide them, manipulate them, use instruments that produce sounds … etc. In the second year of life, the child learns to walk and is fascinated by both the possibility of moving around and the manipulation of objects. Thus, they will engage in activities such as pushing toy cars or cars, filling and emptying baskets with different materials, playing with pieces or stacking cubes, etc. Already in the thirdyear of life, the child is capable of running, jumping, throwing the ball … because it is at the moment of its development. At this age, rhythmic games that involve any type of movement are very suitable.
Between 3 and 6 years of age, we present below a series of activities and games that promote children’s psychomotor skills, promoting motor development through the ability to move. At this age, we can already introduce regulated games with simple commands and follow them without any kind of difficulty. These games will be: some more competitive, others more cooperative, some based more on skill and others on expressiveness. Thus, some games that promote children’s psychomotor skills are:
Index
CIRCUIT
You will have to make a circuit with various colored materials, such as rings, benches, balls, pikes, cones, etc. Try to make the children believe that they are in a jungle and they are brave adventurers, capable of overcoming all the obstacles that are on the way. Set up a bench for the children to walk over, imagining it is a suspension bridge. Afterwards, we will place blue sheets simulating a river with stones along the way, having to jump over them to be able to cross it. After this, they must pass under a tunnel, which we can simulate with chairs placed in a straight line or forming a curve. Finally, when leaving it, they will find several colored hoops that must jump to the limp and, they will have reached their destination!
THE TURTLE GAME
To play this game, use a balloon to pretend that it is a turtle that must cross with the help of the children to the other side of the river. In this way, you will have to place the children in a row and they will have to pass the balloon to each other, using any part of the body except the hands and arms , preventing the turtle from falling to the ground and taking it safely to the other side of the Bank.
SHIPWRECKED AND SHARKS
To carry out this activity, place several benches so that all the children can get on. To the rhythm of the music , the children will have to go around the bench while it continues to play. When the music stops, all the children will have to climb on top of the benches, helping each other so that no one stays in the water, as there is a shark prowling the area and it can eat them. Little by little, we will remove benches, so that the space will be reduced little by little. In this situation, the children will have to help or hold each other so that they can all climb and the shark does not eat anyone.
THE PARACHUTE
The parachute is a colored material (red, blue, yellow and green) frequently used in animation and children’s psychomotor skills , with which waves are usually simulated. All children must hold the parachute at waist level and must move it gently up and down. Taking into account that there is a round hole in the center, the game consists of throwing a light ball on top of the parachute, and the children must prevent it from slipping through the hole, otherwise they will have lost.
With this material you can do various activities. Another interesting game is to number the children from 1 to 3. When they are moving the parachute, you should say: “Let those with the number 2 go under!” The children will have to raise the parachute as high as they can, and those with the number 2 will have to run underneath and change places.
ORCHESTRA DIRECTOR
A child keeps it and has to go outside the classroom for a few minutes . Between all of them, they must choose a person to be the conductor of the orchestra, whose function is to make movements so that others have to imitate him . The child who has left the classroom has to guess who is the person who starts the movements, while the music is playing.
THE LOCOMOTIVE
To play this game, you must put as many hoops as there are children on the ground , minus one, as this will be the locomotive and it will not need it. The boy chosen as the locomotive will move between the rings, touching the head of one of his companions. In the first round, the heads of few children will be touched, progressively increasing the number of children chosen as the game progresses. When their heads are touched, they stand behind the locomotive, forming a train . The locomotive must blow the whistle, and at this moment, all the children that formed the train must run towards an empty hoop. The child who is left without a ring will be the new engine.
Dr. Tabriella Perivolaris, Sara's mother and fan of fashion, beauty, motherhood, among others, about the female universe. Since 2018 she has been working as a copywriter, always bringing to her articles a little of her experience and experience as a mother and woman.
