What Activities Promote Physical Development in Children?

Family Walks

• Create a tradition of family walks. Start when your child is in a stroller and keep it up as she gets older. Incorporate games into your walks that keep your children moving and having fun. You can take turns alternating walking, marching, jogging, skipping and running, with each movement having its own "secret" word that anyone in the family can call out. You can even hold indoor parades where each member of the family pretends to be a different animal and moves the way that animal would move.

Dance

• Dance is a fun way to get everyone in the family moving and promote physical development in children. Turn the music on and engage in free-style dancing or play musical games like musical chairs, the Hokey-Pokey, freeze dance or wiggle dancing. The Family Education website offers a whole list of different dance and movement games that you can play with your children indoors. These include ABC Shapes, Circle Dancing, Fireworks Dance and Rubber-Neck Dance. You can also enroll your child in more formal dance lessons. Dance lessons are usually available from age preschool through adult at dance studios and community centers.

Sandbox Play

• Set up a sandbox in your backyard and fill it with toys that encourage fine motor development. Get in the box with your child and play games together that involve tracing routes in the sand, filling buckets and emptying them, digging and drawing pictures. All of these activities encourage fine motor development, and the sand helps create a physical memory on your child's fingertips. Encourage imaginative play by creating scenes of spacescapes or underwater paradises or enchanted forests.

Playground Games

• Many traditional playground games have survived the test of time because they contribute so much to a child's physical development. Round up a group of kids and introduce such playground games as tag, hide and seek, kickball, hopscotch, dodge ball, Red Light-Green Light or Red Rover. Consider introducing a different game each week of the summer or holding competitions or mock tournaments where every child is recognized for participating.

Jump Rope Games

• A jump rope is a tool for promoting physical development in children because it lends itself to a variety of activities. Stretch the rope out in a straight line and have your child pretend to be a tightrope walker. Once she excels at walking along the line, thave her hop or skip along the line. Make the jump rope into a circle on the floor. Direct your child to jump into and out of the circle. As he learns to do that well, increase the difficulty by having him hop in and out of the circle on one foot, tiptoe, skip or jump backward. When your child is ready, teach her how to jump-rope and play jump rope games with her and her friends.