Helping children stay active, curious, and engaged is an important part of healthy development. When children move their bodies through play, they build strong large motor skills, confidence, and a lifelong love of learning. Whether it’s jumping, climbing, balancing, or exploring the outdoors, active play supports both physical growth and creative thinking.
If you’re looking for simple, fun ways to keep your children busy while encouraging movement and discovery, we’re here to help. Our Active Activity Guide is filled with ideas for both indoor and outdoor play that support large motor development and inspire families to learn through movement.
Take a look through the guide for easy activities you can try at home, in your backyard, or at the park. A little movement can go a long way in supporting your child’s development—and having fun together as a family.
- Crawling Through Tunnels – Crawling through tunnels is so much fun and a simple way for your child to stay active indoors. What to do, when you don’t have a tunnel at home? Build one! For example with a baby mattress, blankets and chairs, bench or a box. Add some small balls and your indoor playground is set up!
- Hopscoth – Get your little one active with a classic game of hopscotch. Create this simple game with sidewalk chalk and encourage your child to jump through the numbers. Using coloured chalk, draw an obstacle course and include words showing a variety of actions such as jumping jacks, twirl, spin and leap frog through the maze.
- Coloured Tape Fun – Tape some fun lines on the floor in three different colours. Create patterns with the tape, including zig zags,curvy and straight lines for your child to walk, hop and jump along.Play Simon Says through the taped lines or challenge your child to drive trucks and assist their stuffy through.
- Rainbow Toy Hunt – Create a hunt for toys in the colors of the rainbow. Draw a rainbow on a piece of paper and set your child on a hunt around the house to fill in the rainbow outline. Encourage counting the items after the picture is filled in.
- Balloon Games – Tie a string on a balloon and hang it from the ceiling. Encourage your little one to jump and hit the balloon. Lower it to waist level and invite your child to practice kicking. Float a balloon in the air and play ‘keep up’ through the house trying to prevent it fromlanding on the floor.
- Hop on ABC’s – Create a simple jumping game by laying out ABC flashcards or ABC letters written out on post it notes. Spread around an open area in your home and encourage your child to hop through the alphabet. Call out letters and encourage your child to race to that letter or another idea is to
play ‘musical letters’ by playing music and when it stops, have your child hop on that letter. - Animal Walks – Animals walks are a great way to help your child be physically active indoors. Encourage your child to walk around the house
like different animals. Bear, snake, crab, bird, dinosaur or kangaroo will keep your child moving, acting silly and using their imagination. - Bean Bag Toss – Lay out a set of hula hoops in a line with a bucket at the end. If you have a few that are varied in size lay them out largest to smallest and place a bucket at the end. Provide your child with a bean bag to toss inside the hoops or get the ‘bulls eye bucket’. Mark point values in the hoops with sidewalk chalk. Have your child count how many points they collect.
- Pillow & Bucket Fun – Scatter pillows across the floor and let your child jump from pillow to pillow. Encourage them to try running from pillow to
pillow, jumping with two feet, or jumping with one foot, etc. You could also call out specific colours of pillows for your little one to jump towards. Encourage your child to throw the assorted pillows into the large bucket from a variety of distances.
