Play Ideas For 5-Year-Olds That Develop Communication Skills And Confidence

With kids facing screens daily for distance learning, parents are understandably worried whether it will affect brain development. According to the Department of Education, kindergarten students should spend not more than an hour of screen time.

At 5 years old, it is important to keep young kids engaged with activities that stimulate the mind and body. One way to do it is through play.

Play is crucial in child development. It keeps their bodies healthy and develops a number of skills like creativity and communication. It even gives a boost of confidence!

Communication skills are particularly important so kids can communicate wants and needs. It is a sign of school readiness and lessens frustration and meltdowns. It’s also needed for honing social skills and making friends.

If you’re running out of ideas, here’s a list of games and activities from the Philippine Play Coalition (PPC) that you can do with your 5-year-old children at home:

Drawing charades

Benefits

• Problem solving
• Cognitive function

What you’ll need

• Paper
• Crayons
• Pencils

Prepare pieces of paper with identified objects, characters, places, and animals written on them. Roll and place inside a container.

Divide players into two teams and assign a member to represent each team, while the remaining players must guess the word that the representatives pick. Both representatives will be given the same word.

The representatives must draw what is written on the paper without using words, numbers, and symbols. They will have one minute to guess the word.

The first team to guess the word shall get a point and the team who gets the most points will win.

Ice Ice Water

Benefits

• Motor skills
• Physical fitness
• Teamwork
• Communication

Players will determine the “it” or “taya” by singing, “Ice ice water, change your foot. Please go home and wash it,” while touching every player’s foot. Once the lead player touches one’s foot, they will be saved. The last person remaining will become “Ice” or the “it.”

Ice will chase and tag the other players (who are water) within a given time. Once a player is tagged, they are considered frozen and must stay in place without moving. Frozen players can only be “unfreezed” if another “water” tags them.

Ice wins if he successfully freezes everybody. Water wins if they survive until the time runs out.

Sock puppets

Benefits

Creativity

What you’ll need

• Paper
• Coloring materials
• Glue
• Old socks
• Buttons
• Beads
• Glitter

Prepare old, unused socks to be used as the base for the puppets. Let your kids choose what materials they want to use to decorate the sock puppets. Once these are done, it can be used for storytelling and roleplay!

Freeze Dance

Benefits

• Motor skills
• Self-confidence
• Ability to follow directions

Play music and let the kids dance. Once the music stops, each player must freeze immediately and hold that position until the music begins again.

If a player does not freeze immediately, they must do ten sets of jumping jacks at the start of the next round. Then, they can rejoin the game.

Let your kids come up with their own dance moves. Let them show it to you and the group can try copying the new move for the next round.

Looking for more games and activities? Introduce Pinoy games to your kids here and find more play ideas here.