From time-to-time I see requests posted on therapy Facebook pages, for suggestions for fun activities for young children to achieve one or other aim. The aims are often broad and include things like bilateral integration, crossing the midline or core stability.  Now these process oriented aims ignore the task specific  nature of effective training, but that is another matter and the subject of another post.

In this post I will consider the idea of "fun" activities.  What is a fun activity? What is it that makes an activity fun?   Here is simple definition: A fun activity is one that the child enjoys doing, is motivated to complete many repetitions, and will engage with for a fairly long period of time. 

First a story

Guy is a slightly built 5-year-old who has recently started pre-school. His parents and teacher's are concerned that during outdoor play time he sits on the bench and cannot be persuaded to join the other children in their games.

Today I sit down next to Guy and we start to chat about what the other children are doing. Guy is interested in the soccer game some children are playing – they have made a “goal” using two cones and are taking turns kicking the ball into the goal.
Guy tell me he sometimes plays soccer with his brother and cousins in the park but does not enjoy it much because he cannot run fast enough to get to the ball first and the children never pass the ball to him. He also tells me that he cannot kick the ball straight and far and never manages to get it into the goal.

I ask him about running fast. Does he like running? What happens when he runs far and fast? Does his heart start to beat very fast. Does it feel like it is going to pop out of his chest? Yes, he tells me it feels like it is going to pop out of his chest. Does that feel very scary, I ask. Yes he tells be, he gets very scared and it feels like he cannot breathe properly. (He has no history of asthma or other health problems, but I make a note to check this out.)

I suggest that he and I play some running games. Together we set two cones about 5 meters apart with Guy being in charge of exactly where to place the cones. He and I race from one to the other and back again. I pace myself so that Guy wins the race.

We stop to feel our hearts beating. Is his heart beating very fast? I explain that that is a good thing. Hearts always beat fast when one runs. I suggest that we do another run, but this time as fast as we can so that our hearts can beat even faster.

This time we are joined by a few children. I pretend to be a lion and chase the children. We all stop to feel our hearts beating very fast. Guy tells the other children that they need not worry if their hearts are beating fast because that is what hearts do.

Guy's teacher undertakes to play some running games in the next PE class and I send a note home suggesting that they also find opportunities to play running games.

And I promise Guy that I will teach him how to kick a ball far and straight so that he can join in the soccer games.

Back to my simple definition

Let's take another look at my simple definition of a fun activity: 

 A fun activity is one that the child enjoys doing, is motivated to explore options,  complete many repetitions, and will engage with for a fairly long period of time. 

Using these criteria, are the running games Guy and I play together a fun activity? Do they motivate him to engage, persist, explore and succeed? 

So what are the characteristics of an activity that motivates and engages a young child? And which of these ingredients are incorporated into the running games 

1  A just right challenge that allows them to succeed but also needs a bit of effort to achieve. 

2  Activities that have an achievable and defined goal. This allows the child to know whether they have succeeded. 

3 Some degree of choice about the nature and goals of the activity.  Choice enhances the child's sense of having some control, which in turn has the benefit of improving learning. 

4  Some form of reward - this can be internal  (success and achieving the goal)  or external such as an something happening in the environment or a some form of token.

5  Creating games that involve a bit of  pretend danger  - jumping over a crocodile infested river, or being chased by a lion, stealing treasure from the dragon's lair. 

6  Embedding an activity into a story and creating pretend games.

7  Introducing an element of competition and speeding up of actions. 

A challenge

Think of a few task performance goals you have formulated for a child.
Now think about ways to adapt the task in ways that make it fun for the child and also also you to meet your training goals.