Backyard Twister

Backyard Chalk Twister Game

Haha, just found these photos of our backyard twister game from our summer holidays. All you need is chalk and some pavers to write on! This has to be one of the easiest DIY backyard games ever – I feel a little silly explaining what we did as it’s so simple, but here goes:

  1. Draw coloured circles on the ground. Initially I tried to space them out like a traditional twister mat, but then the kids decided to help, which meant that all orderliness was abandoned. Our circle became quite numerous, and much smaller…. (and actually I discovered this was a blessing when we began playing later on)
  2. Have an adult (or another kid) randomly call out a colour and a left or right hand or foot. Each player has to put the corresponding hand or foot on the that colour.
  3. Keep going until someone tumbles over, and then start again.

Backyard Chalk Twister

For us this was just a fun activity in the backyard on a summer’s day, but it actually does help with preschooler colour recognition, knowing their left and right, being able to figure out how they need to arrange their body so they can reach each colour as it is called out. Reaching and stretching like this is also a great gross motor / vestibular workout for their little bodies!

If you are doing this with preschoolers like Bee (who is 3 years old here), then we found that lots of smaller circles everywhere was easier, so it’s not too tricky to find a spot she could reach. Her limbs are still comparatively short at this age, so there’s no way she could stretch over her sister, like how adults or older kids would.

For older kids, you could make the circles bigger and fewer, and you could use an actual twister colour spinner thingie (technical term), or you could roll a die and assign a colour to each number. Actually, depending on what you’re working on, you could have numbers written in the circles, instead of colours.

Either way, have fun!

Backyard Twister with chalk! Summer gross motor fun that sneaks in some colour recognition for my preschooler.

For more backyard fun, you might like:

xx Danya

 

 

8 Comments


  1. I love this idea so much Danya! Simple to set up and fun to play. Great for learning too. Something like that would also be great to play at a home party. Thanks.

    Reply

    • Thanks Kate! We’ve played it as an impromptu game when we’ve had friends over for play dates. I think chalk and pavers are always a good combination, and if you add a bit of fun movement into the mix…. 🙂

      Reply

  2. Love simple fun games like this!

    Reply

  3. Simple games are often the best and this looks like so much fun! It would make a great activity tomdo at a party too!

    Reply

  4. So darling! I love this idea!

    Reply

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