Here is a growing list of games that you can play with your family to help learn about the human body!
Fun games you can adapt for any age. Get your toddler playing with your teenagers for family game night!
Charades
Draw some body parts on small pieces of paper and hold a family fun night or play a game of charades in the classroom! The best part about having a toddler, preschooler or kindergartner drawing the pieces of paper is they have seen the answers which helps them understand the game and engage. They will enjoy it that much more!
If you would love some printable flashcards/charades prompts, follow our store and sign up to our email list to be notified when they’re released!
What body part am I using now?
This is a fun one to play at the park! It will be most enjoyed by younger children who love to play at the park.
We have this really cool roller at our park that my 2 year old just loves. She loves anything that spins and makes her dizzy and throws off her balance. This is a great opportunity to talk about her brain and how it helps her balance! Our vestibular system and our cerebellum help us balance but when we spin and get dizzy our vestibular system and cerebellum get confused! We can then balance walk on the board bridge and talk about how our vestibular system and cerebellum aren’t confused now so we can balance and walk across the board bridge without falling off!
My arms, legs, vestibular system!
To the game…
Choose an activity at the playground e.g. slide, swing, roller
Ask what body part(s) they think they might be using during that activity.
Have fun…
Talk about it some more…
If they’re moving too quickly, talk about it when you stop for a snack or in the car on the way home.
If they’re not interested, that’s ok. It’s not an interest of theirs at the moment so try something else! There are many other activities to try out in this blog.
The brain game
The brain game is designed for ages 2-8, and can be adapted for many developmental stages. It can be fun to play for a family game night, a play and learn session with your toddler, a family homeschool session involving all the ages, and even a whole class of students in a classroom.
https://pin.it/W3f3Lu5
My 2-year-old loves this game. We get out the game board and the shapes, and she has so much fun running around the house completing the activities on the cards and matching the colours and shapes. We have this game handy for filler moments. If she needs some fun connection time with Mum and I have 5 minutes, I pull out the game and we do a few cards. I’ll make it a full family game night soon too!
This game has a different colour shape for each major area of the cortex of the brain. For each major area of the brain there are activities to complete. There are different sets of instructions for different ages and different versions of the game to make it more or less difficult.
Click here to download the brain game and engage every area of their brain!
Fish bowl
One of my favourite games is fish bowl…I’ve heard it by other names but this is the name I know it by. This is a classic that I always pull out for youth group, and I have an awesome adaptation for you to involve the toddler in your fun and learn something at the same time.
It’s a fun and adapted form of charades!
Equipment
- 3 bowls or hats
- A4 sheet of paper cut up into pieces (3 pieces of paper per person)
- A bedsheet or blanket
Have everyone in the room write down (or draw) a body part on a piece of paper. if you want a short game, have everyone do one or two pieces of paper. If you think your family will enjoy the full game, everyone can write/draw 3!
This is the perfect place for your toddler to get involved! Draw a heart and have them colour it in.
Put the pieces of paper in a hat or bowl.
Split the room into two teams. Each team should have their own hat/bowl (totalling 3 hats/bowls)
Round 1
Do a coin toss to determine which team starts. For these instructions, we will say team A won and is starting first.
Nominate a team member from team A to start off
Set a timer for 1 minute
The team member can use as many words as they want to describing the body part, but they cannot use that word.
e.g. foot
“I use this body part to walk on”
Once a team member guesses correctly, they put that body part in their teams hat/bowl equalling 1 point.
The team member then pulls another body part out from the central bowl and tries to get his/her teammates to guess as many as possible before the 1 minute timer runs out.
Team B then gets a minute to guess as many body parts as possible.
Team A then gets a minute to guess as many body parts as possible.
And so on…
The round is finished when all of the body parts are correctly guessed.
Tally up the scores.
Round 2
All the body parts go back into the central hat/bowl
In this round, a nominated teammate from Team B starts off the round.
They must act out the body part from under the sheet.
They have one minute to get their team to correctly guess the body part.
Team A gets a minute
Team B gets a minute
The round is completed when all parts are guessed.
I think you’re getting the idea!
Round 3
All the body parts go back into the central hat/bowl
In this round, a nominated teammate from team A starts off the round.
They can only use one word to get their team to guess the body part. It cannot be a word written down.
Again, team A has a minute then team B has a minute.
The game is complete once all body parts are guessed.
Tally up the points to determine the winning team!
Prizes are optional but always appreciated.
Optional rules:
- Pass – sometimes it can be really hard to guess a body part. In this case, it can be good to offer passes. It’s can be good to limit the number of passes, however. For a group of adults, I use one pass. For teenagers, I use 3 passes. For my toddler it’s unlimited.
What human body game will you play for family game night this week?!
I’d love to know, comment below!
Other blog posts you might be interested in:
3 reasons why I teach my toddler how her body works
6 ways I teach my child HOW her body
5 keys to preparing your child to read – from a new entrants teacher