Playing kids sports in smaller spaces requires special rules to fit your space but if you’re inventive enough many sports can be played in a limited area.
Football/ Soccer
My favourite sport to play is football or soccer depending on where you live. You need little more than two jumpers as goal posts and away you go. You can play with friends, siblings or even do Keepy-Uppys on your own. Football is always a good option for kids sports.
If there’s two of you, you can play three and in, where one goes in goal and the other person has to score. When you score three goals it’s your turn to be goalie. That way everyone gets a go.
Football definitely suits a bigger garden or a park and we always have to be super careful of the windows! It’s fun but we don’t want to have a smashing time.
In much smaller spaces, plastic or foam balls will be better to avoid breakage.
Throw and Catch Games
Grab a tennis ball, basketball, Frisbee, bean bag, Hacky Sack or almost anything (not rocks or stones though!). Simply throw it and catch it. Easy and fun and improving motor skills all the time. Can be played with two people or many if you stand in a square or a hexagon or a dodecahedron or a… well you get the idea. Piggy in the middle’s always good with three people but give the little kids a chance to catch it.
Cricket
Cricket is a winner in my family when we wanted to play kids sports. I know that my good friends in the US don’t play cricket, but you can just as easily play baseball with your own rules. I highly recommend using a tennis ball rather than a real cricket ball (they are hard and they hurt!). If you don’t have stumps, use a bucket or something else. How you play depends on how much space you have and how many people are playing.
I used to play with just two people in a smallish space. One person bowls and the other bats, and because we couldn’t really run, we used to score a hit. A tap is a 1 and a middle length hit is a 2 and a big hit a 4. If you hit it over the fence, not only do you have to get the ball back, but you score 6 and you’re out. Bowl properly to the big kids and under arm to the smaller ones so everyone can join in the fun.
Badminton
I loved playing badminton in my back garden as a kid. For little money you can buy a decent set. Far better in small spaces than tennis as the shuttlecock floats. If you have a net you can score the game normally but if you don’t, you just have to keep it off the floor. It can be a gentle game or a frantic fast paced game of reactions, depending on who’s playing and how much space there is.
Now all you must do is get outside, get involved in kids sports and start the fun.
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Dreamland Part 1 – The Fabric of Dreams
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