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• Balls are a readily available activity, enjoyable both outdoors and indoors.
• Repetition builds strong pathways in the brain.
• Ball play can involve both fine (small muscle) and gross (large muscle) motor skills.
• Playing with balls is also good chance to:
  • build on and strengthen skills that are used in many other activities, like hand–eye co-ordination
  • practise taking turns
  • co-operate and collaborate with others — both children and adults
  • make use of low-cost or no-cost resources.

You'll need: a ball of some kind

• Gather some balls in a range of sizes, shapes and textures.
• A simple and cheap ball can be made from scrunched up newspaper wrapped with a bit of sticky tape or from a sock stuffeed with tissues.
• Beach balls can be safe for indoor ball play they can’t do too much damage.
• Before you start any ball game, agree on the rules. For example, certain balls might be for throwing and catching outside only.

Playing ball games with toddlers:

• Make sure the ball is small enough for a toddler’s hand, but too big for their mouth.
• If your toddler is not yet walking, sit facing them with your legs apart and roll a ball back and forth between you. Your legs will guide the ball if it’s headed ‘out-of-bounds’.
• Show a toddler how to throw the ball and chase after it. Give it to them to throw and ‘race’ each other to it when it lands.
• Lightweight inflated balls work well with toddlers but need to be firm enough to prevent toddlers from biting them.
• A simple sock ball game is aiming them at the washing basket, empty toy box or a container. Move it further away to make it more challenging. 

Playing ball games with 3-5 year olds 

• Children between 3 and 5 years old will be mastering catching a ball. Start by standing close together and then move further apart as their skill and confidence grows.
• Try out a variety of ball skills activities such as rolling, throwing, kicking and batting.
• Introduce a simple target such as a box to get the ball into or to knock over, or a chalk circle drawn on the path, an outside wall or a fence.
• If you've got a group of tamariki to entertain, get them to form a circle. Pick a category such as 'colours' or 'animals' and get each child to shout out an answer e.g. 'Blue' or 'Cow' before they throw the ball to someone else in the circle. 
• Play newspaper ‘hockey’ with a newspaper ball and a hockey stick made of rolled up newspaper. This can be a vigorous indoor game for wet days if there’s a suitable space, such as a hallway.
• Use a newspaper ball and play a version of volleyball over a string.
• Play family games of soccer and hockey outside
• Plan a half-time snack with your tamaiti.
• Encourage tamariki to invent their own new ball games