Body parts activities for kids help them develop body awareness in a fun and age-appropriate way.
It is important to foster body awareness from an early age. After all, this is part of identity-building and favors other important aspects of child development, such as physical activity and even sex education.
However, like everything else in early childhood, knowledge must come together with fun. Your little one learns by playing, so it is important that the lessons come side by side with playful elements.
In order to give you a hand on this task, we have prepared 5 body parts activities for kids to encourage early childhood education at home. All you need is energy and some very easy to find materials!
Make Sure You Know When Is The Appropriate Time To Talk About Body Parts
Much more than just doing body parts activities, it is important to have conversations with your child about this topic from an early age.
The main focus is for your child to develop more self-awareness about their own image, which is fundamental for building their identity.
Children have a natural curiosity about their bodies. Therefore, calling them out for touching or asking about it can lead to them developing a negative relationship with themselves. So, the ideal is to help them get familiar with their own bodies from an early age.
From the first year on, you can start teaching your child that each body part has a name and a function. Later on, around the age of 3 to 6 years old, it’s time to help them know the difference between what is a good touch and what is a bad touch.
Also, body awareness helps your little one understand the limits of privacy. For example, it is important to explain that while they may be curious or interested in their friends’ bodies, some parts are kept covered in public for a reason and this must be respected.
On the Kinedu app, there are more than 1,800 activities created by early child development experts! In addition, we have an exclusive page for educators where teachers can build activity plans personalized to their students.
Now, let’s have a look at 5 examples of body parts activities for kids!
Body Parts Activities For Kids
1. Playing With A Mirror
This game is more appropriate if your baby is 11 months old. Its goal is to strengthen self-perception of their own body. To do so, you just need your imagination and a mirror.
Have your baby sit in front of a mirror when you brush their hair and describe out loud some features on their face. For example, “this is your nose, these are your eyes” etc.
At this stage, your little one still doesn’t recognize themselves in the mirror. So when they point at some of their body or face features, help them by saying something like “You’re pointing at your nose in the mirror”.
Through this exercise, they will begin to better understand their self-image and identify themselves in the mirror.
2. My Body
After their first birthday, your child should already be more aware of their own image. Then, practice a simple exercise: ask them to point at different parts of their body, such as the head, eyes, mouth, ears, arms and legs.
Don’t forget to congratulate them on the right answers and to help them when necessary. This activity can be done at any time of the day, whenever you want to strengthen your little one’s self-awareness.
Once they can speak, make the exercise a little bit more complex by asking them to name the body parts instead of just pointing out what they are. Thus, the left hemisphere of their brain will also be stimulated, which contributes to linguistic development.
3. The Body Jigsaw Puzzle
This activity is designed for children aged 19 to 26 months. To do it, you will need to print out or draw a picture of a child with recognizable body parts such as knees, nose, ears, eyebrows and so on.
Cut the picture in 4 parts to create an easy puzzle. Then, invite your child to assemble it. Help them by emphasizing the body parts that are shown in each image. For example, “look, here are the ears, one on each side of the head”.
If this game is too easy for your child, you can gradually increase the difficulty level by creating puzzles with more pieces. In addition to being a lot of fun, this activity will help your child learn the names of more specific body parts.
4. Where Is The Sticker?
This is one of the most interesting body parts activities to do with children aged 19 to 26 months old. You will need materials such as a mirror and some stickers.
Tell your child you are going to review the body parts, and challenge them by asking “How many of them can you remember?”.
Ask them to stand in front of a mirror and place stickers on specific body parts, like their nose, asking them to name them all.
You can provide some help if necessary. Then, reverse the game: they must place the stickers on you, so that you say the names of each body part.
5. Our Dolls
If your child is aged from 21 to 28 months old, this activity is a good choice! You will need some action figures or dolls, LEGO bricks and the song “Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes”, which can be easily found on YouTube.
First, play the music and perform the moves together, encouraging your child to touch each body part once the lyrics mention them. Then ask your child a few questions like “What do we use our nose for? What do we use our legs for?” and so on.
Then, pick up the LEGO bricks and dolls and build small stairs for the characters to climb. You can go on and say: “Look how they climb the stairs using their legs and feet.”
You can create other scenes and reinforce how each body part has a function.
Take the opportunity to review colors by asking your child to sort LEGO bricks by color and name them. Play it as long as they’re having fun.
Have you enjoyed these tips about body parts activities for kids? Supporting your little one’s development is easy and fun, even more so with learning activities designed for each objective, age and stage of development.
Would you like to know some other examples of fun games to play with your little ones? So, download the Kinedu app and check out more than 1,800 ways to boost your child’s development!
