4 Guiding Principles for Introducing Competition to Tots

Introduce competition where everyone can win.

• Introduce a “Player of the Week” which is not based on the player’s ability, but on the child’s behaviour and improvement – things the child can control.
• Instead of a trophy, let the tots take home a cuddly toy – Encourage the tots to take a picture of themselves doing an activity with the toy.
• Playing games in the session let you engineer the outcome so that everyone has a chance to win.

Start with individual tasks then move to working together (pairs/teams) finally adding opposition.

• Individual activities involving one child can be expanded so that they are done in pairs. So, from bouncing and catching a ball by themselves, the children can move to throwing and catching with a partner.

Start simple, everybody loves to be good at something. Repeat and get players to challenge themselves.

• Make sure that the children can do the activities that you’ve set for them. If they can do it quite quickly – then make what they’re doing a little harder or move on to the next activity.

Promote good values by taking turns, sharing, working together, trying their best.