Motor games for learning fundamental motor skills

Active Initiation Guidelines recommend that children up to age 5 years engage in daily physical activity to develop basic motor skills for health-related fitness. However, many entering kindergarten today have low motor skills and many more are predicted to have lower motor coordination skills tomorrow. Recent studies suggest that children who do not adequately develop their movement skills and fitness levels in early childhood will fail to progress them later in life. This chapter presents a literature review of motor competence in young children and suggests game playing as a means for preschoolers to learn fundamental motor skills in locomotor and object control skills.