The concept of using juggling scarves to develop running speed and confidence with children as young as two or three years old, all the way up to ten, may be a new idea, but it is extremely effective. The point to remember is that success in sports is when the children are inspired to continue. It is up to parents and coaches to adjust the skill level to be appropriate to each individual child.

Juggling scarves are soft colorful two-foot squares of very lightweight fabric, so light that it almost floats in the air. They are similar to balloons since both are light and a child can run and catch them much more easily than a bouncing ball. Experts in early childhood motor skill development explain that children can learn to run and children can learn to stand still and catch, but running and catching at the same time is a much more complex skill.

In this exercise, you’ll be working on both color recognition as well as combining the skills of running and catching. With more than one young child, assign each child a different color scarf (or balloon). The game begins with the children facing the coach, about 10 feet away. The coach simply tosses the scarves up in the air, one by one, and the children are instructed to run and catch their assigned color scarf before it touches the ground.  An alternative is to have the children face away from the teacher and when the teacher calls out “turn,” all of the kids turn around and the child whose color has been tossed into the air runs forward to catch it. Yet another variation is to have the kids begin sitting down before moving forwards to catch the color scarf assigned to them.

With a little imagination, the there are dozens of variations of this theme that will help young children develop their running and catching skills, while having a tremendous amount of fun at the same time.

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