You are never too young to play sports and keep fit. Even young children can play, from those just walking to the ones getting ready to start children’s leagues. They might not understand the rules of the game, but they can work on their hand eye coordination and keep their bodies fit by participating anyway.

My three year old son loves to play sports. The park my family frequents has a large grassy play area around the little play structure on sand, so we bring a bag full of sports equipment. In the duffle we keep a soccer ball, a large blue plastic bat and oversized plastic baseballs, as well as wiffle balls and a bouncy ball.

When we play soccer, we concentrate on getting Three-feet-of-fun only to kick the ball instead of pick it up. The whole point of the game is running up one and down the field just kicking the ball. Then my husband and I will stand on opposite sides of each other with our legs apart, making a goal area and have Three-feet-of-fun practice kicking at a target — the goal.

For baseball, we focus on Three-feet-of-fun’s stance and teaching him how to hit the ball. As long as the bat cracks against the ball, it counts, and we run around in a diamond pattern on made up bases. If he misses the ball (we don’t play with a T) we holler out, “Strike!” but he gets as many swings as he wants. There will be time enough to teach him that you only get three strikes and that you can be called, “Out!”

We use the bouncy ball to play catch instead of the baseballs/wiffle balls. Bouncy balls are a lot softer if you don’t catch them and get hit with them instead. So, we play catch, and then we throw the ball as far as we can and race to go get it. Strangely enough, our son wins a lot, but we don’t let him win all the time because we also want to impart good sportsmanship.