How To Help Your Child Learn: Gross Motor Skill Activities

Gross motor skills are larger movements that children make using arms and legs such as crawling, running, jumping and so on. So this series of activities will help you focus on helping you develop your toddler’s gross motor skills.  

Keep your child’s body moving with the Pompom and Hockey activity. Though simple, this activity is challenging and exciting. 

Method:

• To make the hockey scoop, cut the paper plate with 3 straight edges.
• Stick it onto the end of the cardboard tube using a masking tape or any sticky tape available.
• If the cardboard tube is not available, you can make a stick of newspapers by rolling them together tightly.
• Now, make a square shape on the floor with a masking tape as the goal for the pompoms.

How to play with your child: Encourage your child to get as many pompoms into the square. The rule is that they are not supposed to use hands but only the hockey scoop. They must use the scoop to move the pompoms around the floor and the square. Later, once the game is mastered, ask them to collect a particular  coloured pompom in the square. That will enhance sorting skills too. Enjoy scooping.

Source: learning4kids

Source: learning4kids

Source: learning4kids

Wouldn’t it be great if you could set an exciting activity in just 5 minutes? The Jungle Vines gross motor activity enhances imaginative play and is super fun and adventurous.

Method:

• Pull out some chairs and place them opposite to each other.
• Tie or paste the green crepe ribbons using the tape from one chair to the other.
• You can also place some animal models, if you have, in between the vines on the floor to add more adventure.

How to play with your child: Tell the child that we will visit a jungle. Ask them to be careful while crossing the vines. They need to try to cross it without breaking it. In between, talk about the animals they see along the way. Encourage them to slither like a snake or crawl to cross the vine. You can ask them to wear their hats and carry their toy binoculars to look at the animals. Later, when most of the vines get droopy children can use a cardboard axe or cardboard roll to chop off all the vines.

Source: paper-and-glue

Give your kids a chance to become circus daredevils with this fun gross motor circus activity. You could use this as a possible introduction: Have you ever thought how animals and acrobats jump through the flaming hoops at the circus without touching the sides? Let’s find out.

Method:

• Take the orange and yellow crepe paper and cut strips as small as 4-5 inches.
• Now paste them on one of the hula hoop using a tape.
• Paste it on half side of the hoop as shown in the picture.

How to play with your child: Hold the hula hoop up vertically touching the ground. Have your child climb through. This first step will be fairly easy. Now, lift it up a little. Encourage your child to change his/her move to pass through the hoop. Keep raising the hoop higher to keep increasing the challenge. Ask your child to put her right leg through first or her right arm and left leg. Give variations on what body part(s) need to be put into the hoop first. You can also hold the hula hoop horizontally and try the same tasks. Now bring the hoop with the ribbons and tell them to imagine that the hoop is on fire. Ask them to be careful not to touch the fire or else they may burn. Have your child move through a sequence of hula hoops.  One may be vertical, the next horizontal, one raised higher or lower and so on. Enjoy!

Source: ipinimg

With this activity, you can engage your child in a physical activity full of sensory experience. We are sure you will enjoy listening to their giggles and watch your child’s expressions while doing this fun activity. Let’s get started!

Method:

• Take the oval shaped cardboard. In fact, you can cut it into squares or rectangles.
• Paste the materials on one side of the cardboard using fevicol.
• Now, cut the extras to give it an oval shape.
• Once it dries, paste the shelf liner on the other side of each cardboard piece with the 2 way thin tape to avoid injury.
• Enjoy hours of activity!

How to play with your child: Arrange all the cards in a line. Encourage your child to walk over it with one step at a time. Now ask him/her to imagine that they are crossing a river and there are crocodiles in the river that can’t climb up the oval stones where they are safe. Ask them to walk over each oval carefully. Talk about how they feel when they walk on different stones. You can also change the placement of these cardboard sheets to increase the complexity of the activity. Later, you can ask them to hop from one cardboard to the other.

Source: i.pinimg

Source: bp.blogspot

Don’t forget to tell us in comments, which of these activities you enjoyed the most!

Also read: How To Help Your Child Learn: Sorting Activities

#toddlerlearning #grossmotor