Gross motor skills enable children to perform every day functions, such as walking and running, playground skills like climbing, and sporting skills like catching, throwing and hitting a ball with a bat. However, they are also crucial for other things like getting dressed, where your child has to balance on one leg when putting pants on, or even climbing in or out of bed.
As parents, we all know how important gross-motor skills are for our child, but we don’t always have new ideas for games that will not only be fun, but will also help with our little one’s motor skills.
Try these five easy activities your preschooler will enjoy:
Hopscotch is a perennial favourite and can be changed up by drawing shapes or different colours that he must jump to. That way, he’ll be learning shapes and colours while improving his motor skills.
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Kick at the cups
Set up a horizontal row of paper cups and have your tot kick a ball towards them, trying to knock each of the cups down.
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Movement cards
Take some cardstock, cut it into rectangles and write a movement on each of them. For example, jumping jacks, flap arms like a bird, spin in a circle, etc. Pick a card and let your little one do the activity on the card. You can also join in to make it more fun.
ALSO SEE: 10 learning games your preschooler will love
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Song and dance
Learn some new children’s songs and make up movements or dances to them. You can also teach your little one new movements to songs he already knows. This will force him to concentrate more on each movement.
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Line walking
Take some masking tape (or some chalk if you’re outside) and draw zig-zag and loopy lines on the floor. Let him follow the line, having to step on the line the whole time. This is a great game to teach balance.
Xanet is an award-winning journalist and Living and Loving’s digital editor. She has won numerous awards for her health and wellness articles and was a finalist for the Discovery Journalist of the Year in 2009 and again in 2011 for the Discovery Best Health Consumer Reporting and Feature Writing category. She is responsible for our online presence across social media channels and makes sure our moms have fresh and interesting articles to read every day. Learn more about Xanet Scheepers.
