Infant gross motor games

Please give them as many opportunities to move, jump, bounce, reach, throw, kick, climb, roll etc. Most toddlers are just learning how to walk and run and need the experience. Go for lots of walks including walking on various surfaces; grass, gravel, sand, anything uneven will challenge their balance and help them learn better skills.

Toddlers like to jump. Place pillows, cushions, or a mattress on the floor. At the playground, they can use some swings with safety belts and low slides. Let toddlers practice climbing up and down the stairs with your help. Get on the floor with the child for floor time. Play peek-a-boo by crawling around the floor behind furniture. Children love having adults on their level. Coloring: Have the children color on a large piece of paper on the floor on their hands and knees.

This helps to strengthen the hips and shoulders as well as encourage the child to weight shift in quadruped to color. Hang the paper on the wall or a wall easel or kid's floor easel. On the floor, by the paper, place pillows, cushions, or mats. Have the children stand on the soft surface to color. This will help the children with their balance. This can be done for any table top activity as well.

Place the paper on a stool or something of similar height and have the child on their knees. This takes a lot of strength and stability in the hip muscles.

For older children, you can tape the paper to the wall. Have the child lie on their backs and lift their legs. Place the crayon between their toes and encourage them to use their legs and feet to color. This is a great exercise to strengthen the legs and work on their motor planning to determine how to succeed in this task. Ball Play: Try balls with different textures bumpy, "koosh", squishy etc. Balls can be used as early as when the child is beginning to sit.

Propping their arms up higher on a pillows or a box may help them to sit on their own and encourages their back to be more upright. Children enjoy rolling the ball back and forth to you when seated on the floor. This is a great way to challenge their balance in sitting. Kicking a ball requires the children to shift their weight to one foot and support themselves like that in order to kick it. Throwing balls of different sizes and weights requires balance, coordination, and the use of two hands.

Leafy Treetops. Go on a candy cane hunt. Dirt and Boogers. Download these Christmas action cards and get your kids moving! Oopsy Daisy. Run and dance with jingle bell streamers. Fantastic Fun and Learning. Do the gingerbread number hop!

Learn about arctic animals while doing yoga during Christmas break. Kids Yoga Stories. Create a snowman out of multiple tissue boxes for some Christmas and winter bowling fun.

Craftaholics Anonymous. Take a break from the Christmas rush and invite your children to go paper plate ice skating. The Inspired Treehouse. Use Christmas lights for a colorful obstacle course. The Golden Gleam. Childhood Shovel snow under the Christmas tree … well, pretend, anyways.

And they can be modified for kids of all ages. It gets them up and moving. Here's another fun book related activity that gets kids running around and learning about letters. Remember the Jack Be Nimble rhyme? Jack be nimble, Jack be quick, Jack jump over the candlestick. Have your toddler or preschooler jumping over candlesticks in your living room.

Remember those shapes you can use to make patterns and pictures? I think we called them Tangrams. You can make giant ones! This one is really easy to do if you have some packing wrap from a recent Amazon purchase laying around. Here's a fun animal game. Not only does your child get some exercise, they also learn about animals and how they move. This is a fun game you can play outside.

You might need to modify it just a little for toddlers so they don't hit themselves in the face. But preschoolers and older kids should be fine. Realistic Toddler Meal Ideas.

Your email address will not be published. All kids need to develop their gross motor skills and work their big muscles.