5 activities for developing gross motor skills

By the time they reach kindergarten, most children have been walking, running, and jumping for some time. While all of these involve gross motor skills, kids at this age don’t yet have full control of their movements, balance, and coordination. It’s essential to help your child develop their motor skills as much as possible, as they affect the following:

• Locomotor skills
• Body awareness (e.g., children learn about their physical strength and limits by moving around in their environment)
• Motivation
• Self-esteem (mastering a new skill helps build self-confidence)
• Language skills (e.g., listening to instructions helps children learn new words related to their bodies and their environment)
• Social skills (e.g., physical activities such as playing ball and dancing allow kids to interact with their peers)
• Etc.

This fun and easy game helps children practise balance and coordination. Just like in a game of hopscotch, have your child jump from one square to another while landing only on the footprints.
Here’s how to play:

• Print and cut out paper footprints and squares
• Place footprints in each square (e.g., two footprints in the first square, one left footprint in the second, two footprints in the third, etc.)

Have your child jump from one square to the next, following the pattern of the footprints. Here are a few ideas if you want to make the game more challenging:

• Ask your child to repeat the exercise several times in a row with the aim of completing it faster each time
• Try removing one of the squares
• Ask your child to hop through the squares backwards
• Etc.

Children love to play with hula hoops. But if they’ve had enough of twirling them around their waists, there are other challenges you can suggest. Hold the hoop upright, and then do the following:

• Ask your child to jump through the hoop while mimicking a certain animal (e.g., a monkey, frog, kangaroo)
• Move the hoop a little higher or lower each time
• Use two hoops to make the game more difficult
• Etc.

Walking along a straight, narrow tightrope is the ultimate test of balance. In this game, you and child can imagine that you’re tightrope walkers! Stretch some string along the ground (make sure it’s straight) and pretend it’s a tightrope high above the city. Ask your child to walk across it in different ways:

• On tiptoe
• With a little twist after each step
• Backwards
• While hopping like a grasshopper
• Etc.

All you need for this game is a ball and a little imagination. Create a maze on the floor or ground using toilet paper (if indoors), chalk (outdoors in the summer), or a stick (in the winter snow). Have your child move the ball through the maze with their feet. Next, ask them to do the following to make the activity more challenging:

• Sing while going through the maze
• Spin around twice before starting
• Move the ball with their non-dominant foot
• Etc.

You don’t have to live right by the ocean to surf! This living-room version of the sport requires exceptional balance. All you need is a cutting board and something to balance on, such as a cardboard tube, pool noodle, or rolled towel. The rules are simple:

• Place the cutting board flat on the tube
• Ask your child to try sitting on the board (you can hold out your arm to help them balance)
• Ask them to try rocking the board by transferring their weight from one leg to the other
• Challenge them to keep the board perfectly balanced or to crouch down while balancing
• Etc.