3 of Our Favorite Gross Motor Activities

 

 Everyday I try to do some gross motor activities with Adeline.  We always crawl and hang from a monkey bar but here are a few others that we try to add in.

1.  Stand up, Sit down - I stack a pile of our mats to create a stool.   I hold an animal in the air and Adeline will stand up to grab the animal and sit down and throw it in a basket.  This activity works her legs and core.    

   

                                       

2.  Scooter Pull - Adeline sits on the scooter, grabs an animal and I pull her across the room to throw her animal into the box.   

 3.  Step, Step Throw - I create two steps with our mats.  Adeline will choose an animal step across the steps and throw her animal in.  Then back to get another animal.

As you can see we have many beany babies.  Whenever I see one at a yard sale I grab it.  They are very motivating for all our activities.
 

Tongs and Ladles, Fine Motor Skills

Tongs and ladles are great household items to work on fine motor skills.  I gathered up a few items we find outside in the fall and winter and made a sensory box.  Adeline scooped and picked up pine cones, nuts and grain.

 sorry my feet go in there

 Later we lined up the pine cones.

Swirling Colors

We had so much fun today.  This is not the project I planned on doing it just evolved into this and it was great.  I started by making the recipe for cornstarch muck.  We did not measure today; I just poured in two boxes and slowly added water, mixing with my hands until I had the consistency I wanted.  If you add too much water you will just have a liquid mess so add just a little at a time.

We just added a couple drops of food color to see what happens and we got these beautiful swirls.  My kids really enjoyed this.  Once the swirls were all mixed together and it was getting ugly we added a few more drops and kept swirling.

This turned into a fun color sensory activity.

  

Fall Learning

We are starting to think about Fall.  We are talking about pumpkins, leaves, red, orange, and yellow.  I put together some fall activities that we have been working on.

Matching Leaf Colors:

I found some leaf templates online and colored them. Adeline matched buttons to the correct leaf.  Not only does this use matching skills but fine motor picking up the buttons.

Pumpkin Patch Sensory Box;

I used grain for this box and Adeline scooped grain into a bowl.

Leaf Puzzle Match:

 Using the same templates that I used of the button match I created leaf puzzles.

Drawing to the Same:

This is something new we are working on, "finding the same".  I taped the leaves on a chalkboard and using a paintbrush with water we drew to "the same".  I did this activity hand over hand with Adeline today.  I am hoping that after a few times she will be able to do this on her own.

Here are a few of our Fall activities from last year:

Corn Fun 

Thanksgiving Fun 

Sensory Learning

We are doing some sensory matching activities today.  I have had a roll of bubble wrap laying around so I thought Adeline would enjoy doing some activities with it.

Using the smooth side, I drew some color shapes on one strip, and numbers on another.  One detail I learned is that the markers need to be permanent.  The washable just never dry and make a mess.  I turned the bubble wrap over and we worked on the bumpy side.

Our first task was to match colors.  I have a stack of color flashcards I purchased at the Dollar Tree we used the card to match colors.

We also added pom poms to the colors.

Later we walked on numbers and did some counting.

We also did some matching.

Learning Our Numbers

We have been using flashcards with Adeline to help her learns her numbers, the same way we have been doing reading by sight but sometimes it is fun to mix it up a little.  Today we did some number matching.

I cut out some numbers from foam, and then traced the number shape on a file folders to make some cards.

 We placed the correct foam number onto each card.

 This activity helps the visual, tactile, and kinesthetic learners.