Gross MotorPreschoolers2 Comments
You know those place mats you get at restaurants that have activities for the kids to do while you wait for your food? Many of them have these follow the lines activities that the kids always love to do. (I included a link to an example at the end of this post.)
Being 2D, my kids often get confused and treat it more like a maze and turn at any corner they want to get to where they need to, instead of following the flow of the line.
I decided to make a 3D version of the activity using string and my dining room chairs.
The setup for this activity was much like I did the lowercase letters scavenger hunt. I lined up my chairs across from each other, backs facing each other and simply strung yarn through the backs of the chairs. Up and down, back and forth, criss-crossing.
I used 4 chairs, two on each side, creating a hallway. One end of the hallway was the beginning and the other the end.
I strung three strings of yarn from beginning to end. Criss-crossing them all the way through, without making it too difficult (trying not to actually have them touch).
At the end of just one of the strings, I tied one of the yarn apples we made the other day.
The point was to have George follow the lines of string from beginning to end to see which string made it to the apple.
It took a little bit to explain the process of the activity.
While I was setting up, Louis joined me and kept climbing through the strings themselves. Over and under. An activity itself!
So when George started the activity, that’s what he was expecting to do too. It took me a little to explain how to start at the beginning of the string and follow it with his hand all the way through to see if it took him to the apple or not.
It was the same concept that we did with the lowercase scavenger hunt, but its been awhile since we’ve done that!
George took all three tries before managing to follow the right line of string to get to the apple.
But once he found it, he was excited and wanted to do it over and over again.
After finding which string took him to the apple many times, he asked me to move the apple to a different string.
I moved it over and over, several times for him to find!
He was having so much fun!
This activity was definitely a hit and we’ll be coming back to over and over to practice different concepts. Something about following the line makes it mysterious and fun and great for gross motor, so I love it too!
I have another idea for kids to follow the lines that I’ll share soon!
In the meantime, enjoy some of these fun gross motor activities!
- Jump! See how far the kids can jump with this tape game.
- Throw! Yes, let the kids throw indoors, here’s how to make it ‘safe’.
- Walk the line.
- 25 just plain fun gross motor activities for active kids.
In case you don’t know what I mean by the 2D follow the line activities (what do you call them?), here’s an example I found.
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jane says
throwing newspaper basketball
I have snowball battles inside with my preschool class. We can throw it at each other and not get hurt. when we are tired of throwing we put the newspaper in a white trash bag to make a giant snowball . we make 3 sm med large and use dress up to dress our the snowperson the kids love it Jane
Jamie Reimer says
I love that snowman idea! How clever!!