While we were on the topic of play I thought it would be a good idea to cover some ways you can encourage gross motor and coordination development in your children while playing games that are enjoyable- and sometimes even just a classic!

This post comes from a presentation I did last week at the Discovery Museum for their Pajama Day. “Reindeer Games” was an hour of gross motor games and activities to get the children attending Pajama Day moving and working on gross motor skills together. I have never sweat so much in one hour of time playing with kids (and it is literally my job! probably had something to do with wearing very WARM pj’s while doing countless frog hops and crab walks!) but it was so much fun and I look forward to going back to the Discovery Museum in the spring!

Work on motor timing, strength, coordination, and endurance!

Crawl, skip, hop, jump!

Gross motor games and play are practically synonymous when it comes to the benefit each gives your child and their development. Specifically gross motor games give your child an opportunity to try new skills and challenges and hopefully excel at them! Gross motor and coordination based games help:

Develop strength
Develop coordination
Develop endurance
Perfect gross motor skills
Develop confidence
Improve social engagement

Types of Gross Motor and Coordination Skills

Strength: overall ability to perform repetitive tasks with their own body weight. i.e. push ups, sit ups, climb stairs, get on/off the ground
Whole body coordination: ability to move the body as a unit in multiple different ways. i.e animal walks, skipping, galloping, forward rolling, jump rope, hula hoop
Ball skills: kicking, throwing, catching, dribbling
Locomotor skills: skills that involve forward (or backwards or sideways!) body movement. i.e. running, hopping, jumping, roller skating
Balance: ability to maintain body in an upright posture. i.e balance on one leg, walking on a balance beam, and standing on tip-toes

“Prescribing” Movement

Basically my job in a nut shell… But I digress! How much play/gross motor participation should your child do in order to get the most benefit you ask?? The answer is play with focus on repetition until your child is fatigued or your child is beginning to get frustrated with a challenging task

Increased repetitions of the same task help with skill perfection and coordination development - practice makes perfect!
Taking a child to fatigue makes sure things like strength and endurance are capitalized on - they’ll normally let you know when they are tired!
Stopping prior to extreme frustration will help improve your child’s confidence in a task - watch for behaviors that indicate this is an issue

Ideas for Games to Engage your Child and encourage MOVEMENT

Animal Dice: Take some large dice or 6” square boxes, put the picture of an animal on each side. Have your child roll the dice and perform the animal it lands on. If you have a hallway, perform the “walk” down the hall way. Or if its an animal that stands still- maybe sing a nursery rhyme while standing on one foot! Depending on what animals you perform your child is likely working on ALL aspects of gross motor development (as well as cognitive and their imagination as they pretend to be an animal and figure out how it moves!) Here are some animal moves to consider:

Bear Walk
Crab Walk
Gorilla Walk
Kangaroo Hop
Frog Hop
Wheelbarrow
Flamingo hop/stand
Lizard/army crawl
Dino Walk (lunges)
Horse gallop
Inch Worm
Possibilities are endless! You could even include other coordination activities like skipping, walking on toes/heels, rolling, etc.

Hopscotch: This one is SUCH a classic! On a nice day, take some sidewalk chalk and work with your child on drawing a hopscotch “court.” Get a bean bag and toss it onto the court. Teach your child how to hop from one leg to two and back again. Tossing the bean bag also gets some ball skills working too! If the bean bag lands on a square that is just one, have them try to balance on one leg to grab the bag! If you number the boxes you can also work on counting/etc. if your child is age appropriate!

Jump Rope and Hula Hoop: Another classic… but children get SO PROUD when they can do these things without help or for 100 times in a row or whatever their ultimate goal is! These types of games work on coordination of legs and arms together with a visual/external component added into the mix. Not only do they have to utilize their body in a coordinated effort they also have to manage an external toy in the process! Other acceptable toys would be skip-its, bikes, rollerblades.

Yoga: This is definitely coming into popular opinion these days! One day I will do a full blog on the benefits of yoga for all children, especially differently-abled kids. For now, I love using yoga pretzel cards (pictured). I have the kiddo I am working with help me arrange the cards I have chosen for the session in the order they want to do them in. I challenge them to hold poses for a certain length of time. Alternatively you could also do the dice game with yoga poses. OR a fun and wonderful way to engage your child in yoga for longer periods is to use a yoga video. One of my particular favorites is Cosmic Kids Yoga on Youtube. She does different movies and adventures and uses yoga poses to help tell the story.

Ball Skills: This is a HUGE category of games. Basketball, baseball, corn hole, soccer, etc. Anything with an object you can throw, kick, dribble, or catch counts when developing ball skills and the necessary coordination to produce an accurate movement and correct body mechanics. The older your child becomes the more accurate you are looking for their movements to be. Either throwing further, being able to kick straighter, or catching smaller and smaller balls. Most children love engaging in this type of play but a lot of times they need adult participation (unless they have developmentally appropriate siblings!)

Awesome well hope you enjoyed! And hope you have fun trying some of these out with your kiddos! Not only will you ultimately help them become stronger, better versions of themselves… likely if you PLAY right along with them you’ll see just as much benefit! Not only physically (example:me while I was playing last week! I’d say it was a workout!) but in the bond you develop with your child!