Exciting Gross Motor Activities Using Household Items

Gross motor or physical skills are those that require whole and large body movements including crawling, rolling, walking, and running. Gross motor skills involve core stabilization to perform these tasks and also enable children to perform everyday self-care skills like balancing on one leg to put your other leg into the pant leg, climbing into and out of bed, or maintaining upright posture while sitting to eat dinner.

Below is a list of gross motor activities that encourage motor functions.

Tic-Tac-Toss. Tape lines on the floor and have your child toss bean bags into squares

Walk the tape. Tape different colors lines (straight, curvy, zig-zaggy) and have your child walk, run, or hop on named lines.

Balloon Tennis. Blow up five balloons and toss them to your child. Have her use a clean fly swatter or a sturdy paper fan to hit the balloons.

Drawing with feet! Set up a large piece of paper on the wall and have your child use his feet to draw.

Feed the caterpillar. Create a caterpillar head with a large opening (mouth) out of cardboard. Have your child toss plastic foods (e.g., fruits, vegetables) into its mouth.

Kick the cup. Have your knock over cups by kicking a ball at them.

Olympic rings. Put out circular hoops and have your child hop (one foot or both feet) into the hoops from one end to another.

Bowling. Set up empty soda bottles and have your child roll a ball into them.

Toss Ball. Similar to ski ball, have your child toss balls or small bean bags into varying sized buckets

Twister. Put colored circles on the floor and have your child place his hands and feet on named colors.

Ring toss. Cut out holes in paper plates and toss them over an old cardboard tube (from your paper towel).

Resources

Two strikes for summer fun [image]. (2013). Retrieved from http://www.susquehannastyle.com/July-2013/Two-Strikes-for-Summer-Fun/