Motor Skill Activities for your Toddler
Activities for your busy toddler
It is so useful to have a few activities up your sleeve to keep your busy toddler practicing their motor skill development on days when its bucketing down outside. We love a bit of puddle jumping and a wet walk in the woods is one of our go to activities but indoor activities are useful too. Keeping toddlers moving is important for their physical development. By developing their gross and fine motor skills (the coordination of small or large muscle groups) you are improving cognitive development and language & communication skills. You are also building the blocks towards more complex activities such as early writing, mark making or playing team sports. It’s also the best way to wear your toddler out!
- Laundry basket target: Give your toddler a marker to stand on and a bunch of rolled up socks. Start close and show them how to throw the socks into the basket. When they can do it move the basket further away for them.
- Masking tape: You can use this to turn your living room floor into a major road network. Get the cars out and your toddler will be happy for ages following the tracks with different vehicles. Try to encourage them to create a narrative by modelling this for them for added speech & language opportunities ‘Oh look the green car is turning the corner’ etc If you wanted to add another layer of learning mark out parking spaces and stick tape with a number, letter or colour on the top of each car . Show your toddler how to match the car to the parking space to help them with number, letter or colour recognition.
- Scavenger hunt: My children have always LOVED this! You can make is as simple or tricky as you like. Theme is around a colour or a number for example, find as many red things as you can. Or make groups of 3! 3 teddies, 3 cars, 3 pieces of paper, 3 red things, 3 things from the garden or themed such as things you might find at a farm or zoo or for an even harder one based on the initial sound of objects such as anything beginning with ‘s’
- Balloons: As long as your child isn’t terrified of balloons bursting like my eldest was these are a cheap and easy way to keep a toddler occupied for hours. I’m sure some of you will remember these from childhood parties… Balloon volleyball, tennis, hockey with a cardboard tube or fishing net, basketball using a carrier bag on a door handle…the list is endless.
- Last but not least bubble wrap and boxes. If you haven’t had any deliveries recently you could always ask on local fb groups or at your local shop. Bubble wrap can be used for painting then printing on to paper to get a brilliant pattern, stomping on or making a sensory runway for children and toy planes and who doesn’t love to make a box tower to crash down or turn a big box into a spaceship or den?
Toddlers develop gross motor skills at different rates. If your toddler’s gross motor skills need a little extra help, keep practicing these fun activities. Or come along to one of our toddler sensory storytelling classes for even more great activities and ideas for home
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