Youth ages 5-8yrs should do this activity that we’re calling “Color Jumps“. A gross motor activity that teaches color recognition (call out colors); teach them coordination/rhythm like doing a form of hop scotch, single leg jumps, broad jumps and so forth. You’ll see that many areas like we mentioned coordination and rhythm; we’ll also see different forms of balance, agility, speed, power and reaction which all ties into gross motor skills.
We cover more on Motor Development HERE; along with Six Components on Motor Skills HERE.
That said, lets cover the areas on the stages we did to create this amazing activity.
All you’ll need: Color Paper; Circular Object (we used kids plate); Kids Shoe (they love when it’s theirs…keep it fun for them); Pencil/Crayons; Scissors and Tape.
Here we’ll show you a few steps to making this happen, along with a complete video below to what activity we formed up for you and your family to do with each other.
The set up takes less than fifteen minutes. Youth learn best through prepping (which could always be fun), play and to manipulate movement, and this simple game is fun for youth and parents alike!
Here's the Highlight
First, Me and my 7yr introduce ourselves. Then highlights leading to our fun activity….well, just her doing the activity and me recording. 🙂
Additional suggestions:
- The papers are just a nice touch, you don’t really need them. Color cones yhou can use, put items on the ground just like we displayed with the color paper.
- The best part is that this activity can be so easily modified for different developmental ages. Run to shapes? Give Cues? Toss a Ball as they do Hop Scotch for example? You can include whatever you feel to help better their gross motor skills.
- You can adjust the gross motor portion as well. Lengthening the distance. Add additional objects (having the jump with balloons between the legs. Do a relay race with there siblings. Manipulate an animal like, for example, frog hops. Whatever you do just have fun!
- Point to Remember.
Gross motor activities for kids are generally very simple and don’t require a lot of prep time. Keep it very simple. Show and see what they do. If they happened to pick something up while building gross motor skills then awesome! This lets you know that they are picking up the concept and more importantly, understanding their body. Have Fun! 🙂
