Why are gross motor skills important for toddlers?

Why are gross motor skills so important for preschoolers to develop and how can parents and teachers build them with simple activities and movement games?

What are Gross Motor Skills?

The process that children follow from learning to lift their heads as babies and run as toddlers, all the way to playing a sport in school is known as gross motor development. 

Children develop gross motor skills when they learn how their bodies work and how they can move and control them.

Gross motor skills should be developed during infancy, toddlerhood and right through the preschool and early elementary/primary years.

During early childhood, it is important for children to develop skills such as muscle strength, balance, core strength, postural control, endurance and coordination.

Children naturally develop from the centre of the body outwards. This means they need to develop strength in their core and trunk before they develop it in their arms and legs.

Fine motor skills (such as finger strength and control) are therefore dependent on a child first building gross motor skills.

Gross motor skills can be developed in a variety of ways during childhood, through free play as well as adult-guided activities.

Planning movement activities to do with your children allows you to work on specific skills with them, such as balance or catching and throwing.

Why Are Gross Motor Skills Important?

When children do not have well-developed gross motor skills, this can result in:

What Are Examples of Gross Motor Skills?

Here is a list of gross motor skills examples for preschoolers:

• running, walking, galloping, chasing
• crawling, lifting, reaching
• skipping, hopping, leaping
• catching, throwing, pushing, pulling
• rolling, dribbling, kicking
• balance and coordination
• hitting, bouncing, passing
• climbing, hanging, holding

Here is a list of the gross motor milestones, by age.

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Gross Motor Skills Activities for Preschoolers

Here are some ideas to develop preschoolers’ gross motor skills with games and activities.

1. Skittles

This game can be played with a plastic set of skittles or a homemade set.

Simply take empty plastic cooldrink bottles and pour some sand or water into them so they will stand up. You can also make an art activity out of it and paint the bottles different colours.

They should not be impossible to knock down though. Vary the amount of sand/water depending on your child’s age and strength.

Place the bottles standing up into a V-shape and take turns rolling a ball towards them and knocking them over. The younger your child is, the bigger the ball should be.

2. Hopscotch

This is an old favourite. Hopscotch is best played outside by drawing the squares with jumbo chalk on concrete or paving.

Here is an example of the formation of squares, but you can change this:

Take turns with your child jumping through the squares – hop on one foot on single squares and jump with two feet into double squares (one foot in each square). When you get to the end, turn around and hop back to the start.

Learning to hop on one foot or two feet is an important skill for a preschooler and this is a great game to teach this skill.

When your child has mastered how to hop, vary the game by using a beanbag or stone and throwing it into the first square before beginning.

Then, hop over the beanbag and jump into the second square. Hop all the way to number 10, turn around and hop backwards, bending over to pick up the beanbag on one leg on returning to 1.

This awesome indoor hopscotch rug will encourage lots of extra movement.

Test your child’s jumping skills with this game using only a roll of craft tape.

Lay a strip of tape on the ground as a starting point. Then place another few strips spaced closely together and get your child to hop, feet together, from tape to tape.

Then, move the strips slightly further apart and see if your child can jump further. Continue moving them further away until you reach your child’s limit. Measure the distance and watch your child slowly beat that distance every time they play.

4. Balancing Beam

Use a beam in your garden (such as a low wooden fence) or create a makeshift balancing beam out of a wooden plank or any other material. Balance it on some bricks or low stools.

Practise walking across the beam and not falling off. Turn it into a game and pretend there are crocodiles in the river below.

Challenge your child to walk across the beam, turn around at the end and walk back without falling off.

5. Through the Tunnel

Stand a short distance from your child with your legs spread wide apart. Get him to roll a ball “through the tunnel” (through your legs).

With practice, you can begin to stand further away from your child and make the tunnel narrower by stepping your legs closer together, as well as using a smaller ball. This is a good game for developing ball skills and eye-hand coordination.

6. Beanbag Toss

Playing with beanbags is another good way to work on eye-hand coordination. You can also replace beanbags with soft balls or even handmade balls or beanbags (stuffed material).

Use a bean bag toss board or find a target such as a laundry basket or a box. Use a target with a large opening for younger children.

Take turns aiming and throwing the beanbags into the basket and counting how many got in each time. Slowly move the target further away, or make it smaller (e.g. use a small bin).

Here are more fun bean bag activities for kids.

7. Obstacle Course

Build your child’s strength and agility with a fun homemade obstacle course. These can be built indoors or outdoors.

Be creative and place together several props into a course that you and your child will take turns to follow, or even race through.

Provide a mix of activities in each course, such as opportunities to climb, jump, throw, etc.

Here are a few ideas for props and activities:

• chairs to step/climb over
• Planks to walk along
• beanbags to balance on your head
• an empty box to crawl through
• hopping inbetween the rungs of a ladder (lying down)
• swinging on a tree branch

8. Egg and Spoon Race

The Egg and Spoon Race is a favourite at young children’s sports days. Your kids will love racing you in this fun game.

Simply balance an egg in a tablespoon from the start line to the finish line.

You may want to boil the eggs first unless you’re really in the mood for some fun! Nothing will sharpen the skills and concentration quicker than the threat of an egg cracking open.

9. Simon Says

Simon Says is a game that can be played to develop many of your child’s skills, including listening skills, concentration, auditory perception, etc. Use this game as a way to stimulate your child’s large muscles.

Make it more fun by taking turns and allowing your child to also give you instructions to follow.

Some ideas of actions:

Simon Says…

• do a crab walk to the wall and back
• run to the tree, do 4 jumping jacks and run back
• do 3 cartwheels, turn around and lie on your back
• hang from the monkey bars for 10 seconds

Incorporating multiple actions will work on your child’s ability to follow instructions at the same time.

10. Balloon Toss

Blow up some balloons and play a game of Balloon Toss. The object is to see how long you and your child can keep the balloon in the air, by tossing it back and forth, before it drops to the ground.

Time each round and see how long you last. When you can go for at least a minute, try lifting two balloons in the air and keeping them both in the air.

As you can see, gross motor skills are an important part of your child’s overall physical development but are easily built through play.

11. Action Songs

Sing some action songs to get the body moving. They are also great for developing body awareness.

Here’s an example:

Head, shoulders, knees and toes,knees and toesHead, shoulders, knees and toes,knees and toesAnd eyes and ears and mouth and noseHead, shoulders, knees and toes,

knees and toes

12. Play With Balls

Playing with balls is one of the most basic activities and one that will keep babies, as well as 10-year-olds, entertained.

Balls are great practice for developing hand-eye and foot-eye coordination.

Throw and catch balls of different sizes

The Effects of Screen Time and Less Play Time on Gross Motor Development

Over the years, there has been a tendency to replace children’s free play time with all kinds of extra activities.

While you may want to send your children for swimming lessons or the occasional extra activity, there is no need to have your 4-year-old attending art class, computer class, multiple dance classes, ball skills class, etc.

These activities are replacing children’s playtime. Playtime is vital for your child’s development, especially for building their gross motor skills.

If you are packing your children’s free time with paid activities and programs, know that many of these are unnecessary and are actually taking away from your child’s natural learning time.

As for screen time, while it is impossible in today’s times to prevent children entirely from watching screens, as a parent you can control how much screen time your child is exposed to.

Your 3-year-old does not need to be sitting on their iPad in the afternoon. They are supposed to be running around outside or getting up to mischief somewhere. They should be learning.

Whatever amazing online program your child is following is not a justifiable replacement for play.

Just these two factors alone – screen time and extramural activities – have had a serious impact on children’s motor development in today’s times.

This translates directly into problems concentrating and working effectively in the classroom.

Simply put, the more your children play freely, the more they will be learning.

Check out this awesome list of the best gross motor toys for kids.

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