Gross Motor Coordination Activities for Early Childhood Education

We selected in this publication some suggestions for Gross Motor Coordination Activities, ready to apply in the classroom for Early Childhood Education students.

THE gross motor coordination it is related to activities that involve the biggest muscles of our body, resulting in bigger movements, such as: Sitting, using the arms, legs and feet, walking and running are examples of this. Rolling downhill, pushing a tricycle… Every time we use big muscles, our whole body or several parts of it at the same time, we are putting our gross motor capacity into action. Therefore, muscle tone is essential to exercise it. If the body reacts too tightly, the movements come out awkward or disconnected. If he reacts too loosely, the movements seem sluggish and you have to use more force to accomplish them.

See more at:

• Activities on Fine Motor Coordination
• Activities on Motor Coordination
• Ideas for working on motor, spatial and visual coordination

To assist in the development of the Gross Motor Coordination in children, we selected these tips and suggestions for

 Gross Motor Coordination Activities, check out:

Gross Motor Coordination Activities in Preschool

Gross Motor Coordination Activities: Playing with Balls

Football, basketball, or any other game that involves kicking, running in different directions, grabbing, or throwing are excellent for developing coarse coordination. One thing I did a lot with my son was to play ball at each other.

He would run after me and hit me with the ball, then it was my turn to run after him to hit him. Certainly the games with balls, this was the one we liked the most.

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Gross Motor Coordination Activities: Imitating animals

Playing to imitate animals is one of the games that I consider perfect, there are so many possibilities that it is impossible to get seasick. When Caio [my son] was 1 going to 2 years old, we played a lot of imitating monkeys and lions. Crawling, rolling, jumping,… Today he is 3 years old, and we continue to play a lot of imitating animals, but in a make-believe context. Now I tend to be a "giant earthworm", and he is the "iron man who transforms into a blue shark". [A child's imagination is something spectacular indeed.

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Gross Motor Coordination Activities: Dancing

Dancing needs no comment. I confess that despite being unanimous in the positive aspects of motor development, playing dance was never of great interest for Caio, nor for me. But here's the tip, if you like it, go dancing.

See too:Ideas for working with colors and motor coordination

Gross Motor Coordination Activities: The Mirror Game

In the mirror game, you face your child, as if it were a mirror. Pretend you are his reflection and mimic every move he makes. If he does, lie down too. If he jumps, jump too. Always as equal as possible. The beauty of this game is that the child goes alone looking for more complex movements. This game was a very positive experience for me, Caio's eagerness to make more complex moves just to challenge me was visible, and he wasn't even 2 years old yet.

More ideas at the following link: Motor Coordination Activities for Printing

Gross Motor Coordination Activities: Cardboard Boxes

This is a real classic! Which parent did not buy an appliance, furniture or large toy and let the child enjoy it inside the product's cardboard box? It may sound simple, but the process of getting in and out is pretty complex for them. I'm tired of keeping cardboard boxes to play with Caio. Today he doesn't give a shit, but it was fun while this phase lasted.

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Gross Motor Coordination Activities: Obstacle circuit.

This is another classic. Make a pillow course on the living room floor. Follow the route and ask your child to repeat it. I still play with obstacles to this day, but the complexity has increased a lot.

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Gross Motor Coordination Activities: Human Ship.

The child lies on his back with his knees bent and holding his ankle. Put some toys in her belly and ask her to start rocking back and forth like a ship in the water. This one worked really well with me, as many of our games were in a make-believe context, imagining that he and I were two ships at sea was a lot of fun.

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Gross Motor Coordination Activities: Puzzle

In addition to encouraging cooperation, communication and thinking, putting a puzzle together helps to develop children's fine motor skills. This activity demands firmness in the hands and encourages coordination between eyes and hands to find the right fit for each piece. Choose a puzzle according to the child's age. Afterwards, it is possible to advance in complexity, with increasingly numerous and smaller pieces, working even more on the required skills.

Also check: Simple activities for children's motor coordination

Activities to work the cognitive, fine and broad motor skills, notions of laterality and motor coordination:

Some activities that can be done that contribute a lot to the cognitive development of the child, working on their fine and wide motor skills, their playfulness and also their notions of laterality and motor coordination.

• memory games
• Cutting and gluing (shredded paper, grains, beads).
• Tear up papers with your hands.
• Crush the shredded papers.
• Making necklaces.
• Blowing, finger and/or brush painting.
• Plasticine.
• Clay
• Play make-believe.
• Mimics: laughing, crying, laughing, making faces, blinking.
• To dance.
• Run with and without support.
• Balance on one foot.
• Recognize and name parts of your body and others.
• Play with water, earth, clay, sand, clay.
• Recognize the flavors, sweet, salty, bitter, sour.
• Recognize temperatures: cold, hot, cold.
• Participate in rhymed and rhythmic games, circle songs, folk songs.
• Dramatize familiar scenes and short, frequently repeated stories.
• Observe and explore the environment through touch.
• Identify shapes: square, circle, triangle, rectangle.
• Identify colors.
• It represents, through gestures, without the use of objects: closing doors, putting on shoes, receiving a visit, cooking, washing, etc.
• Wheel for conversation.
• Walking imitating a train, crossing obstacles, passing under tables and forming a tunnel, going around objects.
• Undead (game)
• Walking, reaching a certain point in the room, balancing an object on your hand, head, etc.
• Play with balls, shuttlecocks, balloons, water, dough to develop three-dimensional perception, distance perception and spatial orientation.
• Help her in vocabulary development, encouraging her to identify the activities performed in daily tasks.
• Teach her to identify the clothes she wears and the different steps in the dressing and undressing process.
• Rhythmic band production, to provide singing accompanied by musical instruments.
• Exercises to develop laterality (walking in a straight line; curve; zigzag, walking on tape-limited tracks, etc…)
• Spontaneous drawing with crayons.
• Do as if pedaling a bicycle: stiff and flexed legs. - Use puppets, mask theater, shadow theater for presentation (stories) to children.
• Horse racing: line up with the children and place small obstacles such as cans, sandbags, spread around the area in a circle. At the signal of a whistle, applause, the children run out trying to jump the bags.
• Imitate the leap of the frog, the monkey, the bunny, the little fish swimming, the worm crawling and the sound of familiar animals.
• To draw a snail on the ground, children must walk on top of the line, in the direction of going back and forth.
• Handling of scrap material.
• Talking to the children to the fullest, enjoying every moment, having as themes their family, their toys, their friends, their games.