As this Artic blast continues across the Ozarks, and we can’t venture outside, we can always do a few, fun and unique, gross motor activities.
Waddle Like a Penguin
Instructions: Children pretend to waddle like penguins with their arms and legs straight and flexed to the sides. Children can carry an “egg” squeezed between their legs (i.e., balloon, pillow) and shuffle around for an extra challenge.
Shuffle Like a Seal
Instructions: Children pretend to be arctic seals and use their upper body to move around. It’s an excellent upper body workout.
Plod like a Polar Bear
Instructions: Children pretend to walk like polar bears on all fours with their bottoms up in the air.
Here is a challenging activity using a hole punch to build hand strength, improve fine motor skills, and increase hand-eye coordination skills in your preschooler. This center always has students eagerly waiting in line to give it a try.
Instructions: Just cut 1 inch strips of paper and put dots or stars every inch or so. Depending upon your child’s hand strength, they may need to “punch” with two hands. If your child wants an extra challenge, they can make a paper chain by gluing the strips together in alternating directions.
Please find some additional learning ideas below:
📚 Stories/Literacy: Snow by Roy Mckie and P.D. Eastman
🚰 Science/Simple Sink or Float Experiment:
Fill a basin with water and provide objects that start with the letter S – like a stone, spoon, or straw. Let your child predict whether the items will sink or float. This fun hands-on science activity can help them learn about buoyancy and cause-and-effect reasoning.
❄️ Songs/Phonics: Snow Song ♫ What Is Snow? ♫ Flurries? What’s a Blizzard? ♫ Kids Songs by The Learning Station
🔵 Exploring Shapes, Sorting, and Counting:
Now let’s bring some math activities into the mix with the letter S!
- Sorting Objects: Provide various objects, such as shapes, stones, or socks, and have your child sort them by size, shape, or color. Sorting helps with early classification skills and will develop their understanding of attributes and categories.
- Counting with S: Find or create groups of objects that start with S, such as seeds, shells, or stars. Have your child count how many items are in each group. This is a great way to practice basic counting skills and one-to-one correspondence.
- Shape Hunt: Look for squares, stars, and other shapes around the house or outside. Help your child identify the shapes and count how many they find. This encourages both shape recognition and counting skills.
🎨 Shape Art/Circle Prints:
Go on a circle hunt around the house with your child. Look for ring-shaped items like plastic cups, the cap from your juice container, paper towel rolls, etc. Next, have your child dip the circular items in paint, then stamp onto paper. Feel free to offer just a single color of paint with a few different objects to stamp. Limiting the color options will help keep the emphasis on exploring the shapes and the action of stamping. Have fun with these shape prints!
Stay warm and safe Ravens!
