improving Gross Motor Skills in Children

Do you need to work on enhancing the gross motor skills of your children? Have you ever watched your sons stumble as they're clearing the table and dump food all over the floor - or seen them playing with their siblings and view to yourself, "Oh no, my son is as clumsy as I am!" Don't panic - there are lots of distinct ways you can work with your children to help heighten their gross motor skills.

We've all seen kids who just aren't as coordinated as some of their peers and view they were clumsy or a klutz. Many of these children absolutely have a health known as developmental coordination disorder. The good news is that you can work with your children and help them to heighten their motor skills.

Gross motor skills are the abilities required in order to control the large muscles of the body for walking, running, sitting, crawling, and other activities.

Gross motor skills include:

• balance - the potential to vocalize equilibrium
• body awareness - for improved posture and control
• crossing of the mid-line
• laterality - awareness of the left and right sides of the body
• major muscle co-ordination
• spatial orientation - awareness of the body position in space and in relation to other objects or people

Without uncostly gross motor skills, children often struggle with the fine motor skills that are required for formal school work.

There are many activities we can do with preschool children when we are enhancing the gross motor skills of children:

• Play with a large ball. Encourage your child to kick the ball, using one foot and then the other. Then throw and catch it too. You can let some of the air out of a beach ball to make it easier for children who are absolutely struggling with studying to catch.
• Encourage your child to ride a bike, a push bike or pedal bike with or without training wheels, according to your child's ability.
• Play "Simon Says" with your child.
• Ask him to stand in front of a chair, behind a chair, next to the chair, on top of the chair and crouch under the chair.
• Tell your child that he must be your shadow and mimic all your actions as your walk about and perform easy actions.
• Learn operation songs and perform the actions as you sing them.
• Ask your child to imitate the movement of distinct animals: creep like a snake, waddle like a duck, hop like a rabbit etc.
• Encourage him to equilibrium first on one leg, then on the other for as long as possible.
• Put a 2x4 on the ground and have your child practice walking over it. Have them use their arms to balance. If they fall off, it won't be a very long drop!
• Ask your child to gallop like a horse.

Older kids need wide open spaces in which to practice their gross motor skills. As homeschooling parents, we have the potential to arrange the environment of our kids to help with significantly enhancing gross motor skills in children:

• Give children jungle gyms to climb and slides to go up and down. You can whether supply this tool in your own yard, or take your children to the park on a regular basis and encourage them to play.
• Give children toys to ride on - from bikes to scooters to skateboards.
• Play distinct ball games with your child, games which would need them to throw, kick and catch.
• Provide objects for your children to push, pull, jump off of and jump over.
• Trampolines - think purchasing a protection net for this piece of equipment.

Encourage your kids to share in the above kids of play situations when enhancing the gross motor skills of children. You will be amazed when their clumsiness turns to coordination.