Our Toddler 2 friends have been exploring their gross motor skills lately. We have been growing our gross motor area in the classroom to allow for more room and opportunities. We have noticed the children learning more about their bodies and how we can move them and do bigger movements. We love to dance and jump around so we decided to expand on how else we can move our bodies.
We have been enjoying testing out new ways to use our climber instead of just walking up the stairs and down the ramp. Some of us have tried sliding down the ramp on our bums, or tummies and some decided to try going up the ramp and down the stairs. Our toddlers have gotten more creative and confident each day. We have also added our “bouncy scarves” to the gross motor area. The “bouncy scarves” are scarves on elastic the kids can pull back and watch them fly. We have been counting down “5,4,3,2,1, blast off!” Our toddler friends have also gotten creative and brave to see how far back they can pull it. Most recently we added a ball toss net. The kids are able to throw the ball up into the net and it will roll back down. A few of our friends had a hard time at first throwing it up high enough but we kept trying and eventually were able to throw it high enough!
We are following the children’s lead and watching how they decide to use the new gross motor area and coming up with new things to add to the environment. We are also continuing to encourage gross motor outside with running, biking, balancing, and jumping. We have logs we climb onto then jump off of, as well our kids have been working on balancing on the wooden border around the mulch pit. We are continuing to foster gross motor skills not only outside of the classroom but inside as well, as best we can.
