Gross Motor Activity to Practice Skip Counting

Instead of sitting at a desk doing worksheets, I like to set up opportunities for my boys to learn through play with gross motor activities.  Children are multisensory learners, and when movement is combined with learning children are more likely to retain the information learned.

Early this week the forecast was calling for rain, so I set up an indoor gross motor activity for my boys.  We do our best to stay active even when we are stuck inside.  One of our favorite gross motor activities from last year was our bean bag Shape Toss, Hop, Skip and Jump game.  This gross motor activity took me less than ten minutes to set up, and we played with the shapes for weeks.

Since the shape toss was so much fun I decided to plan another game using craft tape on the tile.  I outlined the tile squares in different colors and formed numbers with black tape inside.  I decided to use the game to practice skip counting.  I have to be honest and tell you that it took me a good hour to set up this gross motor activity.  If we weren't expecting rain it would have been much quicker to set this up outside using sidewalk chalk. 

Instructions for Play:

JZ (5) threw a bean bag to a numbered square.

Then he hopped on each number until he reached the bean bag.

He counted by fives as he hopped.

JZ and I took turns throwing the bean bag and hopping while counting.

As much as the set up took a lot of time, in the end it was worth it.  All four of my boys have been hopping around on the numbers all week, and JZ is a pro at counting by fives now.  This really was the perfect way to stay active during all of this rain.

Made it too 100, whoo hoo!

Partway through playing JZ said he needed to do something.  He grabbed the craft tape and made a 100 on the front door.

For more ideas for getting kids moving visit my Active Learning board on Pinterest. 

Other ideas for indoor educational gross motor activities:

• Shape Toss, Hop, Skip and Jump
• Rhythm and Movement for Kids
• Music and Movement Games for Kids
• Sight Words Twister from Mom to 2 Posh Lil Divas
• Letter Sounds Race from Inspiration Laboratories