Category: Gross Motor Skills

Go Get It

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Go Get It (5)

There are so many games I’ve been waiting to play with Veronika with the caveat that she needed to be a crawler first. Well, now she’s a crawler and we’re playing!

Today, it was a simple game of pointing her towards her toys and saying, “Go get it!”

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First, I rolled two balls away from her. She barely needed me to say the words before she was off.

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I asked her next if she could get the purple one.

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Of course the fact that she went for it was probably pure coincidence at this age, but it’s never too early to build the vocabulary for colors.

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You can also turn it into a game for following instructions. Any toys on the “pillow fence” are irresistible to her, so she was off and crawling for them in a heartbeat.

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“Can you put them in the bucket?” I asked, aping the movement for her.

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She crawled happily over to the bucket and… ker-plunk!

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You can even make the game into a “race” with mommy or daddy, which will have your little one giggling. Who would get to the toys first?

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In sum, there are lots of variations you can play with this baby version of fetch, and your little one will love building those crawling muscles during all of them.

ABC Hop

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Yes you can fit in letter writing, alphabetical order learning, and gross motor skills in one activity… With ABC Hop! This simple game requires no more than a paved surface and a piece of chalk.

We headed outside early before the afternoon summer heat sets in. I asked Travis to write the alphabet. This was fantastic practice to write the letters from memory, not following a tracing line. He faltered on only a few, like K, but had a firm grasp of many others.

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I quickly realized his letters were going to be too small to hop on, though, so wrote out a second set for him. Once the alphabet was complete, we began to sing the ABC Song. With each note, he hopped from letter to letter.

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Whoops, occasionally he had to run from the end of one line to the start of the next.

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I thought he might get tired, but he hopped to the very last Z.

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To make this harder, you could even try mixing up the letters or putting them in zig zags occasionally!

Baby Squats and Mama Bench Presses

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Veronika is just about at that age when babies start pulling up. To encourage the motion, today she did her squats!

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Hold your baby on your lap, with his or her feet firmly on your thighs. As many times as he or she will tolerate, let them push up to stand and then squat back down.

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The first few times we played the game, she would hang her feet in the air, uncertain what to do.

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Then she started to get the hang of using those leg muscles. Veronika didn’t know she was getting exercise, she just loved the up and down motion.

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When she put her weight on her feet, I encouraged her with a big grin and a “Soooo big!”

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After baby gets some exercise, why not reverse things and fit in a few quick moves of your own? Because she can support her upper body completely now, it was time for some Veronika bench presses. Lie flat on your back with your knees bent and hold your baby on your tummy, then lift high into the air. A work out for mama and an airplane ride for baby!

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Or why not flip over and do push ups? For this one, I lay Veronika on her back and assumed push up position over her.

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We nuzzle noses and say I love you each time I press down and then she giggles as I push back up again.

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Note: All photo credits in this post go to big brother Travis!

Catch That Sound

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Here’s a game that combines reading and phonics skills with gross motor skills, but your kids will just think they’re having a blast! In other words: the perfect way to spend a summer morning.

I pulled out the beach ball, which already had Travis excited, and explained the rules.

Pick a letter, and the person throwing the ball has to say a word that begins with that letter before each toss.

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Some of these were easy. B lent itself to books, babies, balls, and bees rapidly. Others made him stop and think between each throw. Eagle was his first confident answer for E, but then he was stuck until I prompted some words with the short-E vowel sound like elephant.

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Travis also thought it was fun to roll the ball to little sister after saying each word, a great way to see the siblings play together.

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See which letter your kids can get the most for! And with every throw, they will be honing those gross motor catching and throwing skills, too. We might just have to play this one on the beach, next time!

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Dressing with a Point

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I’ve always loved to narrate to my children during diaper changes, a moment that’s rife with opportunities for vocabulary-building: I point out the names of each article of clothing; use action words (taking off, putting on); and of course simply get silly to bond with baby. Today’s point was a little different; at eight months old, Veronika is nearly old enough to point, and I wanted to encourage the motion!

To do so, as I named each article of clothing, I also pointed to it. “Shorts,” I said (pointedly of course).

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Veronika didn’t point back, but she did do lots of grabbing for each piece of clothing, which is sort of the general idea.

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I pointed out pajamas…

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And onesies…

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And dresses in the closet.

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Keep repeating this game, and your little one might point before you know it. I think Veronika gets the point, even if she can’t quite mimic the motion yet!

 

Start Swimming

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Babies seem to love the water (I have a pet theory that they can still remember all that watery time in the womb, not so many months ago!). Whatever the reason, starting your children in the water young can have big benefits, helping them feel ready when the time comes to truly learn swimming and water safety.

Today, we got Veronika’s toes wet – literally!

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Start small if you think your baby will be nervous. However, you’ll probably be surprised at how calm a young baby is in the water – more so even than a toddler. A few recommendations: Make sure the pool you choose is clean. I do recommend chlorine rather than salt-water pools, because big brother Travis has fallen sick after swimming in the latter.

Go at off-peak hours, whether mid-week or at a non-crowded time on the weekends.

Finally, don’t forget the swim diapers! When Travis was little, I thought an overnight diaper and a swim diaper were the same thing – whoops. His little bum would inflate with tons of water instantly. Veronika, on the other hand, was swaddled in proper swim attire.

Now for the fun! I started out just dipping Veronika’s toes in.

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Pretty soon she loved kicking her legs and trailing her fingers through the water.

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This is great muscle work for a baby, and can also help tire him or her out if you’re hoping for a nap after. To wit, the very first thing she did after she was dry was fall asleep for her afternoon nap.

Mini Gym

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Whatever your baby’s latest gross motor skill milestone is, this cute gym session will have him or her giggling! It can be a Mini Rolling Gym, a Mini Sitting Gym, or a Mini Crawling Gym. The key is to get down on your baby’s level and show them the actions, which will serve both as a model and as a game!

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Veronika is already a roller, but first for some review I lay down next to her. Well she thought this was just the greatest.

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I rolled away from her…

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…which soon had her rolling to me. This was a nice refresher because she’s so busy sitting up these days, she sort of forgets to roll when I put her on her back.

Our next gym session was planks (okay, tummy time). She loved having me down at elbow level with her.

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Next I started to crawl in circles around her. This is probably the next gross motor skill that Veronika will master, since she’s currently kicking with legs and pushing up on her arms, but not quite able to put it all together yet.

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She looked like she wanted to chase after me!

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I then sat her up, placed a few favorite toys just out of reach, and mimed reaching for them. Soon she was copying me.

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In short, we both got in a little workout, and lots of giggles!

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Sitting Up Ball Games

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By six-and-a-half months old, your baby is probably a sitter – which means it’s time for some ball games together! Veronika can hold a ball easily, but today we got more sophisticated with her ball play; consider this her first little sports lesson!

First, we played a basic rolling game. I rolled an easy-to-hold baby ball to Veronika.

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Her natural inclination was to pick it up and keep it to herself for play, of course.

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But I encouraged her to roll it back, using the word and gesturing. When she dropped it, it rolled toward me accidentally, but I praised this like she’d done it on purpose.

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In this way, we kept up a little back and forth that she soon loved.

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The next goal was to teach her to pass a ball between her hands. For this game, I used large fluffy pom-poms; these have the benefit of feeling yucky if your baby puts them up to the mouth, and I wanted Veronika to focus on her hands.

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I handed her the ball first. She loved the novel texture!

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Next I showed her how to pass it from hand to hand, then gave it back to her and encouraged her to do the same. As with the rolling, this really happened by accident, but each time, I praised her success! From right…

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…to left!

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Next, I held out my hand and asked her to hand me the ball. I had to sort of take it, but then could “pass” it back to her, talking to her about what it meant to “pass”, too.

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These games are both great ways to build up linguistic concepts and motor skills all in one!

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How do you and your baby play with balls? Please share in the comments!

Balancing on a Ball

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The last time I put Veronika on a beach ball, she was only about three months old, and the goal was to strengthen her core muscles.

Today’s time on the ball was for a slightly different purpose, more about learning where her body is in space.

Say what? This is a funny concept for grown-ups; of course you know where your hands and feet and limbs are! But it’s all new to babies, and at six months old, they still have to look at their hands to know where those hands are and where to put them. Moving around on a ball will help strengthen spacial awareness. And of course the sooner baby knows where his or her hands are, the sooner he or she can reach out to grab things like toys or oh, all those yummy bites of food they’re old enough for now!

Today’s activity was simple then. I put Veronika on a ball, holding her firmly around the middle, and rocked her back and forth.

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And side to side.

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She seemed a little surprised at times, but soon warmed up with big smiles.

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If you don’t have a beach ball, try a yoga stability ball, or even a big sibling’s toy ball hopper.

Learning to Reach

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Veronika is six months old! This is such an exciting age for babies, with so much that happens right around now: rolling if your baby hasn’t already; sitting up unaided; and making the first moves toward crawling.

We do lots of tummy time with Veronika, which is one way to encourage crawling. Right now she pushes with her legs but arches her arms back like a swimmer doing the butterfly and screams when she can’t reach something. She’ll figure it out eventually!

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Another way to encourage crawling, other than tummy time, is to have your baby sit and lean forward. This not only builds the abdominal muscles for sitting, but can actually turn into a crawl, if a reach forward turns into a belly flop.

Today, I sat Veronika up with a supportive pillow, and placed a few tantalizing toys just out of reach.

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We soon found that this worked best with her foam blocks.

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She really wanted to reach them.

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As she reached, I gave lots of encouragement. Resist the urge to move the blocks or toys closer, and let your baby truly stretch.

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One time she did flop forward onto her belly and looked quite surprised, but then happily was at her target. The other times, she was simply stretching as far forward as possible, so happy and so determined.

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I can say with 100 percent certainty that this game was the difference between a day where she was still sitting with a wobble, and the next day where she suddenly had the muscle control to stay steady. Will it lead to crawling next? I’ll report back once we have a crawler!