I need gross motor games

[clarnet73]

I need some fresh ideas for indoor gross motor activities for my 3's and 4's, since it's FAR too cold to go outside.

We already do:
hopscotch mat
beanbag toss
balance beam
rolling on mats
LOTS of songs

We occasionally play silent ball
They love duck-duck-goose
I set up obstacle courses
We play hot potato
we sometimes do musical chairs
a "Let's pretend" game I learned in my drama class called magic rocks (be a ___. ok, magic rocks! at magic rocks, they have to stop and sit or curl up in a ball right where they are, silently. they think it's GREAT)

I need some new get-the-wiggles-out gross motor activities to do, especially in the afternoons. We're all going stir crazy... we've been inside for the last 3 weeks and it looks like next week's going to be just as cold as this one.

[Pre-K Teacher 1]

Here are a few...

Your local library should have some preschool movement CDs to check out.

We've done:
Penguin waddle walking (small ball between knees and try to walk)
Polar bear walking
Jumping over ice blocks- (cardboard blocks covered with white paper)
Jumping through hoops- (hang red ribbon or crepe paper from them to pretend to be animals jumping through them)
Limbo- ( we do all kinds of movement, go through on your back , crawl, slither, etc.)
Sideways movements- Jumping, walking, etc.
Straddlewalking
Crawling, hopping, etc. around the cones
Bean bag movement (Pretend that they are tightrope walking along a line of tape with a beanbag on their head
Beanbag movement games-- (neat CD from my library)
Hulu hoop musical chairs-- I have several colors of hoops that we lay out on the floor, we play music. They dance around outside of the hoops. Then I call out 3 or 4 colors and they have to stand in that hoop when the music is turned off. No losers! They love it.
Jumping over the river-I have a blue blanket that I use. I start with it being narrow and the kids jump over it with two feet. I gradually make it wider and they try to jump over with out falling into the "water." A good work out!
Heavy lifting- We fill a bucket with heavy blocks and they try to beat their time by carrying the bucket across the classroom. The whole class participates and we record our time. We try to beat our time as a group. No losers! The buckets have to be heavy but manageable for the children.

[ellen_a]

I play a really stupid version of four-corners with my tutoring kids which they love despite its stupidity--we do it for math facts but you could do it for anything (shapes, colors, phonemic awareness, counting, etc.). We write down four different numbers, very large, each on a separate sheet of paper and then hang them in the corner of the room (i.e. 5, 10, 24, 16). Then my kids meet a teacher in the middle, the teacher calls a math fact (i.e. 8x2, and students "answer" by going to the correct corner.

I made it up one day when lessons finished quickly. For some reason, they like it, so we keep playing it.

[shan6teacher]

How about blowing up a balloon and having them stay in a circle and pass it to one another trying to keep the balloon in the air. When it touches the ground, the last person to touch it is out. You go until you have a winner. If you have a large class, split them into teams and see which team wins.

[scarlet_begonia]

My class this year loves to play jumping bean. I made a bunch of flashcards with letters (you can do whatever you want). I made some with beans on them, also. Each child gets a turn to pull a card from the bag. If it's a letter, they identify it. If it's a bean, they yell, "jumping bean!" and everyone jumps up and down.

[scarlet_begonia]

I found this in the archives....it has some great ideas.

http://forums.atozteacherstuff.com/s...ad.php?t=14152

[a323]

we play a game called "Late last night" have all the kids lay down and pretend to be asleep. Then you sing/say "Late last night while you were sleeping, somebody came and put skipping shoes on your feet, get up and and skip, skip, skip, skip" you can vary the type of shoes such as "bunny shoes" "dancing shoes" "galloping shoes" after they skip tell them to lay back down and do it again with a different pair of shoes. its simple but my kids love it

[clarnet73]

Thanks, gals! Keep 'em coming

[puff5655]

Our College campus daycare sets up obstacle courses inside with a tube to crawl through, tables to crawl under, hula-hoops placed on the floor to jump in, and a small trampoline to jump on. They only use this when they absolutely cannot go outside (when its lightning or under 10 degrees). Otherwise they are out there 45 mins in the morning and 45 in the afternoon.

How cold is it in Illinois? Here by Buffalo, it's a -12 wind chill today!

[ellen_a]

Originally Posted by puff5655

How cold is it in Illinois? Here by Buffalo, it's a -12 wind chill today!

Puff5655, where are you in Buffalo? I'm in Amherst and I'm not leaving my house today!

I'm a graduate student at Daemen, by the way.