Guest Author - Jeanette Stingley

When studying child development, you will hear the terms “gross motor” and “fine motor” skills frequently. We have already taken a look at developing fine motor skills here.

Gross motor skills are sometimes called large muscle skills. This all means the muscles we use to move around our world and the muscles we use for physical activity. Some examples are running, climbing, kicking, and jumping.

We are all aware of the growing number of children who are becoming overweight in American society. It is important to stress the need for physical activity beginning in the younger years. Habits started now usually last a lifetime.

When I hear young children say they want or they got a video game system for Christmas I just shake my head. When my son’s friends come over after school, they are shocked that we don’t have an Xbox or Playstation. In fact I had one little boy get mad when he came over because I only allowed the TV to be on for an hour. I told them to go outside and play for awhile. His response was “It is boring outside”.

Helping a child develop gross motor skills is probably one of the easiest skills to help develop unless the child is handicapped or has some sort of other development delay hindering use of their large muscle groups. You must give children a large play area with plenty of safe equipment to use. On a recent tour of some local preschools, I noticed a number of them are now providing large indoor spaces for children to use during cold months or when it is raining. I was very impressed by their attention to needs. Although children will play without your lead, it would be great to offer the children a wide variety of teacher lead activities. Here are some suggestions.


-Everyone knows the game of “Red Rover”, right? When I was doing my training to get my CDA, I made a variation of the game where I would have the children wear a shape or color. Instead of calling out the name of the child to come over we would name off a color or shape.

-If you have riding toys such as tricycles available for the children, make an obstacle course.

-Have the children mirror each other. Either stand in pairs or one child in front of a small group. One does something such as hop on one foot and the other children mimic him/her.

Gross Motor Skills is all about being active. The children will never even realize that they are learning. All they will know is that they are having fun!