Review: Gross Motor Skills Development Activities

Gross motor skills are involved in the movement and coordination of the arms, legs, and other large body parts and movements. They participate in actions such as running, crawling, swimming, etc. We may notice children at yard, in the line or in our PE classes who may need support in these areas. This book aims to help teachers with activities puzzles and guides to develop those areas. These activities could be utilised in your PE class or at break/yard time.

This book breaks down each skill within the gross motor skills into:

• Body awareness-the pupil’s ability to know where his/her body is in space.
• Motor planning-the pupil’s ability to figure out how to do a new motor task. (bringing the spoon to an ear or a knee instead of the mouth for example)
• Bilateral integration-this refers to the pupil’s ability to use both sides of his/her body during an activity. For example, catching a ball or colouring( one hand holds paper, the other holds the pencil)
• Crossing the midline-refers to the pupil’s ability to cross over the midline of the body.
• Tactile awareness

The book gives activities for developing each skill above with some really nice finger plays, action songs and rhymes, perfect to integrate in your language lesson. It also gives two forms of gross motor skills checklist depending on the age of your pupils.

There are some really good practical PE “Pick up and go” lesson ideas. You don’t need much equipment, you can use rolled up newspaper or sponges for throwing and catching in or out of the classroom. I like the way this book understand that we have little funding in schools and it seems to be aiming to make developing moving skills easier for teachers and children.

This book contains so much for the primary teacher giving parachute/hula hoop/skipping ropes activities as well as sensory ideas like sand tables, water areas, creative play, dramatic, cooking, music, games/obstacles and relay ideas and playdough recipes. I would highly recommend this along with the fine motor skills book for any teacher of Infants up to 3rd Class. It is also very useful for teachers who interested in the play pedagogy/Aistear pedagogy.

Gross motor skills development activities is available from Prim-Ed at the price of €29.95 at www.prim-ed.com