Hand eye coordination games are a great way to help your toddlers develop both their fine motor skills and gross motor skills. Motor development is a crucial part of growth in young children, and movement activities and games are a fun way to incorporate learning these skills into everyday play.
Move to Learn is full of fine motor activities that will help your little learners reach their full potential and develop not only their physical skills, but cognitive and social-emotional skills as well.
Here are some creative hand eye coordination games that will have your little ones moving in no time!
Making Stretchy Shapes
Elastic is a terrific tool for integrating proprioception into a variety of learning activities.
Preparation
You will need elastic tape, a needle, and thread. Cut one-yard lengths of the elastic tape, enough for each child to have one. Sew the two ends of each length together a loop.
What to Do
- Give each child a loop.
- Ask, “ How many sides does a triangle have?” Challenge the children to make their loops into triangles using three parts of their bodies.
- Ask, “How many sides does a square have?” Challenge them to use four body parts to stretch their elastic into the shape of a square.
- Ask, “How many friends do you need to make a standing-up triangle with one of the elastic tapes? Please show us.” Let them experiment.
- Ask, “How many friends do you need to make a standing-up square with one of the elastic tapes? Please show us.”
- Encourage them to make any shape they choose. Ask, “What shape are you making with your loop?”
- Challenge the children to move around the room while maintaining their elastic shapes.
Dancing with Your Ribbon
Using ribbons and music makes this activity a beautiful experience for the eyes and ears. When possible, make a video of it to share with the children.
Preparation
You will need colored ribbon in blue, green, yellow, and red. Cut the ribbon into lengths of approximately two feet.
What to Do
1. Give each child a colored ribbon.
2. Play music and encourage the children to dance with their ribbons:
- Ask, “Who has a blue ribbon? How can you dance to the music while waving your ribbon?”
- Ask, “Who has a yellow ribbon? If you have a yellow ribbon, please join the children who are dancing with their blue ribbons.”
3. Ask the children with yellow and blue ribbons to freeze. Ask, “Who has a green ribbon? Only those who have a green ribbon please dance to the music while waving your ribbons.”
4. Continue the activity, naming different colors and asking different groups of children to dance with their ribbons and others to freeze. Say, “I’ll keep saying different colors, and when I say your color you dance to the music with your ribbon. When I tell you to stop, just freeze where you are.”
Can You Go Over, Under, Around, and Through?
Obstacle courses are wonderful tools for helping children understand spatial relationships and can be made from almost anything. They can be constructed in a circle or as transitional tools to help move the children from place to place.
Preparation
You will need a variety of obstacles, such as large boxes or tunnels to creep through, tables to crawl under, mats to climb over, and boxes to walk around.
What to Do
1. Create an obstacle course. Vary the levels of obstacles so that the course will feature the following:
- Moving over is followed by moving under
- Moving around is followed by moving through
- Moving through is followed by moving over
Try to avoid bottlenecks, and make sure that you can see the children as they move through the course.
2. Let the children take turns as they explore the course. Comment as they explore: “Karl, you are creeping through the tunnel.” “Abbey, you are crawling under the table.”
