Are you implementing enough gross motor in your daily routine?

Gross motor development is a learning domain that sometimes gets tossed to the side and often plays second fiddle to our daily focus on cognitive and behavioral development...This is a topic that is of great importance in early childhood development. According to childdevelopment.com "Gross motor abilities also have an influence on other everyday functions. For example, a child’s ability to maintain appropriate table top posture (upper body support) will affect their ability to participate in fine motor skills (e.g. writing, drawing and cutting) and sitting upright to attend to class instruction, which then impacts on their academic learning. Gross motor skills impact on your endurance to cope with a full day of school (sitting upright at a desk, moving between classrooms, carrying your heavy school bag)." If you think about it, forming adequate gross motor development builds a firm foundation for all other learning and the ability to development skills like self- care and toileting skills but also, skills like writing, coloring, painting, grasping fork and spoon and being able to feed oneself. So, when you're feeling exhausted and don't feel like organizing a rainy day gross motor activity or taking your students to the playground because it has been a challenging day; think about the impact that has on their ability to perform other tasks that have a long term effect on their cognitive development. Leave me and our audience some ideas about gross motor activities for various age groups that have been successful in your classrooms!