Gross motor skills Archives - Page 2 of 3

Jump start your morning routine

By Cathy James on January 19th, 2012%

With these dark winter mornings my girls sometimes need a little extra encouragement to jump out of bed in the morning.

All this week I’m taking part in the Weetabix Fuel for Big Days campaign and asking for your tips on how you help your children have a great start to their day.

Keep an eye on the display box over on the right hand side of this page and you’ll find lots of ideas and comments during the week. And you can visit the Weetabix Fuel for Big Days facebook page and tell me your secret to a happy morning routine.

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Join the Carnival of Get Active! Play

By Cathy James on August 26th, 2011%

Welcome to the Carnival of Get Active! Play

This week’s Play Academy link-up is all about Active Play. Please share an idea for any kind of active play – a new post or one from your archive.

Running, jumping, dancing, hiking, yoga, climbing, inside or outside – what active play do your kids enjoy? Help us build a fantastic store of active play ideas we can use whenever we need a new idea. Read more »

Add ribbons and swirl

By Cathy James on July 5th, 2011%

I loved Jeanne’s comment saying the title of yesterday’s post sounded like a recipe, so continuing with that idea we today we have ‘take one child, add a dash of ribbons and swirl together with music.’

Children always have the best play ideas, don’t they? These pictures show B enjoying dancing with the streamers she made after discovering a forgotten bag of ribbons. She simply tied a one to the end of a stick and was ready to go. Both my girls love dancing but I’ve resisted sending them to an organised dance class for now, instead letting them explore their own dance style.

Create your own dance studio Read more »

Could you be the Champion of the Playground?

By Cathy James on June 18th, 2011%

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You don’t often hear me recommending more screen time for children but we’ve been having fun this week with the Champion of the Playground site from Robinsons Fruit Shoot.

Fruit Shoot.com lets you get active by playing a variety of skills based games and watching skills based videos, picking up tips so you can become the Champion of the Playground. Instead of just being played with the keyboard the games can be linked up to the webcam on your computer so the children have to trampoline and play dodgeball along with the game – great for indoor exercise on a rainy day.

There are masterclass videos too, featuring cool kids who are sharing tips on how to skateboard, juggle and bodypop. Check out the girl with the hulahoop – my girls were amazed!Robinson Fruit Shoot are also giving away 100 skills kits everyday between now and the end of the summer holidays. The kits contain a digital hacky sack and skipping rope which the kids can use to rack up points to match up with their customised avatar at Fruitshoot.com. B especially likes the digital skipping rope which counts the number of skips she does. It’s adjustable too so she can use it by herself or with a group of friends in the playground, with a few of them skipping together.

I think the site’s a clever combination of online and physical fun and the skills videos are inspiring to watch, encouraging kids to keep practising physical skills to improve their technique.

Visit Fruitshoot.com to try it out the games. Maybe your kids will be the Champion of the Playground?