Locomotor skills are an important part of motor skills that kids begin to learn as babies. Walking, one of the biggest developmental milestones for young children is the first locomotor skill children develop. In Montessori Rolling Hills, CA, teachers focus on developing the locomotor skills in children as it is the starting point for many sports and leisure activities, from soccer to golf to dance and more.

If you have a baby at home, you will notice the development of locomotor skills when from the age of 10 or 12 months. Most of the time children required some support and instruction to learn the difficult physical skills. If you have toddlers or preschoolers at home, then please make sure that they get enough opportunities to practice these newly developed skills. At the age of 1, children should start walking independently and slowly start running, hopping, and jumping. By the age of 3, children should master more complicated skills like skipping, galloping, sliding, and leaping.

Simple games and activities to encourage the development of locomotor skills.

Child Care Rolling Hills, CA caregivers provide the required instructions and assistance to develop the children’s locomotor skills. If you are a parent of a toddler, you should act at the right time to help them master these skills. You can engage him in some games or activities that help in the development of locomotor skills.

Simple games like ' Simon says’, where everybody is supposed to follow the actions of their leader, is a great way to encourage physical activities that can help build these skills. Playing interesting games like relay races or hopscotch with your kids can help them to achieve these developmental milestones easily.

What you can do if your kids are struggling with these skills?

You can try the following activities to help them overcome all the obstacles.

Work on walking skillfully and steadily :

Follow some simple and easy techniques like drawing wavy lines with chalk on the floor and challenge your kids to go along with them while walking is helpful. You can also make some paper footprints and ask your little ones to follow those while walking.

Build running skills :

In Montessori Rolling Hills, CA kids play a lot of racing games and sports that involve running such as soccer is helpful to develop running skills in children.

Encourage jumping :

Trying a mini trampoline or showing them how to jump safely from a slightly elevated surface is going to motivate them to jump. To help them jump a little higher, you can stick a picture on the wall and let them try to jump up and touch that picture.

Teach galloping techniques :

If your kids are struggling with the galloping, you can try to teach them galloping technique using hula hoops. You need to get inside the hope and ask the little one to hold the hope from behind and follow you as you gallop forward. This way he will be able to see how your feet are moving and would feel encouraged to try the same.

Skipping technique :

To encourage skipping, you can let them skip while balancing a wall. Singing some songs while skipping is helpful as the rhythm will help them follow the step/hop, step/hop pattern.