Gross Motor Activity: Scooter Slalom

This gross motor activity was a spontaneous creation one morning this summer when I took the boys out to the park extra early because they were driving me extra crazy. We like to call it “Scooter Slalom”, even though I suppose technically it’s not a slalom course since there are no flagged gates involved. But nevermind that. It kept me sane, and that’s what counts.

I didn’t set out to turn a normal scooting session into a gross motor activity that challenged their coordination, balance and control any more than most days, but that’s how it evolved and I so I thought it would be worth sharing with you.

What you need: (It’s all pretty obvious, but still…)

• Scooters, skateboards or bikes
• Sidewalk chalk
• A paved slope (or flat — whatever)
• High energy kids

The boys and I all drew a variety of shapes and lines on the path with sidewalk chalk and the object was for the boys to use the marks as a course. The shapes didn’t necessarily have certain designations, but sometimes the boys decided “now go around all the circles” or “cross through the center of the X’s” or “now do only blue lines.” Primarily the goal was to hit all the marks from start to finish, but your kids can determine their own rules. After all, my goal was to be as uninvolved as possible!!

It turned out to be fairly challenging and great for their gross motor skills, teaching them that they had to slow down at certain points, or work harder to keep their balance at others. It really kept them busy, both charting the path (I relinquished my chalk as early as possible!) and traveling along it via scooters.

All in all it was a pretty good morning.

More super duper low tech gross motor fun you can have at the park:

• Rolling down a hill
• 10 Tag Games for kids
• Outdoor Family Games (great for backyard play, too)
• Sidewalk action path (via Matty Angel)
• 5 ways to play tag (via Pleasantest Thing)
• Color dot hop (via Learn Play Imagine)

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