Freebie Friday: Snowflake Gross Motor Learning

So this past week, I saw two similar activities that I really LOVED. The first one, is from Roots of Simplicity. She created a great gross motor reading activity by writing words on snowflakes and taping them to the ground (check out her post for details). Then, Emma at Mummy Mummy Mum linked up a very similar activity using dinosaur foot prints that I just had to feature this week at Thrifty Thursday.

Why do I love these activities? For one, they get kids UP AND MOVING while learning. Not only is this great for winter when we tend to spend more times indoors, but children really benefit from learning activities that are multisensory. And two, these activities can be adapted and tailored to target ALL kinds of objectives! Think about it…you can target letters, numbers, words, shapes, prepositions, basic concepts, irregular verbs, answering or asking WH questions…the possibilities are endless.

I decided to make my own set of snowflakes with letters and numbers on them, since my daughter is working on letter and number ID (Images thanks to Office Images.)

What we did with them:

• We printed them out, cut them out, and placed them on the floor (numbers first). Then my daughter walked and jumped from one to another while saying the next one (with my help).
• We matched the numbers and letters on my kid’s blocks, to the ones on the snowflakes (My daughter actually started doing this on her own! It was so much fun. She needed my help though).
• Because my daughter LOVES “little books” we actually stapled the letters together in order and stapled them together to make a little book!

What else you can do with them

• Musical Numbers/letters: Place the snowflakes on the floor and play “musical chairs” having the child(ren) say the letter/number they land on when the music stops (or have them say a word that begins with that letter, or ends with that letter…etc).
• Counting cotton balls: Place the number snowflakes on the table and have your child count and place cotton balls (or M&Ms or anything small) on each one.
  
• Sorting: Place the letter snowflakes on the table and have your child match items or pictures of items to the letter that it starts with. you could use farm animals or other small toys for this.
  
• Articulation Practice: You can put the letters on the ground, and have the children play the musical chairs game, and whatever number they land on, they have to say that many words..OR, they have to say that many words multiplied by 2 or 3 or 4 (i.e. they land on 5, 5×3=15 so they have to say 15 words with their target sound).

What you can do with the blank ones: I also made a set of blank snowflakes that you can use in many ways. Though the possibilities are endless, I will give you a few ideas of how to use them. You can print them out and write/draw directly on the snowflake or you can laminate them and write on them with dry erase marker. From there, you can write any of the following on them to use in gross motor games:

• Spelling or sight words
• Shapes
• Math equations
• Articulation words (or pictures)
• Vocabulary words (or pictures)
• Animals

TIP: Print out on card-stock and laminate for durability

I hope you enjoy! You can print them out by following the links below (Images thanks to Office Images):

Snowflake ABCs
Snowflake Numbers
Snowflake Blank

Cheers! HAPPY FRIDAY!