Evolution Game
In the "Evolution Game" the idea is to help the child move up the "evolutionary" ladder with progressively more challenging motor activities. All these activities can be accompanied by music or made part of a copycat game. You can stage races or do it in and out and around things to make it more interesting.
- Slithering. This starts with slithering movements, like worms or reptiles. You begin by slithering along the ground together with the child. It could be a two-year-old toddler or even a fourteen month old playing copycat with you, or it could be a seven or eight year old slithering with music in the background. Slithering uses all parts of the body - arms, tummy, legs - in a coordinated fashion. Fun Activities For Classroom
- Crawling. From slithering the child moves to crawling on all fours. You can have crawling races and make it more interesting by doing it with music.
- "Wheelbarrow" Walking. In "wheelbarrow" walking you hold the child's legs while he walks on his hands. This, too, can be done as a race.
- Walking. Then we go to upright walking with nice, coordinated arm movements.
- Running, Skipping, Hopping, Jumping. Next, we go to running, skipping, and then hopping - whichever is easier for the child - and then to jumping. It is often easier to start jumping with both legs, then hopping on one leg at a time, and then skipping. Again, adult and child do it together to make it fun.
If the child is able to do some of these activities effortlessly, we can move up the "evolutionary" ladder very quickly. However, if the child has a hard time slithering or a hard time crawling, you can focus on that activity for a while.
- Agility Drills. Once we've gone up the ladder, through skipping and hopping and running, then, if the child is interested, we can do some more agility drills, sidestepping left and right, different dance steps, athletic steps, crossing legs over one another - adding variety to make it a little more interesting.
- Adding Rhythm. The next step will involve a little more rhythmic activity. We put on some music - some slow, methodical beats, some faster beats - and move rhythmically to the music. We usually do this at the level the child shows the highest level of competency. So if they are running, hopping, and skipping, we can run, hop, and skip in rhythm to the music. If they are just walking, then we will walk to the music and do some dances. But we have to march together or walk together or run together and do it rhythmically to the music.
Modulation Game
After the Evolution Game comes what we call the "Modulation Game" in which we help the child do an activity faster and then slower and then superslow and then super-superslow and then from super-superslow back up to fast - again, at the highest level in which the child can show coordinated action.
The Modulation Game can be a copycat game in which you start with walking or moving, then with clapping hands, playing the drums (which could be the table or a bongo drum), or using our voices (making sounds or singing songs loud, soft, supersoft, back up to loud again). This activity is to help the child learn to regulate and modulate activity in all ways - with hands, legs, whole bodies, coordinated activities, voices, and so forth.
Again, most time is spent on those activities with which the child has the most difficulty. Some will have more difficulty with rhythmic activity or modulation, so you can put a little greater focus on that and use the other activities as just a warm-up. If the child is really competent at the preliminary exercises and seems to be getting bored, you can go right into the midlevel of the Evolution Game or the highest level of the Modulation Game.
Competition and Incentives. When introducing points and rewards for these games, the key is to make the child successful 70 to 80 percent of the time. In a competition, let children beat you 70 to 80 percent of the time so they stay encouraged. If you make it too hard, they will get frustrated and avoid the activity. Don't move on to a higher level until they are successful 70 to 80 percent of the time at the level you are working.
Body Awareness Games
Once the child is comfortable walking, moving, running, and hopping and skipping, the "Body Awareness Game" brings in another facet of motor and sensory functioning:
- In, Out, Above, Below, and Through. The child moves in and out, above and below, and through physical objects in relationship to other moving bodies. You can use your hands or some physical structure you've created such as a little platform they have to crawl under or over or a tunnel they have to crawl through.
- Go Low and High, Go Left and Right. Then you can add moving hands or other objects (balloons, people, and so on), and the game is to avoid being touched while going through, under, around (left and right), and over objects. In this activity, children gain an awareness of where their bodies begin and where their bodies end. Fun Activities For Classroom
- Left and Right Sides of Body. Next are activities that integrate different parts of the body with sights and sounds: hand-eye, leg-eye, sound-leg, and sound-hand movement patterns. First you can do simple things like throwing a ball with both hands, then with one hand. Play Simon Says games or copycat games in which the child has to touch his left hand to his right shoulder, right hand to left shoulder, right hand to left knee, left hand to right knee and so forth to encourage this awareness. You can vary this in many ways, as long as the child is coordinating the left and right sides of his body, starting off using both hands, then one hand at a time in relation to the other side of the body. You can improvise and make it fun, letting the child win points for doing it right and lose points for doing it wrong. Little prizes for incentives work great with this activity. Again, if the child does this effortlessly, we don't need to spend a lot of time on such left-right types of games.
- Both Feet and Hands and Different Sides of the Body. These activities can progress to using both feet and hands and feet and hands on different sides of the body. Exercises can involve the upper part of the body and the lower part, such as bringing hands down to knees, or legs up to waist, and so forth. Such exercises can be found in Brain Gym: Simple Activities for Whole Brain Learning.
- Coordinating Hand-Eye, Hand-Leg, Sound-Eye, and Sound-Leg. Then you can move on to more elaborate coordination exercises. Playing catch can involve throwing and catching with both hands, then with the left hand, and then the right hand. Then a child can throw and try to catch the ball herself with her left hand, with her right hand, with both hands. This can be combined with kicking a soft rubber ball or a Nerf ball.
After simply throwing the ball back and forth and making It really easy, then you and the child throw it higher, with both hands, with one hand, the other hand, with both hands, then one hand, then the other hand. Then throw the ball into a basket and then move the basket so that the child has to throw the ball and anticipate where the basket will be as it is moving. Then we have the child first kick the ball to a fixed goal and then to a moving goal. Each time make little games out of it.
After completing the moving-goal game, you can move on to sound-hand and sound-leg exercises in which you keep changing direction for the child - "Kick it left, kick it right." You can have two goals and tell the child to kick it to the right goal and then the left goal, throw it to the basket on the right, throw it to the basket on the left, so it is not just sight and movement but sight, movement, and sound that the child is coordinating. Every time we get more parts of the nervous system working together, we are enhancing the ability to act in a focused way. To learn more, you can check out Fun Activities For Classroom.
