With the weather getting nicer, you may be looking for some outdoor activities. Sidewalk chalk is a great tool that is limited only by imagination. Just think of all the things you can do with it. Besides drawing pictures in your driveway, sidewalk chalk can be valuable tool when working on improving your child’s motor skills, the most obvious one being practicing their drawing and writing skills. But they can also strengthen their arms through weight bearing, work on their balance, learn to visually track, improve their jumping skills, and learn sequencing with a little help from this outdoor favorite. Here are a few ideas:
- Drawing on the ground – in order to draw on the ground, your child has to sit or lay on their belly on the ground. This means that they’ll likely be bearing weight on their non-dominate hand the entire time they are drawing and strengthening that arm. If you feeling adventurous try challenging them to draw with their non-dominate hand.
- Draw hopscotch on the ground – they can practice jumping together and apart in order to complete the hopscotch or hopping on one foot as their skills develop.
- Draw a “balance beam” on the ground – they can practice walking on the line without stepping off. If they get good at walking forward, try walking backwards or sideways. You can also try making a squiggly line.
- Draw a racetrack for them to ride their bike/trike, or sit and ride toy around – this will make them visually follow the line while riding in order to stay on track.
- If you get bored with all of these, try drawing an obstacle course and putting them all together – you can draw bases to hop between, a line to walk across, a hopscotch to jump through, and even hand and foot prints to do animal walks on.
And don’t forget all the fun you can have washing your daily activates away so you can draw new ones tomorrow! What else have you done with sidewalk chalk?