Web Obstacle Course

Lesson Plan:

Activity:

Web Obstacle Course

Lesson plan developed by Ms. Erika Geelhoed, BA Ed

Age Group:

Preschool

* Lesson plan objective and assessment can be adapted to use this activity with school-age children.

Objectives:

Children will:

develop gross motor skills by bending and stretching.

CDA Competency Standard:

II.4.1a

Activities, materials and equipment encourage children of varying abilities to develop their large muscles
- a) Gross motor skills are encouraged through developmentally appropriate materials, equipment and indoor/outdoor activities

Web Obstacle Course

Coin Letter Matching

Materials:

black streamers
tape

Procedure:

Prepare for lesson by creating the obstacle course.
Tape the streamers to the walls at various heights (a smaller room or hallway works best).
Invite the children to make it through the web without touching and/or knocking the streamers down.
Encourage the children to go through the web as many times as time permits.

**This activity can be modified for the outdoors if you have access to a wooded area. Tape string, instead of streamers, to trees to create your obstacle course.

Assessment:

Observe and review the children’s gross motor skills. How did they get through the web? At any point did they get stuck? If so, how did they problem-solve? How did their strategy for getting though change as they went through the course multiple times?

Online Early Childhood Education

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Developing Fine and Gross Motor Skills

Tools can help children develop eye-hand coordination and strengthen their hand and finger muscles for writing, typing, and drawing. Try these activities:

Scissor skills. Show children how to hold scissors. The thumb goes in the top hole and the pointer (index) finger should be placed in the lower hole. The middle finger should rest just below the rim of the lower hole to support the scissors. The ring and little finger are not used in cutting.
Follow the line. Draw a simple wide line from the top to bottom of a sheet of paper. Direct the children to cut right above the line. Remind them that the thumb should always be up (in the top hole of the scissors).
Basic shape cutouts. Draw three basic shapes on paper (square, circle, and triangle), and let your children cut them out. Save the cutouts (and scraps) for use in other projects.

Practice pouring. Let your children learn how to pour using a small plastic pitcher and a few plastic cups. Tell them that the cups are empty and that they should pour the liquid into the cups until they are full. Try emptying the pitcher to fill the cups, and then try emptying the cups to fill the pitcher. Experiment with different size cups.
Scooping. Using scoops for the beach, have your children practice moving dry material like sand or dirt from one container to fill another. Try not to spill any of the sand between the containers.
Observe closely. Using a simple magnifier, have children look at something up close. What do they see with the magnifier? What do they see without it?