This morning the smaller babies engaged in a little obstacle course in the nursery room. The experience encouraged the babies to crawl through the activity gyms, roll over onto their backs or sit up to interact with the hanging toys which requires the babies use gross motor movements and build upon their gross motor skills.
The activity gyms also encourage children to use their fine motor skills to grip, hold, spin, and pull on the hanging toys. The babies were also able to try standing/walking by utilising the frame of the activity gyms to hoist themselves up and attempt to take some steps, again improving their gross motor skills.
The Educators scaffolded the children’s learning by clearing some additional space to place two activity gyms in a row. This encouraged the babies to crawl through them as she sits on the other side of the gyms, guiding them through by calling their names and clapping or waving her hands to hold their attention. As some of the babies are learning to crawl this activity was beneficial to enhance their stability and gross motor skills.
We repeated the activity several times and each time, the children were sturdier and faster with their movements. As we want children to learn through safe risk taking this was a good experience for the babies to practice standing/stepping and take the risk of falling safely as it is low to the ground, and an educator was very close by to support them.
