There is no better time than January to focus on all things winter! Honestly, winter gross motor week could be done any time from December through March, but January just seems right. During Winter Week the focus of all gross motor activities revolve around all things winter. Check out all of the other theme ideas for all the weeks in January!
Winter Gross Motor Planning Week
Here are some great ideas to get you going on planning your Winter Gross Motor activities and keeping with the winter theme this week! There are several to choose from and depending on your space, resources, and time you can pick which activities would work best for your week!
Be sure to check out Arctic Planning Week, Winter Sports Stations and Winter Games Week that are a perfect compliment to the winter theme.
Start off the week by grabbing free hockey brain breaks from the freebie library. These are fast, fun, and efficient. In the land of hockey, (Minnesota) winter goes hand in hand with hockey. These may be the perfect warm-up or a fun addition to any station or circuit.
Winter Movement Stories
Start in the freebie library where you can get your free winter movement story or arctic movement story.
Make it even better…
Get both the winter and arctic themed movement stories in digital and printable format! These stories can be utilized digitally in PowerPoint, converted to Google Slides or in the PDF file. They can also be printed!
Winter Gross Motor Themed Games
Depending on your space and time you can incorporate several or a few of these activities into your gross motor activities for winter theme week. It may work best to set up one or two activities a week or if you have time for stations set up activities at different stations and let the kids practice these winter themed gross motor activities all week.
Snowflake Hop – Read all about it. It’s so simple. Just add music and move to this activity!
Indoor Ice Skating – Simple and easy requiring only paper plates or wax paper. A little extra space is needed to skate! This is also a great option for winter sports week.
Build A Snowfort – This requires cardboard blocks, but doesn’t need a huge space!
The snowball relay – This can be done on teams or as an individual. Race to get the snowball cards. To add more gross motor variety, instead of always running ask your kids to skip, jump, walk backward, side step etc. to retrieve the cards.
GET YOUR SNOWBALL RELAY CARDS AND MORE
Digital and Printable Winter Games
Pink Oatmeal has several winter themed digital games available for you! These games can be played in PowerPoint, converted to Google Slides, or played in the PDF file. The best part is that the games can even be printed and used as printables! The digital games are perfect for in person learning or distance learning/teletherapy.
The winter wheelchair movement game is a fun way to move with a winter theme! Play in digital format or print it! Choose from the different icons and do the movement associated with that icon!
GET THE WINTER WHEELCHAIR MOVEMENT GAME
Here is an example of the Winter Wheelchair Game in printable format. In this example the printables are on a door, but you could use them however you wish. Put them in the hallway, on a bulletin board, a wall etc.
Pick from the winter scene and move like the different objects. This game is perfect for distance learning/teletherapy or in person learning. It can be played on a computer or tablet.
GET THE WINTER COUNTING DIGITAL GAME
Penguin Life Cycle
How about combining learning and movement? The penguin life cycle does just that. This game comes with a printable and digital option making it easy for you to use however you would like.
GET THE PENGUIN LIFE CYCLE MOVEMENT GAME
WINTER THEMED OBSTACLES
Make a winter themed obstacle course or add them to a current motor or sensory path! Get the Winter Themed Motor and Sensory Printables to create your course! This course is sooo much fun! See it in action in the video!
Winter Yoga
Yoga is a simple way to get gross motor in and can be done in a small area. Making it fun with a winter theme is the perfect way to incorporate it into winter gross motor. You do not need to be a yogi to do these fun kids yoga themed poses ! Making yoga stations is another fantastic way to incorporate yoga! Get your winter themed yoga from Pink Oatmeal!
Read about all of the different winter yoga ideas. Put it in action or create winter yoga stations like in the video below.
Pink Oatmeal has an entire blog post dedicated to arctic gross motor and fine motor activities. Below is one example of a great way to move and work on gross motor skills with an arctic theme.
Even more winter yoga can be done with arctic animal yoga! Move like all of your favorite winter animals!
Winter Dice Games
Do you have kids that love dice games? How about adding some movement to them? Winter themed dice games are a blast. My own very competitive kiddo can’t get enough of these!
ALL OF THE FOLLOWING WINTER DICE GAMES ARE AVAILABLE IN THE WINTER THEMED MOVEMENT GAMES
Another fun winter game from Pink Oatmeal is the winter fort dice game. In this game you roll and knock down or build each block of the snow fort.
GET THIS IN THE WINTER THEMED MOVEMENT GAMES
Don’t forget to check out all the other fun themes for January gross motor planning for even more ideas perfect for the winter season. Have fun doing your Winter Gross Motor activities during Winter themed week!
Winter Fine Motor
PInk Oatmeal has an entire blog post dedicated to winter fine motor activities. Check out all of the winter fine motor activity ideas! You can’t go wrong with these cute winter themed ideas. These are just some of the fun winter themed fine motor activities!
Snowball Roll & Cover
Create A Snowflake
Snowman Painting
Mitten Chains
Winter Letter Formation
Winter Pre-Writing
Winter Resources From Pink Oatmeal
Pink Oatmeal has a huge selection of winter resources for you to choose from. Get everything you need to work on motor skills all winter long!
CLICK HERE TO SEE THE WINTER RESOURCES FROM PINK OATMEAL
Click on the name of the images in the photos below to get a full detailed view of the winter resource available at Pink Oatmeal!
-
Winter Movement Games -
Winter Yoga Story -
Winter Fine Motor Activities -
Winter Yoga -
Winter Yoga Bundle -
Winter Motor Bundle -
Winter Movement Bundle -
Winter Yoga Cards and Printables -
Winter Sports Fine Motor Activities -
Winter Sports Stations -
Winter Friends Pre-Writing -
Winter Counting Movement Game -
Winter Movement Game -
Winter Sports Movement Game -
Winter Wheelchair Game -
Gnome Upper Extremity Game -
Winter Brain Break Cards -
Penguin Life Cycle -
Winter Sensory and Motor Path Printables -
Reindeer Life Cycle
