Spring is officially here and April is the perfect time to add all the fun spring themes to your motor programming. This April motor planning ideas include the themes – insects, bugs, and creepy crawlers, farm, baseball and earth/weather and ocean. It also includes bonus Easter ideas. Check out all of the fun ideas for your April motor planning activities!
April Motor Activities
Using themes can make motor planning fun, easy to relate too, and easier for you to set up. Breaking them down in weeks can add some order. It’s okay to have some of the themes overlap a bit and they don’t need to be in any certain order. There is no hard and fast rule about how many activities need to be done. You can also check out all our other motor planning ideas and themes here!
April Motor Planning Activities – Farm Week
April is a great time on the farm with all the new life at the farm! It’s also a fun theme to add in the spring to motor planning.
Start with farm themed yoga and moo-vements. A fun way to move like the animals on the farm! Get printable farm themed yoga now.
Check out the animal herding idea! If you don’t have or can’t use balloons use balls!
Farmer Says – Another spin off of Simon Says.
Wheelbarrow Races are a must for farm week!
Apple Picking or Harvest Picking – this is a fun activity where you can set out food from the farm or apples and work on balance!
Farm themed movement cards are a simple and easy way to let kids move like animals on the farm!
Don’t forget about the fine motor skills for farm week. There are a ton of great farm themed fine motor activities to choose from!
April Motor Activities Planning – Insects, Bugs, and Creepy Crawlers Week
Do you ever remember going outside as a kid looking for worms after a good April rain? With the warmer weather in April also brings the return of some insects, bugs, and creepy crawlers!
Start with insect, bug, and creepy crawlers yoga pose ideas. These are so fun and no need to be a yogi to enjoy these fun pose ideas! The cards and printables are available in a clip art version and kids version!
The bumble bee relay is a fun game to play to get the kids moving!
Use a fly swatter and run around swatting objects. This can be done with the objective of your choice. This may mean you use sidewalk chalk to write different letters and have the kids swat a certain letter. Maybe you opt for numbers. This is a great option for moving and learning!
Go digital and work on one to one correspondence while moving. Your kids will LOVE counting ants while moving their bodies!
GET THE ANT COUNTING GROSS MOTOR GAME
Try stomping out the bugs. This can be done by drawing bugs on the sidewalk and jumping, stomping, hopping etc on them. This is a great way to work on different gross motor activities.
Play the Insect and Bugs Digital Game. This can be played on a computer, tablet, or interactive whiteboard. Your kids will LOVE this game and so will you!
GET THE INSECT AND BUGS DIGITAL GAME
A bug hunt! This is fun game where you can hide bugs and have a checklist of the different bugs that you need to find. You can incorporate even more gross motor into this by having the kids skip, run, or jump to the next bug!
Learn about different life cycles or your favorite bugs or insects! In this case, take a look at butterfly and mosquito life cycles from Pink Oatmeal.
GET THE BUTTERFLY LIFE CYCLE GAME
GET THE MOSQUITO LIFE CYCLE GAME
Bug themed movement cards are a simple and easy way to let kids move like bugs. It’s funny to watch how they decide these movements should look!
Bug Collecting – The bean bags are the bugs that you are collecting!
Fine motor skills with an insect theme are the best. The Insect, Bugs, and Creepy Crawlers fine motor skills set has so many (9 different ideas) great ways to work on these activities.
April Gross Motor Activities Planning – Baseball
April brings baseball opener! Baseball is also easy and fun to incorporate into gross motor skills.
Start by grabbing your FREE baseball measurement gross motor game from the freebie library!
Baseball players need to be good at playing catch. Try the step and catch game.
Fast, fun, and effective are the perfect words to describe these baseball themed moves or brain break ideas.
This week is a great week to try out some sports themed yoga! Baseball is included in this. Read about all of the ideas!
Go digital! Try the Baseball Themed Digital Movement Game! This is perfect to play on a computer, tablet, or interactive whiteboard. Your kids will LOVE this game, and it is a great option for BOTH in person and distance learning.
GET THE BASEBALL THEMED MOVEMENT GAME
Sports themed fine motor activities, there are several, are a must during baseball week. Combine them with your gross motor activities as well.
April Gross Motor Activities Planning – Earth/Weather
April is weather month and Earth Day. These are great themes to work on with motor planning during a week in April.
Start off with Earth Day Yoga Poses. Don’t let the word yoga intimidate you. These poses are fun and easy!
Go digital and try the Earth Day Digital Gross Motor Game. This game can be played on a computer, tablet, or interactive whiteboard. Your kids will LOVE this game and so will you. The game is great for in person and distance learning!
GET THE EARTH DAY GROSS MOTOR DIGITAL GAME
How about going digital? The Weather Gross Motor Digital Game is another engaging way to make a weather theme part of movement. This is a great option for BOTH in person and distance learning. This can be played on a computer, tablet or interactive whiteboard.
GET THE WEATHER THEMED GROSS MOTOR GAME
Pick from any fun habitat or environment on earth games and move. Some of my favorites during this week.
April Gross Motor Planning – Ocean
This is a theme that can really be used anytime. I find that March, April, and May or even summer for a beach theme are my favorite ways to use it. It really depends on the year.
Start this week off by incorporating ocean themed yoga! This is fun and easy movements that anyone can do. Do not let the word yoga intimidate you.
Island Hopping a fun ocean themed gross motor game! Use paper, sit spots, or pillows to play this game!
I also love to incorporate easy ocean moves that are pretty open to how the kids want to interpret them. It’s fun to see the different ways they come up with to move their bodies! Get Ocean Themed Movement Cards.
How about some fishing this week? Check out this fun idea for fishing. Yes, those are candy canes, but using pipe cleaners would probably work well too if you don’t have candy canes on hand.
Ocean Themed Fine Motor Activities
Eleven different easy, quick, and fun ocean themed fine motor activities can be found in the ocean themed fine motor activities pack. This is a must to save you time and effort and leave you feeling good about your ocean themed fine motor activities.
See even more ocean themed motor planning ideas.
April Motor Activities Planning Bonus + Freebies
The month of April often times brings Easter!
Fast, fun, and effective describe these fun brain break ideas all with an Easter theme!
Be sure to check out ideas for Easter Yoga Poses and get your free Easter Yoga Cards in the Freebie Library.
Your activities are so helpful! Judy OTR