Music is a great medium for working on gross motor skills. Children love to dance, sing and play instruments along with music. Have the children select an instrument or scarf to dance with. Explain the rules of the game. When the music is playing, everyone should dance around and sing, play their instruments and wave scarves. As soon as the music stops, all the children have to frieze and hold their pose as long as possible. The last child still frozen in place is the winner.
Have all the children find their own space to dance in. Discuss keeping hands and body to themselves in order to not disturb other children while dancing and participating in the game. Play music and allow the children to dance and sing. Stop music and wait until one child is left frozen. Let the winner of the game be in charge of starting and stopping the music for the next round.
Discuss with the children all of the parts of the body. Play a round of head, shoulders, knees and toes to get the children acquainted with where everything is. Feel eyebrows, eyelashes, fingernails, toenails and joints in the hands. Talk about how all the parts of the body are important and work together to help us move, think, talk, eat and breathe. Pretend something is missing and imagine what it would be like without it. For example, would our toenails be missed if they weren't there?
Using a large sheet of paper, have each child lay down and spread her arms, legs and fingers out. Take a large crayon and trace around the outside of the child's body. Tape the paper onto the wall at the same height as the child. Have him paint his paper self using tempera paint and brushes of all sizes. Encourage the children to use large brushes with big paint strokes and small brushes with small brush strokes. Remind the children to paint all the parts of their bodies.
Talk about shapes with the children and how some have sides and some do not. Shapes with sides and definite form are called geometric and include squares, circles and triangles. Some shapes are free form and do not follow a format. These types of shapes are considered organic. Share examples of geometric and organic shapes with the children.
Using chalk in a large outside flat paved area, draw many geometric and organic shapes with space between them. Allow the children to color shapes in any way they would like. When the children are finished, clear the area of all chalk and ask them to select their favorite shape and stand on it. Tell the children that you are going to count to ten and they have to stomp on as many shapes as they can and count them. Count to ten and allow the children to stomp on the shapes. When time is up, ask each child how many shapes they jumped on, and what type of shape they are standing on. Let the winner decide how high you should count while the children stomp again.