A lot of our outdoor play time involves sidewalk chalk games. They are easy to set up and usually involve creative learning. The Animal Track Jump Game reinforces colors and counting while using those big gross motor muscles in preschoolers!
Active {get up and move} learning is used frequently in my preschool classroom and at home. Toddlers and preschoolers often stay more engaged when they are having fun and burning energy like in our Alphabet Bug Swat!
How to Play Animal Track Jump
Different colored sidewalk chalk is the only item needed to play! Find a section on the sidewalk or on your driveway to draw a line of animal tracks. Draw tracks down the sidewalk in colored groups. In each color, draw a different number of animal tracks.
Have your child start at the beginning of the line of animal tracks. Now it’s time to play!
Counting Tracks – Jump from track to track while counting. Your child can count the tracks in the first color and then start at one again when jumping to the next color. Or your child can jump and count from the first to the last animal track to find the total!
Track Colors – Jump from track to track while naming the color that is being jumped on! “Blue, blue, blue, blue, red, red, red, yellow, yellow, yellow, yellow, yellow!”
Just Jumping – For the younger learners who are not counting or recognizing colors quite yet, this game can be played by jumping from track to track! Jump forwards and backwards. And while your child jumps, you can say the colors or count along!
We played this game a few different ways!
My preschooler yelled all of her colors while jumping, counted the colored track groups, and then counted the total number of tracks. She also jumped different ways! She practiced jumping on both feet, one foot, the other foot, and she leaped.
Outdoor sidewalk chalk games involve many ways to learn. Following directions (whether one-step or multi-step) is an early learning concept that young children continue to work on and master. The rules of the game can be adapted to meet the needs of the level that your child is working on. The game should always be fun!
Each big movement like jumping and leaping works gross motor skills and coordination. Toddlers may not be able to jump off the ground at first, but with practice, those jumps will get higher and higher!
This game works on reinforcing or even introducing colors and counting. Both skills require lots and lots of practice and repetition!
Follow along with our Modern Preschool fun on:
[…] 6. Gross motor activity – Animal Tracks Counting Hop. […]