This week has seen the Burrow children putting their gross motor skills to the test by climbing. It was a great activity that allowed us to observe how confident the children are when climbing, balancing and jumping.

When we finished our snack I spoke to the children about what we are going to be doing and pointed them in the direction of the tree house (or fort.) From here we set out to climb as much as we could with the tree house being the main climbing element. I set out a few climbing areas for the children to use which were a few bridges, steps and our big pile of logs.

Watching the children’s confidence when climbing was great to see. The children used the ladder well with lots of understanding of alternating their limbs (an arm with the opposite sided leg) and when they wanted to come down from the tree house most of the children sat on their bottoms and slid down the steps, demonstrating a good understanding of the increased risk that coming down provides.

Some children chose to climb the soft play steps that I placed in front of the tree house, this also provided a challenging jumping activity for the children. Climbing up the three steps we counted at the end with either a “1,2,3” or “ready, steady goooooo.” A few children chose to hold the adults hand whereas the others had enough confidence to jump all by themselves.

There’s a big pile of logs that are placed near the tree house, these act as a future challenge to our younger adventurers so that the sense of challenge is available to all.

What a great physical week from the children and next week we will see even more climbing experiences.

Thanks for reading,

Lauren