Crossing the midline activities for kids. What on earth are those?
Sometimes in the educational world we start speaking a slightly different language than ‘normal’ people. Not that teachers aren’t normal … though … you do need to be a little insane to work with small children all day long, don’t you?
Anyways. I had an email from a lovely reader asking a few questions and I messaged back suggesting that some crossing the midline activities would probably be very helpful.
She messaged me back telling me I was speaking in garbled code. Well, not really – she said it much more politely than that, but that was the gist.
So I decided to write to you today about “Crossing the Midline” activities for kids, and why they are so important.
When speaking of “midline” I am referring to an imaginary line that spans from our head to our feet, dividing our left side from our right. Crossing the midline occurs when we reach across our body with our left hand to grab something from the right. When we cross our legs. Even when we read (as our eyes go from left to right).
On a brain level, we can only accomplish these things when our corpus collosum, the part of the brain that connects the left and right hemisphere, is strong.
Crossing midline is an incredibly important skill to develop in little ones. For more information on what crossing the midline really means, the science behind it, and why it is so important, I found a great post on OT Mom Learning Activities entitled: All About Crossing the Midline. So pop over to read if you like, and then come on back for some awesome activities.
Back already? Love it. Let’s get crossing that midline!
Cross Walk from Mosswood Connections – Have the kids practice crossing the midline with their feet during this easy-to-set-up movement activity. As a bonus, there are five more ideas to try within this post.
The Midline March from The OT Toolbox – Let the kids get their wiggles out with this fun midline march. You don’t need any special materials, and it can be done inside or out!
Catch a Star from Dr. Jean – Little stargazers can pretend to be catching a star while working on crossing the midline. Dr. Jean has an immense amount of other midline crossing ideas to share here, too. Love her tip for helping kids understand where their midlines are.
Squishy Figure 8 Race Tracks from The Empowered Educator – Turn a sensory bag into a figure-eight racetrack. She shares more ideas for working on crossing the midline along with this idea.
Pompom Task Tray from Growing Hands-On Kids – This pompom activity can be used for a wide variety of ages and skills, like fine motor development and pincer grasp. The crossing the midline aspect comes into play when the child moves a pompom from one side of the tray to the other.
Sorting Objects on an Exercise Ball from My Mundane and Miraculous Life – Add a different aspect to crossing the midline by using an exercise ball!
Play Passing Games from Teach Mama and Still Playing School – Crossing the midline activities don’t have to be done individually. Get some other kids in on the action with these passing game ideas.
Rainbow Drawing from Your Kids OT – Integrate big art with crossing the midline with this colorful activity. I can see this working well with individual children, as well as kids working collaboratively.
Scooters and Plungers from The Motor Story – How fun is this scooter idea!? Kids can use a plunger as an “oar”, crossing the midline as they move their scooters around the room.
Midline Crossing Paddle Game from The Inspired Treehouse – Grab a balloon and a kickboard (or a foam bat or a ping pong paddle) and get to playing! Along the way, there will be so many opportunities for crossing the midline.
There you have them! Oodles of ideas to get those little ones crossing the midline and building that incredibly important bridge from the left to the right side of the brain.
I hope you are having an amazing day friends. Thank you so much for reading! AND GUESS WHAT?! I can’t believe I almost forgot to share. We now have little lambs!
Their names are Mabel and Poppy and they are the sweetest little souls I ever did meet! So please be kind if I am a little slow with returning emails this week. I am rather obsessed with lamb snuggling.
I know you understand.
We can practice crossing the midline by stroking from head to tail in fact!
I hope you are having a fabulous week – thank you so much for reading.
Leave a Reply