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Crossing the Midline and Bridging the Great Divide!

May 29, 2017 by Sarah 2 Comments

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.

Activities for crossing the midline

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!

Crossing the midline - cross walk

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.

Crossing the midline - marching

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!

Crossing the midline - tape trick

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.

Crossing the midline - racetracks

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.

Crossing the midline - Pompom task tray

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.

Crossing the midline - exercise ball

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!

Crossing the midline - passing games

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.

Crossing the midline - rainbow

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.

Crossing the midline - scooters and plungers

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.

Crossing the Midline - Paddle balloon game

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.

10+ Crossing the Midline Activities for Kids

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!

Our Olde English Southdowne Babydoll 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.

Filed Under: All Ages, Kindergarteners, Learn, Letters and Numbers, Letters and Reading, Numbers and Counting, Preschooler, Preschoolers, Toddlers Tagged With: crossing midline activities, crossing the midline

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Comments

  1. Debbie Giannotti,PT says

    October 13, 2018 at 11:33 am

    Just an observation from some of the pictures,
    Kids will often rotate the trunk to avoid crossing midline. If the trunk rotates the reaching hand is still on the same side of the body. Bilateral hand use to one side definitely keeps this from happening. The kids with real trouble with midline crossing keep dropping one hand and use one side even though it means loss of control/force production/ success. Great activities, thanks for sharing.

    Reply
    • Sarah says

      October 14, 2018 at 8:51 pm

      Wonderful observation and input Debbie. Much appreciated!!
      Sarah

      Reply

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