Background information

Notes on child development

Play is crucial to the development of children’s gross and fine motor skills. Through play, children practice and perfect control and coordination of large body movements, as well as small movements of hands and fingers. Gross motor skills involve control of the arms, legs, head, and trunk. Fine motor skills involve the careful control of small muscles in the hands, feet, fingers, and toes. Controlling the muscles of the tongue and lips in order to speak or sing is also a fine motor skill. Find out more here.

Everyday moments can be fun learning opportunities for children. Pretending, creating and helping allows kids to discover new things. Play helps children learn about themselves and where they fit in the world. Evidence shows that play can support learning across physical, social, emotional and intellectual areas of development. Find out more here.

Educator notes

There's always an opportunity to be developing children's communication skills through casual conversation. While children will have fun moving their bodies in specific ways during this activity, make sure you're always talking, naming movements and directions, and that children are listening, understanding, and talking back to you.

Don't hamper their following the fun and their creativity, but do support and encourage them in expanding their ideas and exploring their movements through different challenging directions or suggestions.

Activity outline

Step 1.

Firstly, spend some time setting up a runway. You could do this yourself, but involving your children is both fun and good for their self-esteem.

Place some long ribbons in parallel lines (like train tracks).

Decorate the inside of the track with rose petals, leaves, extra pieces of ribbon, or anything that makes it look exciting.

You might place chairs or cushions to flank the runway, or children could just sit in two lines on either side.

Step 2.

Explain to the children that you're each going to have a turn parading a silly walk down the runway.

You might get some inspiration from this video:

Ministry of Silly Walks - Monty Python's Flying Circus - S02E01 (youtube.com/watch?v=HHFuTpVvRCI)

Step 3.

Before you begin walking, think about the different ways you can move. Use the following terms a lot with children so that they have an understanding and can communicate effectively with you.

You might like to write these words and draw an explanatory picture, and display them around your space somewhere.

high and low
long and short
forwards and backwards (and sideways)
fast and slow

Having the words to engage in dialogue is a key part of oral language, with flow-on effects to comprehending and communicating using print. Vocabulary knowledge involves understanding the meanings of words and phrases, and using those words and phrases to communicate effectively (aka expressive vocabulary).

Deep vocabulary knowledge is often a source of difficulty for English learners, hindering their literacy development. Find out more h ere.

Step 4.

Demonstrate your own silly walk down the runway. Commentate yourself as you do so.

For example:

"One step forward and then three steps backward. Three quick steps! Three more quick steps! Then one sloooooooow step. Long step. Long step. Four short steps! Now I'm walking down low to the ground. I'm almost waddling like a duck. Now I'm walking on my tippy toes high in the air. Up, down, up, down. Now I'm doing a twirl."

Step 5.

Now invite someone to do their own silly walk down the runway while everyone watches.

Have each child take a turn.

The focus for this round is just to have fun doing a silly walk!

Step 6.

If a child performs an interesting movement during their walk, make sure to name it!

For example:

"Wow! I loved that twirl you just did!" or "Oh little skip in your walk there, how lovely!"

You could add these words and pictures to your word wall, if you're developing one.

Step 7.

When everyone has had a go, invite the first child to have another go.

But this time, as they go, you might call out some instructions.

For example:

"Can you slow down your walk? That's fantastic. What about short steps, what would short steps look like?"

The focus for this round is to develop the listening and language skills of kids, and to encourage them to move their bodies in specific ways.

Step 8.

Once everyone has had enough of the runway, finish by asking kids what their favourite movement was.

Evaluation

Complete analysis of learning, listing evidence about:

Belonging	Finding something of interest
Communication	Expressing an idea or feeling
Exploration	Engaging with challenge and persisting when difficulty arises
Wellbeing	Being involved

Silly Walks - Physical Movement Game

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