If you're looking for an awesome gross motor activity for your preschooler they're sure to love this apple themed one! I'm calling it Apple Tree Forest, which not only works fine motor skills and provides a lesson in STEM, it also is a great fall physical activity to do at home indoors if it starts to get too cold in November!
Even better? It takes just a minute to set up and clean up! In fact, your toddler can probably help you with both!
Supplies:
- Apples
- Inner cardboard from toilet paper and paper towel rolls
How To Set Up + Play This Apple Themed Fall Gross Motor Activity:
Simply take the inner cardboard of toilet paper and paper towels and put them in a basket or a pile in the play area.
Give your toddler a pile of apples.
You may have to model for them the idea of placing an apple on top of one of the rolls to create your “apple trees.”
For an added challenge: cut your rolls different heights. The uneven cuts and varying heights will make the balancing a bit harder.
That alone is an activity and a great one if you have an older baby around who wants to help and play with the toddler!
For older preschoolers or kids:
You can write a letter or number on the cardboard rolls and corresponding apples. Have them match the roll to the correct apple, then continue with the activity as suggested.
From there, comes the physical activity part of this:
Once your “apple trees” are all set up, have your toddler or preschooler “run through the apple tree forest.”
Don't be surprised if at first, they just want to knock all the apple trees over! But they'll get the idea! Plus it's a great fall gross motor activity for them to learn to weave through the trees!
If you're toddler is struggling to run through the forest without kicking everything over, you could also set the forest up so all green apples are on one side of the room and red apples are on the other. Then just call out “red” and “green” and have your preschooler run back and forth between the two “forests.”
Set up + Clean up time:
This activity takes like 1 minute to set up and 1 minute to clean up!
Play Time:
My toddler LOVED this activity but it only kept her engaged for about 20-30 minutes.
So I left the baskets of rolls and apples in her playroom for the week so she could keep going back to it; which she did! It was a total blast and a great way to burn off that toddler energy before bed!
More Toddler Fall Activity Ideas:
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