Skill: Crossing Midline

The ability to move ones hands, feet, and eyes not only together, but across and to the other side of the body.

Fall Leaves

Use a brown construction paper and draw a rectangle to be used as the tree’s trunk.

Let the child cut out the rectangle to promote visual motor skills.

Ask the child to glue the brown rectangle on piece of white construction paper.

Using the crayons or markers, have the child draw a few branches coming out of the trunk of the tree on the white construction paper.

Instruct the child to mark a few dots using the glue on each branch.

Place some leaves on the table on the child’s non dominant side.

Provide the child with tweezers or tongs and have him catch one leaf at a time and move across the midline to place it on top of a glue dots.

Repeat until all leaves are glued on the tree.

Midline Passing

This ball passing game can be done in groups or during a 1×1 session.

Sit back to back with the child. Make sure the child is sitting cross-legged or on their knees. While seated, pass a ball or any other object around to each other.

Make sure to switch directions after a few times.

Make sure the child is crossing the midline while passing the ball without rotating the trunk.

Chalkdraw

For this activity, you can have the child draw on a chalkboard or on the sidewalk.

While large chalks would work better on the sidewalk, try to use small (or even broken) chalk to promote a tripod grasp.

Melting Rainbow

Using the markers or chalk, have the child color a rainbow or any other drawing appropriate to the child on the dry erase board/easel.

Use the squirt bottle to squirt the board/rainbow with water, the water causes the marker/chalk to run a.k.a. melt the rainbow.

Note: this activity would work best outside as it can get quite messy.

Potato Counter

For this activity you could use different types of fruit and vegetables. If the child has difficulty completing the activity with potatoes, you can use a softer fruit like bananas.

Cover a strip of thick cardboard or card, and draw boxes like those shown in the picture.

Cut small potatoes into halves and quarters so that they can stand without rocking or tipping.

Place one potato wedge on every box and number each box.

Now your child can stick in the right number of toothpicks into each potato.

For grading: Use random numbers instead of numbers in a sequence.