Gross Motor & Counting with 1,2,3 to the Zoo

I love adding gross motor and other activities together. And this is a great activity for counting, gross motor and fine motor all at the same time.

This week we have been doing the Gross Motor challenge slightly differently. We have been using books. It changes up what you are doing and makes it fun.

We did 1, 2, 3 to the Zoo the night before with everyone but my youngest wanted to do it again.

What you need for this activity

• 1, 2, 3 to the Zoo
• Bag of Buttons, Numbers

How We did the 1,2,3 to the Zoo Gross Motor and Counting

First my youngest sat on my lap and we started reading through and counting the animals in the book.

Second we did our gross motor for each animal in the book. You can be creative for this or make it simple. You can also do the animal sounds while doing the movements. You can do the movements as many times as there are in the book. You do 5 bear walks, an alligator snap 6 times, or flap your wings 10 times. You can count up as you do the movements, then repeat and count down.

After we finished the gross motor we did some simple reading and counting. We used the numbers from the Number Button Sensory Bin.

We counted the numbers buttons from 1 to 10. The buttons are great visual and hands-on ways to work on counting.

We read the book and she placed the number buttons on each animal while we counted. This is great for fine motor work and counting at the same time.

Here is a look at the last page all finished.

We also did the book counting backwards. It is good to count in both directions.

This was a fun activity that used your whole body for counting.

Check out these other zoo activities:

• Mini Zoo Theme Rice Sensory Bin
• Zoo Pack
• Animal Walking Themed Gross Motor Dice

Check out all the Zoo themed Activities & Printables on 3 Dinosaurs.

Cassie – 3Dinosaurs.com