Brain-Building Animal Movement Activities Target Learning Skills

This article provides suggestions for animal movement activities to build the brain for higher learning. Integrated Learning Strategies (ILS) is a learning and academic center. As a reminder, ILS is not a health care provider and none of our materials or services provide a diagnosis or treatment of a specific condition or learning challenge you may see in your child or student. If you seek a diagnosis or treatment for your child or student, please contact a trained professional who can provide an evaluation of the child.

Animal movement activities are one of the best and most effective ways to help kids build their foundational skills and motor development. Not only are they fun, which makes it feel less like work, they can also help target areas of neurological development.

When children participate in animal movements, they create opportunities to build the brain in the following ways:

• Cross lateral movements
• Lots of proprioceptive input
• Strengthens core muscle
• Builds neck, back and shoulder strength
• Improves processing speed
• Encourages vestibular input

Animal Movement Activity Benefits

There are a number of areas animal poses can help children progress in their overall motor and learning development. As the child grows older, you will begin to notice improvement in the following areas as the child participates in more animal movement activities:

Attention and Focus | Impulse Control

Children who are actively engaged in different types of animal movement activities are more likely to have better attention and focus. Because these types of activities require the child to cross the midline of the body, we get the right and left hemispheres of the brain working together. Activating the corpus callosum with these types of activities supports logical reasoning and maturity of the left side of the brain used for better concentration. This allows the brain to stay alert and calms the body for better focus and less fidgeting.

Animal movement activities also target impulse control because the structured movements strengthen parts of the brain responsible for emotional control and delayed gratification. These types of activities help the child resist the desire to act immediately and creates opportunities for them to have more control over their body and their movements.

Activities like downward dog, bear crawl, crab walk and several others can help the following areas:

• Coordinated and controlled movement over pace
• Body awareness to prevent bumping or falling
• Encourages slow breathing and calming reactions
• Improves timing and rhythm

Posture | Copying Notes

Animal poses help kids develop better posture because they support and strengthen the core, back and shoulders for greater stability. Kids who tend to lie on their desk, slouch backward in their chair or fall out of their chair most likely have poor core strength. As the child tries to move into a comfortable position to support their posture and body stability, it often appears like they are fidgeting and can’t keep their body still.

Building the child’s core and neck strength gives the child with freedom to sit upright in their chair and allows them to move their head and body seamlessly to do the following:

• Copy notes from the chalkboard and get their thoughts down from the board to their paper (dynamic posture control).
• Stabilizes shoulders and arms for controlled hand movements when writing.
• Helps the child to self-correct their body and posture while sitting and listening to the teacher.

If you suspect your child or students has poor core strength, test your child here.

Processing Skills | Memory Retention

Kids who participate in animal movements improve their processing skills and how quickly the brain receives and retains information. Animal movement activities provide multisensory stimulation that activates the brain for faster and more efficient processing through the child’s visual and auditory systems. These movements of the body strengthen the child’s working memory as they increase their ability to hold, manipulate and switch to different poses and speeds.

Kids with slow processing speed may show signs of trouble finishing or completing tasks.

As the child progresses with each animal activity, improvements will show in the following areas:

• Smooth transitions as the child reads across the page
• Retention of what the child has read or the tasks they need to complete
• Ability to complete homework in a timely manner
• Enhances problem-solving skills
• Allows the child to follow multi-step directions without getting distracted

Eye-hand Coordination | Handwriting Development

Eye-hand coordination, fine motor and handwriting development are all supported when a child engages in more animal movement activities. Animal walks like the crab, bear and inch worm all support the back, shoulders, arms and wrists needed for handwriting development. Many of the animal poses also require kids to use their eye-hand coordination to complete the activities as they tilt their head, invert their body and shift their gaze.

By doing these types of activities, the child improves the following areas of development:

• Pencil grip
• Reduces hand fatigue when writing
• Allows kids to track words across the page while they read and write
• Encourages correct letter directionality and letter spacing
• Creates smooth transitions from visually seeing information to writing what they see

Executive Function

Executive function skills improve the child’s ability to plan, organize, remember and follow through with daily activities and tasks. Creating opportunities for more animal movement activities in the child’s weekly routine can support executive function and will establish inhibitory control.

Animal movement activities require the child to freeze and hold positions or start and stop using different queues. As children learn these techniques and prompts, they establish more control over their body and establish stronger neural connections in the brain. These skills allow kids to do more of the following:

• Wait their turn, stand in line, shift their attention easily
• Stop impulsive behaviors
• Follow multi-step directions
• Easily adapt to changes and can switch tasks seamlessly
• Completes homework and understands instructions
• Gets ready on time and has a good understanding of functional skills

Animal Movement Activities

Animal movement activities are great for therapy sessions, home play and classroom settings. They provide opportunities for kids to reset the brain for higher learning and build neural connections. Parents, therapists and teachers can use these poses to help children build motor planning and foundational skills.

When performing animal poses, adjust or adapt the activities based on the child’s level and ability. You can also add equipment or toys to the movements if it engages the child better and encourages them to advance their skills when ready.

In addition, as the child learns the movement, add a timing element to it. Call out queues for the child to do the motions slow, fast, stop and go. Providing alterations to the timing and speed of the activity improves the following:

• Impulse Control
• Executive Function
• Processing Speed
• Retention and Working memory

Research shows how rhythmic movements like animal poses can impact the above developmental areas when used in school settings.

Some of our favorite animal movement activities are as follows:

#1 Elephant Walk

Bend over with one arm hanging down like an elephant trunk. Walk forward, backward and side-to side like an elephant while swinging the trunk. Encourages the child to swing their arm back and forth using cross lateral movements.

#2 Seal Walk

Lie on the ground and move your body forward and backward using your arms to crawl in the prone position (tummy) while swinging your legs back and forth like a seal. Movement builds upper body strengthen, posture and core muscle.

#3 Crab Walk

Sit on the floor and lift your bottom slightly off the ground and walk like a crab forward, backward and side-to-side. Builds strength in the core, hands and shoulders while also improving vestibular and proprioceptive input.

#4 Penguin Walk

Stand with heels together in a V shape and walk forward, backward and side-to-side like a penguin with feet in staying in the V shape. Activity encourages coordination, impulse control, timing and rhythm.

#5 Spider Crawl

Get down in plank position and walk forward with opposite arm and opposite leg (like Spiderman). This activity builds core strength, coordination skills, balance and eye-hand coordination.

#6 Dinosaur Stomp

Stand straight and lift knees high (close to the chest) and stomp hard around the room. Movement provides proprioceptive, tactile and sensory input.

#7 Humming Bird Flap

Fly around the room with arms outstretched, moving the arms rapidly up and down. This activity builds strength in the arms and shoulders while also encouraging vestibular input and impulse control.

#8 Bear Crawl

Place hands on the floor and keep the legs straight. Use the same arm and leg at the same time to walk forward, backward and side-to-side. Movement requires slow, coordinated movement to gain body and spatial awareness.

#9 Lion Roar

Sit on the floor on your knees or in crisscross applesauce. Take a deep breath in through your nose and poke out your tummy. Hold breath for three seconds and roar out your breath like a lion. Activity helps kids with tummy breathing, calming, emotional grounding and impulse control.

#10 Flamingo

Stand straight and lift one leg off the floor, bending the knee upward so it’s aligned with your waist. Hold position for five seconds and switch legs. Activity encourages balance, core strength and coordination.

To download all 32 animal movement activities, complete the form below to receive our list of recommendations. Please check your email inbox for the download link as well as your junk or spam folder. If you do not see the download link come to your email inbox, please email us at info@ilslearning.com.

References

Ni, M., Mooney, K., Harriell, K., Balachandran, A., & Signorile, J. F. (2014). Core muscle function during specific yoga poses. Complementary Therapies in Medicine, 22(2), 235–243. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ctim.2014.01.007

Kaur, M., & Bhat, A. (2019). Creative yoga intervention improves motor and imitation skills of children with autism spectrum disorder. Physical Therapy, 99(11), 1520–1534. https://doi.org/10.1093/ptj/pzz115

Vhavle, S. P., Rao, R. M., & Manjunath, N. K. (2019). Comparison of yoga versus physical exercise on executive function, attention, and working memory in adolescent schoolchildren: A randomized controlled trial. International Journal of Yoga, 12(2), 172–173. https://doi.org/10.4103/ijoy.IJOY_61_18

---

Integrated Learning Strategies is a Utah-based center dedicated to helping mainstream children and children with learning challenges achieve academic success. Our services provide kids with non-traditional tutoring programs within the Davis County, Kaysville, Layton, Syracuse, Farmington, and Centerville areas. Areas to find Integrated Learning Strategies include: Reading tutors in Kaysville, Math tutors in Kaysville, Common Core Tutors in Kaysville, Tutors in Utah, Utah Tutoring Programs