Indoor Obstacle Course - Babies
Use your creativity to design engaging, age-appropriate indoor obstacle courses! Tailor it to suit the skills the children in your room are developing - crawling, walking, standing, balance or early ball skills.
Set up
Set up an obstacle course with any objects and equipment you have at your disposal! This may include pillows, mats, slides, ramps tunnels steps, ropes, chairs, teddies, balls, buckets, masking tape and beanbags.
When choosing equipment, keep in mind the variety of skills that children can work on, such as crawling, standing, rolling and climbing for babies and walking, balance and running for toddlers.
How to play
Step 1
- Encourage babies and toddlers to join in the obstacle course by demonstrating each of the obstacles and joining in with them
Step 2
- Try making a story by having animal soft toys that toddlers need to collect or telling a story that they are in the jungle and have to balance along a log and jump over a river and run away from the tiger!
Variations
Make it easier
- Keep the obstacles small and easy to complete (e.g., walking and crawling only)
Make it harder
- Introduce harder obstacles that require more coordination and skill (e.g., “tightrope” walking along a line of tape)
Activity information
Age: 0-12 months, 1-2 years
Participants: 1
+
Equipment: Pillow (optional), Tunnel (optional), Plush teddy or toy (optional), Balance pods (optional)
Duration: 10 minutes
Skill focus
Explore these skills for teaching tips
Activity summary
Physical literacy tips
- Let children choose which obstacles to complete
- Introduce a fun story! We are pirates trying to find the treasure on a deserted island...
- Make it groovy, add some music for children to enjoy
