Children play Caterpillar to practice right and left.
Children move their right legs and then their left legs to walk like a giant caterpillar.
Materials
- Stickers (optional)
Preparation
- Plan how you will go over left and right with children, using your favorite way of explaining how to tell one from the other. (One suggestion is to put a sticker on children’s right hands.) Remember: Learning left and right takes repetition and practice, usually over several years!
- When you play, keep in mind that if you’re facing children, your left and right will be different from theirs. Make sure you are using the same left/right as they are.
Directions
- Tell children they are going to play a game called Caterpillar.
- Break them into groups of three or four. Have each group form a single-file line, facing forward. Each child will put both their hands on the shoulders of the child in front of them. Each group is a caterpillar!
- Model left and right for your students before beginning to play. Ask children to lift their right foot. Then have them lift their left foot. Check that everyone understands the difference between left and right.
- Tell them it’s time to move like a caterpillar! Children take a step with their right foot first, then their left, and so on. You’ll call out the moves (right, left, right, left).
- When the caterpillars have moved forward for about 30 seconds, say STOP!
- Then begin again, this time with everyone taking a step with their left foot first. Continue to start and stop the caterpillar, alternating between starting with the left and right foot.
- Play for about five minutes. Try it again several times during the week, and in the weeks to come. Repeat right/left activities frequently!