Skill shelf · knowing where you are without looking · 5 activities
Body Awareness and Position Sense
Five where the eyes stop helping: feet reading a rope through a sock, a hand held still, feet standing on something they cannot see.
Balance is staying up. This is knowing where your own feet and hands are while you do it, which is a different question and mostly a quieter one. Four of these five also sit on balance and coordination, and the thing that moves them onto this shelf is not the equipment. It is what gets asked for.
Take the taped floor track. Walked normally, it is a balance activity and the eyes do most of the steering. Ask for the same walk with her head up and her eyes on the far wall, and the feet have to find the tape on their own. That is the whole switch. The rope path goes further and closes the eyes altogether, so a foot reads an eight to twelve millimetre rope through a sock while a voice says what is coming next. The blindfold on that one is optional and always has been, which is worth saying out loud before it appears.
The two at the top of the shelf are the same trick with the ground taken away. A board that rocks a centimetre asks the whole body to go quiet enough to hold a coin still on the back of a hand. Two upturned tins put the feet somewhere they cannot see, and a rope in each hand becomes the only way of knowing the tins are still under them.
The five
Ordered by the age they suit best, from three to eight. Each line gives the setup, the play time and how much space it wants.
- Balance Board Coin Steady Your child stands on a board that rocks slightly and tries to keep a coin still on the back of her hand, which means the whole body has to go quiet. no setup · 5 to 10 min · household, or a bought set
- Blindfold Rope Path Walk Your child follows a rope laid along the floor with her eyes closed, finding the turns with her feet while your voice tells her what is coming. 2 min · 5 to 10 min · household only
- Painters Tape Floor Balance Track Your child walks a line of tape stuck to the floor without stepping off it, then does it again carrying something. 4 min · 10 to 20 min · one substitute needed
- Balance Beam Coin Carry Your child walks a taped line heel to toe carrying a small stack of coins on a saucer, and discovers that the only way across is slowly. 2 min · 5 to 10 min · household only
- Bucket Stilts Balance Track Your child stands on two upturned tins, holds a rope in each hand to keep them under her feet, and walks a taped line across the garden. 15 min, once · 10 to 20 min · household only
All five are tape, rope and tins. The stilts take a quarter of an hour to build once and then live by the back door.