Tunnels Activity
Create an indoor tunnel with tamariki to support problem-solving, negotiation and imagination. Crawling, climbing and reaching support body awareness and strengthen muscles. Tunnels enable cooperative, fun games the whole whānau can play.
Why do it?
- Children enjoy creating new environments and activities using everyday household materials.
- It’s a way of providing for large muscle play indoors. It’s especially good on really cold or wet days when they can’t get outside to ‘blow off steam’.
- Once inside the tunnel, being hidden away from others offers lots of scope for using their imagination.
How to do it
You need some:
- large boxes or cartons with the ends folded in to make a tunnel
- chairs
- cushions
- blankets or sheets.
- With your child, arrange the cartons end to end so they form a tunnel. Add in chairs with blankets draped over them to make the tunnel longer. Cushions can be used to block off any gaps in the tunnel ‘walls’.
- Help them get involved in deciding what goes where.
- A small window can be added by cutting a three sided flap in one of the carton walls, this lets the window both open and close.
- Encourage them to try going through the tunnel. Mix it up, try going forwards and backwards, on your back on your puku, with eyes open and then shut.
