Activities for
Crossing the Midline

activities and games for crossing the midline

These fun activities for crossing the midline are easy to implement at home and come with lots of photos to show you how to help your child develop this skill!


Ball and Bean Bag Activities

Simple games with balls and bean bags can be adapted to make great activities for crossing the midline.

Start by having your child kneel or sit cross-legged on the floor as shown alongside.

This will help to stabilize the hips and legs, then the hands and arms can move freely across the midline while doing these activities

Throwing and Catching Across The Midline

Have the thrower stand slightly to the side, so the catcher must turn the upper body to catch and throw the ball.

Do this on both sides, and gradually increase the angle at from which the ball is thrown, to increase the amount of midline crossing.

You could also put a target off to the side and have your child throw a beanbag or ball at the target as shown.


Simple Passing Relays

Any object could be used, as long as the child passes and receives the object with both hands.

Make sure that they are sitting either cross-legged, or on their knees.

Back-to-Back Passing

Two kids sit back to back and pass a ball around to each other.

You could do it 5 times in each direction as a warm up for other gross motor activities.

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Visual-Motor Exercises that Cross The Midline

Lazy 8 / Infinity Loop

Using “Lazy-8”’s has long been a popular way to help a child to cross the midline.

Vertical surfaces work best - use a blackboard, whiteboard or even an outside wall!

Your child can trace over your loops with multiple different colors of chalks, or drive a toy car around the "racing track".

Very important: Make sure your child is positioned in the centre of the loops, and has one hand on the board/paper for stability.

infinity loop for crossing the midline

Long Visual Motor Worksheets

These long visual motor worksheets were a huge hit with my own kids!

You can make your own, with any pattern and theme - just draw a path for your child to follow, and then have your child trace over the path with crayons (or wipe off markers if you laminate the path). 

Keep the path centred in front of your child, and he/she will need to cross the midline to complete it.

You can view a printable version of these worksheets here, if you want to save yourself some time!

visual motor activity for crossing the midline

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Helpful Info and More Activities for Crossing the Midline

Free Midline Crossing Info

Have you read my information page on crossing the midline? It answers questions about how midline crossing develops, why it's important and much, much more.

Read More About Midline Crossing

Work on Bilateral Coordination Skills

When kids use both hands together in a coordinated way, crossing the midline often happens naturally during the activity. My bilateral coordination e-book can help your child work on this important skill.

View my Bilateral Coordination E-Book

bilateral coordination e-book containing some midline crossing activities

My OT Mom's Midline Crossing Activities E-book is in the pipeline and will hopefully launch before the end of the year! Sign up for my newsletter to hear about the launch when it happens!


Español

By popular request, I have made a Spanish handout of some of the information on my midline crossing pages.

Click here to download your freebie right away - no need to give away your email address or sign up for anything! If the PDF does not open immediately, then check your downloads folder.

Por favor, no enlazar directamente con el archivo PDF desde tu propio blog - por favor enlace a esta página. ¡Gracias!



I hope you found this page of activities helpful!

If you are looking for more midline crossing ideas and tips, please do sign up for my newsletter so you can be among the first to hear when my e-book FULL of activities for crossing the midline launches. You won't want to miss it!

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PS Have You Tried A Stretchy Band?

Stretchy bands can be used very effectively to work on midline crossing skills with a group of kids!

Have your kids stand in a circle and hold on to the stretchy band. Start clapping a beat or singing a song and have the kids move the stretchy band hand over hand around the circle in a rhythmical way.

They should be crossing the midline as they reach from side to side. You can make your own, or get them online...

This is my affiliate link to some stretchy bands on Amazon for your convenience. I may receive a small commission if you purchase something through my links but you are under no obligation to purchase anything!

View Stretchy Bands on Amazon



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