Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer Gross Motor Activities

Christmas happens to be one of our favorite times of the year! There are so many wonderful theme and books to read. I’m happy to be back doing the Storybook Advent! It has been fun to do these each year. Plus we are excited about the theme of Rudolph the Red-Nose Reindeer! Today I have a really fun gross motor activity to go with the book.

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I was so excited about a recent visit to the bookstore to get us a new version of the story: Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and we also got the second book Rudolph Shines Again. Both are tons of fun to read.

One of my favorite things to do is to change up how to read the books. I’m always looking for a craft or activity we can do with it. And my girls just love when we do a gross motor activity for it! Wat gross motor and a book? Yup, it works great. Plus it makes for a great indoor activity while things are getting cold outside.

Last year we did the Polar Express and we loved it! I can see us adding to my gross motor book activities as the years go on.

It is a simple way to get more out of the book for the kids who don’t sit still.

The Gross Motor Movements

When I come up with the movements I don’t want long complicated ones. I want something simple you can do while reading the book. Since my girls are older now we each take turns reading the pages. It means that I get involved with the activities as well.

You can also something you can change up each time you read the book. One time you might do the movement every time you hear the word. Or maybe you just or the movement one time.

Rudolph

Rudolph, we wanted to do something for that bright shiny nose. I thought it would be fun to jump in the air spreading out our arms and legs and like the light shining from his red nose.

Reindeer The movement is simple, you do your best prancing around the room. It is fun to see what their idea of prancing is.

The Sleigh
For this movement, we sat on the floor shaking our pretend reins and leans to the right or left. It was fun to have them sit and tell them to lean right or left and watch them change things up.

Santa
Santa is a fun movement because there are so many you could do. The first option is to shake like Santa belly. The second choice is to be Santa climbing up and down the chimney. Each of the movements is fun and you could change which you do as you read the book.

Fog
We did a few different movements for the fog and storm. You can move your arms around side to side or you could move them around in any direction like a dark stormy night. It is fun to see how creative kids can be with their movements.

Elves
The elves movements are small and simple with just the arms. You pretend to wrap gifts or build toys. The wrapping movement can be moving the arms across the body. The building toy movement is pretending you have a hammer to pound in nails. You can do one hand at a time or do both together.

Kids
We jumped up and down like excited kids on Christmas morning. It is fun to see how high they can jump.

Other movements to consider:

• gifts
• bells
• games
• tree
• snow

A lot of these same movements can be used with other Christmas books! You can also check out these other gross motor movements on 3 Dinosaurs:

• Spinning and Prancing Christmas Themed Gross Motor Dice
• Snowy Winter Gross Motor Dice for Indoor Fun
• 10 Lords a Leaping: Jumping Activities

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