Good Night Gorilla Tip-Toe Gross Motor Activity

Good Night, Gorilla by Peggy Rathman is a simple but favorite book. In the book, a zookeeper says goodnight to the animals, but the sneaky gorilla grabs the keys and lets himself out. He helps the other animals out as well, and they follow the zookeeper to his home. For our activity, we practiced being sneaky and quiet on our tip-toes, just as the animals had been. Our tip-toe gross motor activity provided an active time after story time that was fun for all.

Sometimes we think learning moments need to be big or complex. I may think I need to plan something elaborate with printables and actual math and literacy practice. For today, we just decided to be sneaky animals. One of us would pretend to be the zookeeper and walk normally, saying “Good night!” and the others of us walked on tip-toes behind. Strawberry tried to sneak the plastic key ring from my pocket.

Now, this sound silly, and it was. Nevertheless, Strawberry was getting practice. If you’ve read my blog for any length of time, you may have noticed that she is an active character. Getting her to slow down and be quieter is a struggle. But that is just what this activity encouraged. And yet, it was an active time!

She also enjoyed the challenge of walking on tip-toes. It takes certain muscles to do so, and it was a good action. She loves to dance, and i think practicing walking on tip toes gives her muscles exercise. Unlike her normal “dancing,” this was controlled. The idea was to be quiet and not bother the zookeeper!

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See more A-Z Play at Home ideas for the letter G below.