Young children learn abstract concepts, like distinguishing left from right, much more readily when the learning is active, engaging and playful.
This activity, we’re calling it Fancy Footwork, engaged and motivated Immy by being fun, active and interesting. It provided opportunity for her to apply her own knowledge and understanding to extend the activity and challenge herself further (and others as well – yes, she had both Dad 101 and I playing along and my parents when they came to visit). The auditory element of chanting or calling out the footwork patterns also helped to reinforce the learning taking place.
Here’s how we played our left and right game, Fancy Footwork…
I made our footprint shapes by tracing around one of Immy’s sandals to make a template. I then cut out ten red right feet and ten green left feet, labelled each left or right with a permanent marker, and laminated them.
To start off, I stuck the footprints to the floor using loops of masking tape, arranging them in a formation of single left or right feet (hops) interspersed with two feet grouped together (jumps). Immy had fun hopping and jumping her way through the arrangement, calling out ‘left,’ ‘right’ or ‘jump’ as she went.
You have to concentrate or you might wobble and wibble and lose your balance!
After several times through the arrangement, I suggested we change the formation. Immy really enjoyed challenging herself with different combinations of hops and jumps, mixing up the distances between the footsteps too.
She even got really tricky, swapping left and right to create a crossover jump challenge!
We also had fun forming dance routines like this one – you start with two feet in the middle of the first row and start the dance stepping forward left/right, then backwards left right, then extend the left foot out to the outer left footprint, then tap the right foot in place. Next move the left foot to the middle left and finish with the right foot tapping the outer right. Lots of thought and concentration went into completing that one each time!
This activity was lots of fun and I can see us revisiting it regularly.
What games or activities have you used to teach your child to distinguish left from right?
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Christie Burnett is a teacher, presenter, writer and the mother of two. She created Childhood 101 as a place for teachers and parents to access engaging, high quality learning ideas.
Great idea !! Although being ex-navy I would have the make the left one red for port, and the right one green for starboard !! (Navy terms) 🙂
Great tip, Lauren. And one my ex-Navy husband missed completely 😉
Love this idea! Am pinning it and putting it on my list to do with my first graders in september!
We always talk about left and right when we go for bike rides. Jack will now say, “which way, left or right?” I find that the constant repetition really helps internalise the concept.
I like your game though 🙂 Like a simplified twister 🙂
What a great game and looks like so much fun!!!!! Will definitely try this one.
Some adults need this I think! LOL
Great post thank you Christie and I love the way you have approached teaching this to children. It would be really helpful.
LOL I may be one of those adults, Kate 😉
Learning left and right is so tricky for kids, this is a great way of teaching it with play.
It is a really hard concept for children to learn. I love that the physical action, chanting and repetition of this game all work together to make the abstract so much more accessible for children.