Activities for
Crossing the Midline

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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!

Elsewhere on my site I have explained what midline crossing is, and why it is an important part of your child's development. So this page is all about practical ways to facilitate this development.

In all of these activities, the focus is on helping your child cross the midline spontaneously, in the course of the activity, so it is important to pay attention to the tips I give about positioning etc. Have fun!

tips and activities to help your child cross the midline

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

kneeling can help stabilize the lower body for an activity involving trunk rotation in kidsKneeling for stability

Throwing and Catching Across The Midline

Simple tossing and catching games can easily be adapted to encourage kids to cross their midline. In the photos below, look at how the kids are sitting cross legged to enable stability of the lower body so the trunk can rotate and enable crossing of 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.
Encouraging kids to cross their midline - thrower stands to the side to toss a ballThrower stands to the side
Encouraging kids to cross their midline - child catches a ball on the sideCatching ball to the side
Encouraging kids to cross their midline - tossing a bean bag at a targetThrowing across the midline

Simple Passing Relays

Kids love games and "relay" type games - where an object is passed along a line. To get midline crossing, have the kids pass the object from one side to the other.

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.

Encouraging kids to cross their midline - pass an object down the line relay stylePassing an object along

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.

Simple exercises for crossing the midline - sit back to back and pass an object around using both handsSit back to back
Simple exercises for crossing the midline - sit back to back and pass an object around using both handsUse both hands to pass

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Stretchy Band Exercises

Stretchy bands#Ad 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.

Using stretchy bands for a midline crossing activityStand in a circle holding the stretchy band
Using stretchy bands for a midline crossing activityMove the band rhythmically
Using stretchy bands for a midline crossing activity - crossing hand over hand rhythmicallyCross the hands as you move the band

They should be crossing the midline as they reach from side to side.

You can make your own by covering a length of elastic with fabric, or get stretchy bands of different lengths#Ad on Amazon.

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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! Draw the "Lazy 8" and then have your child 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 center of the loops, and has one hand on the board/paper for stability.

Using a "Lazy 8" / infinity loop for crossing the midlineTracing over the Lazy 8 racing track
Positioning is very important, to ensure the child crosses the midlinePositioned centrally, with one hand on board

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). 

Printable Long visual motor worksheet activities for crossing the midlinePrintable visual motor worksheets

Keep the path centered 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!

printable visual motor activity for crossing the midlineLong visual motor worksheet

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Helpful Info and More Activities for Crossing the Midline

Free Midline Crossing Info

Have you read my free 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

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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 download can help your child work on this important skill.

View my Bilateral Coordination E-Book

bilateral coordination e-book containing some midline crossing activities

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!

activities and games for crossing the midline

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