Crawling Texture Trail

A path to crawl along on all fours over different surfaces: soft fabric, squishy mats, crinkly newspaper and tickly ropes. Designed for the youngest kids, it works on crawling and the sense of touch.

How to play

1. Set up a U-shaped path: a fabric stretch, a mat stretch, a stretch of crumpled newspaper, parallel ropes and, at the end, the tunnel and 3 hoops on the floor.
2. Sitting at the start, touch each stretch with your hands and ask: "Is this soft or hard? Does it make noise?" (2 min).
3. Kids crawl one at a time, spaced out, along the whole path. After the tunnel, they put hands and knees inside each hoop (3 min).
4. Tambourine: "Now we're quiet kittens!" They crawl very slowly, trying not to crinkle the paper (2 min).
5. Tambourine: "Now we're happy puppies!" They crawl a bit faster and bark at every new texture (2 min).
6. Finish: sitting at the end of the path, each child says which stretch they liked touching most (3 min).

Rules

• Crawl on hands and knees, no standing up.
• Leave space behind the child in front.
• Don't pick up or throw the paper.
• If someone stops, wait or keep them company.

Variations

Adaptations

• Limited mobility: the child explores the textures with their hands from a wheelchair or sitting, at their own pace.
• Sensory sensitivity or autism: the child can skip a stretch they dislike and wear socks or thin gloves.
• More skilled: bear crawl without knees touching; less skilled: scoot along the textures sitting.

Learning goals

• Crawl coordinating arms and legs.
• Feel different textures with hands and knees.
• Follow a marked path.

Equipment for a class of 25

• fabric pieces: 4
• mats: 3
• newspaper: 10
• ropes: 4
• fabric tunnel: 1
• hoops: 3

Teacher tip

Check there is nothing hard under the fabric. At this age, crawling beside them motivates more than any instruction.

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