Now that your students have been doing Alligator Crawl for a few weeks, teach your students to stay low and go. By teaching them to stay low, it will encourage them to keep their chest and chin down and it will help them to stay off of their elbows. 

We encourage the students to stay low because as they are Alligator Crawling, their body is getting lots of heavy proprioceptive and tactile input to the whole front of their body. ​

​Alligator Crawling helps develop the tactile system by providing tactile input to the whole front of the body and the undersides of the arms. The tactile system receives information about the world. For example, it tells us when we are in contact with danger, it allows us to know when, where and what is touching us and it also measures temperature, pressure and vibration. When we are able to processes tactile information effectively, it allows us to feel safe and to bond with those who love us.

Every so often as you are scrolling through items on Teachers Pay Teachers, you find a gem. Recently, we found simple Creep Track cards in Mrs. Russell's Bright Learners store! Her monthly themed cards are easy to download and a brilliant way to change the decorations in your room if you are running short on time. We love her bright fall themed October bundle with letters and numbers! AND they double as flashcards to use during centers.
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​When using a Creep Track, we are helping our students develop their Gross Motor and Bilateral Coordination skills because they are using both sides of their body at the same time. This increases the dendrite connections between the Left and Right Hemispheres of the brain. These connections help when we are reading, writing and doing math. See One S.M.A.R.T. Teacher for more information on how Creeping helps develop the vision system.
 
Check out Mrs Russells Bright Learners Teachers Pay Teachers store to find her Creep Track All Year Bundle.

Looking for ways to have your child crawl on their hands and knees at home? Here are some ideas:

• while playing
• under furniture, like a table
• through boxes
• over pillows
• into a fort
• while playing hide and seek

While the Creep Track helps develop Gross Motor and Bilateral Coordination skills (see our Time Saving Tips for more information), it’s also a Vision Activity. When students watch their hands or look at the pictures or words in the Creep Track, they are working on saccadic eye movements - the precise jumps the eyes make as they move from one item to the next. We use this Learning Readiness Skill when we get to the end of a line of text while reading and our eyes jump to the next line, so we can continue. This activity also helps students connect their motor and vision systems.
 
By keeping the Creep Track cards review material, Mrs. Russell’s students don’t have to use their cortex to decode the information, but are able to stimulate their brainstem, making their saccadic eye movements instant and automatic.