Locomotor Movements in PE: The 9 Key Skills, Benefits, and Tips for Teaching Them
Updated: Oct 26
Watch a kindergarten class come into the gym and you'll see it right away: kids would much rather skip, hop, and gallop than walk. Locomotor movements are the skills that carry the body from one place to another, and they're the starting point for almost everything we teach in physical education. A strong foundation in locomotor skills helps students build fitness, coordination, and the confidence to stay active for life.
In this post, I'll explain what locomotor movements are, walk through the nine I teach most, share the benefits, and give you practical tips and activities for teaching locomotor skills in your PE classes. Let's get moving!
Quick Answer: Locomotor movements are skills that move the body from one place to another, like walking, running, galloping, skipping, sliding, jumping, hopping, and leaping. Teach them by demonstrating each one, breaking it into simple cues, and giving students lots of practice in fun activities like tag games, relays, and obstacle courses.
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What Are Locomotor Movements?
Locomotor movements are movements that travel the body from one place to another. They include walking, running, skipping, hopping, and jumping, along with skills like slide stepping, leaping, and galloping. With regular practice, kids improve at these movements quickly, and you can see the difference from the first week of a unit to the last.
These fundamental motor skills are the building blocks for sports, games, fitness, and dance. Students also combine them into movement sequences and dance routines. Put simply, locomotor movements are the foundation that more complex skills are built on, and they pair naturally with non-locomotor movements and manipulative skills.
Benefits of Teaching Locomotor Movements
When students build locomotor skills in PE, they get a lot more than practice moving from place to place. Here are some of the biggest benefits:
Better cardiovascular health: Locomotor movements get the heart pumping and blood flowing. Over time, that builds a healthy heart and lowers the risk of heart disease, stroke, and high blood pressure later in life. My cardio in PE post has more ideas.
Inside/Outside: Around the World (the outside partner performs a locomotor movement around the gym)
Stronger muscles: Locomotor movements work the muscles of the lower body, especially the legs, glutes, and hips, which improves overall fitness and performance.
Better coordination and balance: Moving the arms, legs, and trunk together builds coordination, balance, and body control, which also lowers the risk of injury. Check out my balance in PE post for more.
An active lifestyle: Kids who feel good about how they move are more likely to stay active, and regular activity supports mental health, lowers stress, and boosts overall well-being.
Creativity: Students can mix locomotor movements into their own combinations, which gives them a fun way to express themselves through movement.
Confidence: Mastering a skill like skipping or leaping gives kids a real sense of accomplishment, and that confidence carries into sports, dance, and play.
Social skills: Locomotor activities work great in groups, giving students chances to interact, work as a team, and communicate with classmates.
Power Shuttle Fitness: Locomotor Movement and Strength Exercises
Do Locomotor Movement Activities Help Meet PE Standards?
Yes! Locomotor activities are one of the most direct ways to support district, state, and national PE standards. They connect to SHAPE America's Standard 1: Develops a variety of motor skills. And as students apply movement concepts like pathways, levels, and speed while they travel, they also work toward Standard 2: Applies knowledge related to movement and fitness concepts.
What Are the Most Common Locomotor Movements in PE?
Basic locomotor skills move the body from one place to another within a space. Here are the nine locomotor movements I teach most often in physical education:
Walking
Walking moves the body by shifting weight from one foot to the other in a smooth, steady pattern, with one foot always on the ground. It's one of the most basic physical activities, and it uses almost every muscle group in the body.
Running
Running uses faster, longer strides than walking, with a moment when both feet are off the ground. It raises the heart rate and breathing, builds endurance, and strengthens muscles. Cue students to stand tall, keep their arms and shoulders relaxed, and keep their eyes forward.
Galloping
Galloping is a traveling movement where the same foot always leads and the back foot catches up to it without ever passing it. Galloping works the hip flexors, quadriceps, and other leg muscles.
Skipping
Skipping combines a step and a hop on the same foot, alternating between the left and right foot. It builds coordination, balance, agility, and cardiovascular endurance. It's also one of the trickier skills for younger students, so be patient!
Slide Stepping (Sliding)
Slide stepping (sliding) moves the body sideways. The lead foot steps out to the side and the trailing foot slides over to meet it, with both feet always moving in the same direction. It takes good coordination and balance, and it's a key defensive skill in many sports.
Jumping
Jumping means taking off from two feet and landing on two feet. It builds balance, power, and coordination while strengthening the leg muscles.
Hopping
Hopping means taking off from one foot and landing on that same foot. It builds agility, coordination, and body awareness, along with leg strength on each side.
Leaping
Leaping means taking off from one foot and landing on the other, stretching out for more distance and height than a running step. It takes more strength, agility, and coordination than walking or running, with a strong push off the ground.
Crab Walking
Crab walking starts from a seated position with hands and feet on the floor and hips lifted. Students move by alternating hands and feet, a bit like walking on all fours facing up. It builds coordination, balance, and core and upper body strength.
These are nine of the most common locomotor movements students practice in PE. Others include rolling, crawling, animal walks, and riding a scooter board. Mixing different locomotor skills into your activities and games keeps students active and engaged.
The cue posters shown above are available on TPT.
Tips for Teaching Locomotor Movements
Teaching locomotor skills can be a lot of fun for you and your students. Here are a few tips that have worked well for me:
Demonstrate the movements: Show each movement yourself first so students can see what it looks like done correctly.
Break it down: Teach each movement in small parts. For running, start with posture, then add the arm swing, and finally the leg action.
Practice often: Give students lots of chances to practice. Regular practice builds skill and confidence.
Make it fun: Once students have practiced a skill, put it into a game or activity, like tag games or an obstacle course.
We practiced locomotor movements in personal and general space so students learned to move safely and in control.
Four Corner Fitness: Locomotor Movements, Corner to Corner
10 Ways to Use Locomotor Movement Activities in PE
There are lots of ways to work locomotor movement into your PE classes. Here are ten of my favorites:
Warm-ups: Use jogging, skipping, and jumping jacks to get heart rates up and bodies ready to move.
Relay races: Have teams race while running, hopping, galloping, or using other locomotor movements.
Obstacle courses: Design courses where students jump over hurdles, crawl under obstacles, and run through cones.
Indoor Speed and Agility: Obstacle Course
Dance routines: Build simple dances that include skipping, hopping, sliding, and running.
Circuit training: Set up fitness stations with movements like running in place, jumping jacks, and high knees.
Tag games: Change the way players travel, like hopping or galloping, to make tag more challenging.
Sport-specific drills: Use running and sliding drills that connect to sports like soccer and basketball.
Fitness testing: Measure time or distance for locomotor tasks, like a one-mile run or a timed hop.
Cross-training: Mix several locomotor movements into a workout to build overall fitness.
Cool-downs: End class with slower movements, like walking or light jogging, to bring heart rates down.
Final Thoughts
Locomotor movements are one of the most important things we teach in physical education. They build cardiovascular health, coordination, muscle strength, and social skills, and they set students up for success in every game, sport, and activity that follows. Working these skills into your lessons is one of the best ways to keep students active and engaged.
With the tips and activities in this post, you can help your students become more skilled and confident movers. From warm-ups to tag games, there are endless ways to bring locomotor movement into your PE curriculum. If you'd like a ready-made plan, my Locomotor Movements & Activities Unit has 10 K-5 lesson plans, and the Locomotor & Non-Locomotor PE Bundle covers both skill sets.
How do you teach locomotor movements in your PE classes? Share your ideas in the comments below! I'd love to hear how you get your students moving.
Check out my post on non-locomotor skills: Non-Locomotor Movements in PE: Definitions, 2024 Standards, and the Top 10 Skills to Teach.
Need Resources?
Do you need simple, easy-to-read locomotor movement visuals for your gym or bulletin board? If so, here's a set to help!
Fill in the form below to download the Locomotor Movement: Top 10 Movement Visuals, Simple Large Print Design for your teaching area. This set is a simple, large-print, kid-friendly visual package of commonly taught locomotor skills. Use the signs on your bulletin boards and gym walls, or as visual aids during your daily lessons.
This freebie visual set will boost your PE curriculum for years!
Need More Resources to Help with Your Teaching?
The Locomotor Movement Poster Bundle shown throughout this post includes 9 posters with cues for crab walking, galloping, hopping, jumping, leaping, running, skipping, slide stepping, and walking. Cap'n Pete's PE Poster Bundle: Locomotor Movement, 9 Movement Cue Posters breaks down the steps for each movement. The skills are standards-based and important for students to master to succeed in PE games and activities and in lifetime sports.
You can find this bundle (or the individual posters) in my Teachers Pay Teachers store: PE Posters for a Bulletin Board or Gym Wall: Locomotor Movement Resource Bundle
About Pete Charrette
Pete Charrette is a National Board Certified physical education teacher and former Georgia PE Teacher of the Year with more than 30 years of experience teaching elementary PE. He is the creator of Cap'n Pete's Power PE and has developed more than 1,000 PE and health resources used by teachers around the world. Pete loves helping PE teachers build programs their students enjoy.
