Did you know children need at least 1 & 1/2 hours (90 minutes) of vigorous physical activity a day?
Physical Activity is important to everyone; especially young children.
It helps to maintain a healthy body. It develops, builds and strengthens the fine and gross motor muscles. There is also a link between physical activity and good mental health.
Children will also develop spatial awareness. That means how their bodies move in relation to things in their immediate surroundings. It's being able to move about without tripping over a chair leg or walking into the corner of a table.
So muscle growth and spatial awareness is developed through physical activity.
At Wee Beginnings Nursery School we incorporate physical activity into many areas of our program.
We incorporate physical activity in our lessons. When we teach a concept, we use gross motor/active games for the child to learn and to reinforce what they learned. For example, when we teach letters, we teach two letters at one time. One game we do children will learn one action for each letter; then we will play a game with flash cards: when they see the letter they do that action. It's a fun game, and we laugh through it.
We include 'gym' time in each program. You've heard me mention our Red Running Ring; that's part of our gym time. We spread our running ring out and play 'dance' music. The children will run. And run. And run. And run. Then we do our exercises and 'yoga' stretches, and then do some fun activity like balance on a balance beam, or do an obstacle course, or bat balls around... we have lots of fun.
We include physical activity in our social times (play time), such as basket ball.
We also go outside as much as we can; where we can kick a ball or have races or play follow the leader or go to one of the many parks around us.
I think, if your child goes home tired, s/he' had a great day!! (I do apologize if their grumpy)
