Thursday, May 07, 2009
This is a great time of year here in Minnesota. Nice enough for the kids to spend most of the day outdoors without being too hot or too cold and it's too early for the annual onslaught of mosquitos. The kids I care for, love to be outdoors and be able to run and play. It is great to promote physical development and a healthy, fit lifestyle.
Kids need exercise just as much as they need books. In fact, teaching physical skills helps kids learn better throughout their school day. Many studies suggest a link between a child's overall health and learning. Physical fitness can affect everything from a child's behavior to his ability to focus on tasks. Movement is a basic fact of a young child's makeup. Early childhood expert Mimi Chenfeld says it best: "Moving is as natural to learning as breathing is to living."
However, just like you do with older kids, you may need to encourage preschoolers to get enough physical play. The National Association for Sport and Physical Education suggests the following fitness guidelines for young children.
- Toddlers should accumulate 30 minutes of structured physical activity daily.
- Preschoolers should accumulate 60 minutes of structured physical activity daily.
- Both preschoolers and toddlers should engage in at least 60 minutes and up to several hours of unstructured physical activity daily.
- Young children should not be sedentary for more than 60 minutes at time, except when sleeping.
The best way to get a child up and moving is to do it with them. It's great fun, and not that hard to incorporate exercise into the time you spend with your child. You don't need to enroll her in lots of classes and sports to encourage a healthy lifestyle. So what should you do to promote physical development?
Provide structured play... Small children need help learning motor skills. They must go through several developmental steps to learn how to coordinate their movements into efficient running, throwing, catching, and the like. "There is a common misconception that if you kick kids out to play, they will learn" on their own, says Jackie Goodway, Ph.D., an associate professor of motor development and elementary physical education pedagogy at Ohio State University. "But it's like reading–if you don't teach them, provide feedback, and offer them appropriate opportunities to practice and learn," they won't become proficient at those skills.
Provide age-appropriate toys and equipment, such as a wiffle ball and a fat plastic bat instead of a heavy wooden one. If you do enroll your child in a movement class, make sure it is appropriate for his developmental level. Kids this age are not ready for team sports, and they should not spend time waiting for their turn on the sidelines–instead of one ball and 10 kids, for example, each child should have her own ball.
Actively play with the kids... try some of the following:
- Tag or chase: For variety, hop, waddle, or dance instead of running
- Catch or kickball (experiment with balls of different sizes and textures)
- Swimming or other water play, such as running in a sprinkler or washing the car
- Crawling through a cardboard-box tunnel
- Use music to inspire movement, Dancing: Add scarves or ribbons to make it more exciting
- Balancing: Have your child walk on a piece of string or tape, a low beam or plank at the playground, or a homemade balance beam.
- Playing pretend: Kids boost gross motor skills when they use their bodies to become waddling ducks, stiff-legged robots, galloping horses, soaring planes—whatever their imagination conceives!
- Riding tricycles, scooters, and other ride-on toys; pulling wagons or pushing large trucks or shopping carts.
- Building and navigating obstacle courses–indoors with furniture, pillows, boxes, blankets; outdoors with rocks, logs, or playground equipment.
- Swinging, sliding, and climbing at a playground or indoor play space
Physical fitness equipment doesn't need to be expensive. Here are some great ideas on things that you can make yourself. So get those kids moving! They will have fun and you might enjoy it as well.
