Children need daily physical activity to develop strong muscles and bones. This activity can be moderate like walking.
Encourage your kids to play outside as much as possible and go on regular walks. At nursery Bearsden, they will need their immune system to be in the best possible condition, and keeping children active can boost this.
Encourage Physical Activity
For young children, regular physical activity is vital to their overall health. It promotes healthy weight, strengthens muscles and bones and helps to establish a good routine.
Pre-schoolers should be physically active every day for at least 180 minutes (3 hours) of moderate to vigorous activity, with most of this occurring during play. This includes light physical activity that doesn’t noticeably increase their breathing or heart rate and activities that strengthen muscles and bones (like jumping, dancing and playing on the jungle gym).
Encourage Learning Through Movement
Adding movement to lessons is an effective way to engage students and improve learning outcomes. It is a great tool to use with all kids, regardless of their level of physical fitness. It only takes a little extra time and can be easily adapted to each student’s abilities.
Children need to move throughout the day to learn. Encouraging them to be active at school, before and after school, on weekends and during vacations helps establish a healthy routine that could stay with them for life.
One of the biggest things that adults can do to help their kids develop a positive relationship with movement is to avoid shaming them or saying they are moving “wrong.” This sends a message that they need to earn or deserve to move, which can lead to a negative connection and resentment of activity.
Outdoor Play
Children love to explore and discover the world around them. Outdoor play gives kids a chance to do that in an unstructured way, allowing them to use their senses and creativity to amuse themselves. This can be as simple as playing in the mud, making a fort or collecting leaves and sticks to sort and paint back at home.
Outdoor activities also allow kids to develop gross and fine motor skills by climbing, jumping, running and kicking. In fact, research shows that spending time outdoors helps to improve a child’s motor coordination and physical strength, while increasing their overall body weight and immune function.
Indoor Play
Consider introducing your child to organised sport at an early age. Many sports offer modified classes for young children, including football, gymnastics and dance.
However, not every child will want to do this and it is important to differentiate between encouragement and forcing them to do things they do not enjoy. Therefore, encourage indoor play instead.
Staging a scavenger hunt is another great way for kids to improve coordination, balance and problem-solving skills. Make sure you provide clues, and your child can use the list of objects they’re looking for to cross them off as they find them.