Summer time is an optimal time to explore gross motor development, as you are likely to engage your children in many more outdoors or physical activities than you might during the rest of the year. Running, climbing, swinging, and kicking balls are natural ways for children to develop the large muscle groups in the arms and legs.
However, it’s important to also remember to work on the common core… That very important set of core muscles that we all share. These muscles help keep us upright, maintain balance, and more. In recent years, this muscle group needs more attention and practice than in the past.
Developmental Milestones Redefined
Since 1992, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommends that infants sleep on their backs to prevent SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome). This announcement, and the subsequent “back is best” campaign heralded a sharp decrease in the number of SIDS-related deaths (MMWR 1996). However, pediatricians began to notice a new parallel trend; infants and young children now reach developmental milestones later than they had in the past.
When an infant sleeps on his back, he does not get to employ or strengthen his neck, back, or stomach muscles as fast as a child who sleeps on his stomach. As a result, infants have weaker neck and core muscles and reach developmental milestones later. In response, the AAP changed (delayed) the timeline of its developmental milestones to compensate for the effects of back sleeping.
Redefining Early Childhood Expectations
Since around the same time period (1990s), the American approach to early childhood education has changed. In general, we now expect very young children to sit longer and learn more when they are much younger. But our children are physically much less capable of sitting longer or learning more because they simply haven’t yet developed the core muscle strength to do so. Therefore it’s important for you to integrate core muscle strengthening exercise into your classroom.
Two Activities for Strengthening the Common Core Muscles
Really Awesome Relay Races
These activities help children strengthen their core muscles as well as the muscles of their shoulders and necks.
Materials:
– Cones (to mark the start, finish, and lanes of the track)
– Balls, around 10 inches or larger (one per pair of children)
Instructions:
1. Do this activity outside.
2. Designate and mark a track with a length of about 20–25 feet using cones or tape. You may want a smaller track for younger children or a longer track for older or stronger children.
3. Divide the children into pairs that will race against each other in a number of relay styles.
4. Relay 1: The Wheelbarrow Race
Demonstrate how to do the wheelbarrow: one child holds up the legs of the other child, who walks on his/her hands. The pairs must work as a team. All the pairs get into wheelbarrow formation and stand at the starting line. They race from the start to the other end of the track, then the pairs switch roles—the child walking on his/her hands now holds the feet of his/her partner to race back to the starting line.
5. Relay 2: The Crabwalk Race
Demonstrate how to walk like a crab: sit on the ground, lean back on your hands, and lift your body so that you can crawl on your hands and feet with your back facing the ground. For this race, one child from each pair stands at the starting line. Their partners stand opposite them on the other side of the track. The child at the starting line walks like crab to his/her partner. When s/he tags the partner, it’s the partner’s turn to crabwalk back to the starting line.
6. Relay 3: The Balls in the Air Race
Have one child from each pair stand on the opposite ends of the track. In this race, the children must carry the ball over their heads for one length of the track, then pass the ball to their partners. Anyone who drops the ball must pick it up and go back and start again. You can make this more challenging for older children by having them walk backwards or using side steps.
Yoga Letter of the Week
If you’re teaching PreK, you likely teach a letter of the week. Use letter yoga as a fun transitional activity before starting your letter learning. This can be a cumulative activity; start with each new letter, review letters you’ve already learned, and then finish with the new letter. Since many yoga poses directly strengthen core muscles, it is a fun way to encourage both muscle and literacy development. Be sure to spread the children out so that they don’t bump into each other.
Materials:
– Twist and Spell Exercise Cards
Instructions
1. Hold up the exercise card that shows your letter of the week. Tell them the letter and the sound that the letter makes. Explain that you’re going to do the pose while making the letter’s sound.
2. Demonstrate: show the children how to do the pose while you make the letter’s sound. Exaggerate holding the pose for as long as you can. For example, if you’re doing the letter E, take a deep breath, do the pose, and let out a long, slow, medative Eeeee sound. Hold this until your breath finishes.
3. If this is your first letter of the week, then have the children do the pose and sound several times. If not, practice doing each letter’s pose and sound this way. Finish the yoga letter session with the new letter.
4. Move on to your regularly scheduled letter-of-the-week learning activity.
Reference:
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: Morbidy and Mortality Weekly Report: October 11, 1996 / 45(40);859-863. http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00043987.htm