Little Explorers: Exercise in early years

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Little Explorers: Exercise in early yearsThe definitive guide to active learning in early years

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A child’s early years are a critical time for establishing healthy lifestyles and promoting exercise both at home and in an early years setting. Providing good resources, relevant activities and positive attitudes is essential in laying the foundations for healthy lifestyles.

? Recent decades have seen an alarming rise in childhood obesity, and it seems like an epidemic that is only going to get worse. It is thought that this rise is due to the increase in exposure to technology being used to keep children entertained. Almost 1/3 of under fives have their own tablet. The good news is that young babies and children will naturally want to play, and can often be described as ‘always on the go’ so it’s important to reinforce this.

Research shows that boosting the activity levels of the under 5s has a massively positive outcome on their future health – including a reduced risk of diabetes and heart disease.

Why do we need to worry about the exercise levels of the little ones in our care?

Surely babies and toddlers are well known for being instinctively ever-active?

This eGuide offers activities and resources to promote physical activity across early years and how to help parents encourage their child to take part in exercise at home.


Ofsted will be looking for how well a setting promotes and encourages good health through exercise and healthy eating. Ofsted are most likely to look at:

• How the setting encourages physical exercise

• What resources are available to children

• How well areas and resources are used across the setting

• How you communicate with parents on how they can promote exercise

What Ofsted are looking for

As exercise varies greatly between different age groups it’s important to make sure that resources and activities are inclusive.

• Soft toys

• Relaxing music

• Mats and blankets


Pre-walkers (0-12 months) Babies should be encouraged to be active at various points of each day. Those working with very young infants will have a good enough ratio to be able to time this individually for each baby’s needs. There are lots of ideas to experiment with - even before they can crawl they can grasp, reach, pull and push. Health professionals are increasingly encouraging tummy time too, which involves stretching their abdominals, neck, lower back and arms – said to be great for both physical and cognitive development.

RESouRcES

Here’s how to promote exercise for...

Tummy time – Simply lie them on their front, whilst supervised. Start doing this for a minute, and increase times as they get stronger.

Building with blocks (for grasping) – Use various sized blocks so they use all the different muscles associated with fine motor skills.

Playing catch (with a soft toy) – Which can be a really social activity too, as they’ll learn about turn-taking.

Using malleable materials such as playdough (with constant supervision as they can be a choking hazard) – make your own playdough and include different colours using food colourings, and textures, to make it more appealing.

AcTiviTy

4 5

2

3

• Trikes, bikes and

safety helmets

• Soft toys and balls

• cones

• Beanbags

RESouRcES

Include counting games into your daily routine, e.g. how many steps to the sink or window? Or throwing a number of beanbags at a cone etc.

They could also time, for instance, how long they can balance on one leg for. You can help them time things by counting with them, using an egg-timer, or a stopwatch.

You can incorporate literacy links; think about the vocabulary you’ll be improving upon. Encourage them to use interesting descriptive verbs and adjectives in their active play, e.g. ‘running fast’.

Look at some ball-themed books, such as Kicking a Ball, by Allan Ahlberg (Puffin).

AcTiviTy


Little walkers (12 months - 2.5 years)The NHS guidelines recommend around 3 hours of activity a day for toddlers. The Early Years Foundation Stage is increasingly being used by teachers of older children as a sound document to draw from when it comes to trying to incorporate more activity through everyday learning. Recently various settings have said that Ofsted are increasingly looking at outside provision, and a big part of this focus is linked to the importance being placed on getting young children active.


Pre-schoolers (2.5 – 4 years)As children reach their pre-school years, they’ll inevitably be spending more time outside, whatever the weather! They’ll also become more independent in their decision-making and can even help to devise their own smaller exercise-based games.

Encourage them to be active throughout all areas of learning, and help them to develop a love for the feeling that being active gives their bodies.

Exercise can prove to be a great starting point for some work in science-based and “Understanding of the World” areas.

For instance, link in with learning about their bodies and healthy food awareness.

Consider setting up a wall display on healthy and not-so healthy foods with older children. Use food packaging and pictures from magazines to Illustrate.

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• Plenty of balls of

different textures

and sizes

• Fun music to dance to

• Stop watches for

timing, e.g. running

and balancing

• Bats

• Ribbons to dance with

• Low benches

• Have plenty of books

with action rhymes


AcTiviTy

Set up a low level obstacle course for the children to move around. Older children can help you to decide what should be included. Discuss how they can move on their feet, knees, tip toes etc.

Throwing - Help them to explore different ways of throwing. Choose larger balls and sponge balls for the under threes. As their muscles develop encourage them to throw balls into hoops etc.

Stretching - When the children are ’warm’ it is good to find ways of slowly stretching the body. Changing the body’s dimensions e.g. stretching tall and thin and then becoming small and compact.

Moving about space - Simple, aerobic exercise such as walking, jogging or running around an area. Children should be encouraged to travel around the space using many different pathways showing a growing awareness of others. Encourage them also to experiment with different ways of travelling – running, jumping, hopping etc.

Have the children paint pictures or create their favourite foods on paper plates with tissue paper, e.g. peas.

In expressive art and design, you can make a skeleton together, pointing to different parts of the body. Children can also draw a self-portrait, showing themselves partaking in an activity that they enjoy.

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Talking to parents about exerciseIt’s important to involve parents in promoting exercise and helping to extend a child’s learning and development in this area.

Find out what the parents think of the resources you use for exercise.

Is there anything in particular they do at home that isn’t yet an option at the setting?

Ask parents whether their children are active at home?

Do they enjoy playing or going to the park?

To really get parents involved invite them to a sports day or a planned activity that involves exercise at the nursery e.g. “Stay and Play”.

There are also lots of parent-child exercise classes but it’s also important to allow plenty of time for children to create their own play, and to have the freedom to initiate what they do. To support this parents should be encouraged to provide resources such as balls and beanbags that are easily accessible to them, to encourage them to be outside as much as possible and be a great role model, showing how adults also love to get out and be active.

www.theguardian.com/education/2015/oct/06 /third-pre-school-children-have-own-ipad-study

www.bhfactive.org.uk/earlyyearsguidelines/index.html

www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-14080072

REFEREncES And SuPPoRT

www.tts-group.co.uk

www.earlyyearsdirect.com

www.hope-education.co.uk

www.earlyyearsresources.co.uk

uSEFuL RESouRcE WEBSiTES

F I N I S H

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Dr James HuntingtonManaging Director

James is the Founder and Managing Director at LearningBook. His close involvement in the early years education sector and background in computer science, help lay the foundations for LearningBook to become one of the UK’s favourite and most trusted Digital Learning Journey providers.

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Little Explorers: Exercise in early years

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