Newsletter: PlayMove&Be with Me
A quarterly publication hosted by PlayMove&Sing Inc. sharing thoughts, views, and love for the very young children entrusted to our care.
"Raising Healthy Children"
By Sukey Molloy
"...In order to maintain a reservoir of unique creative ability in our population it is necessary to ensure a full development of the kinesthetic sensations and perceptual capacities of the brain. This development does not occur in our graduate schools, but rather in our kindergartens and child care facilities." Garland O'Quinn, Jr. PhD.
How can we address the growing concern that American children tend to be over weight, sedentary, or over active, and often have difficulty focusing and taking direction? Movement is an essential part of education for every classroom in America and may be the missing link in the current educational environment. Movement nourishes the brain, stimulates the body, and feeds the life of the feelings.
It seems that much of the trend in education today is centered on the development of the formatory side of the brain. This has to do with memorization of facts, digital and electronic relationships, math, science, and the retention of information. The need for this kind of learning is valid as the lives we lead require us to develop these skills. However, as educators, we must re-establish the critical importance of feeding both sides of the brain, ie., the formatory and the perceptual and kinesthetic sides, by helping children develop basic sensory-motor skills as part of their daily education.
The learning going on during the first three years of life, and on through the first seven, requires the integration of enormous amounts of sensory input from within each child’s own body systems. Through visual, vestibular, visceral and proprioceptive systems, young children are flooded with sensations which give them kinesthetic and perceptual information about themselves. When we pull infants and children away from attending to these inner sensations, and overload them with outer facts, we may deny them significant opportunities for learning how to integrate and organize these sensory experiences.
In moments when a child’s attention becomes distracted or dispersed, the mind loses its connection with the body and the energy pours either toward influences from the outside, or gets trapped somewhere inside. This leads to the question of behavior. What appear to be discipline issues in children may often begin as an expression of sensory overload of one kind or another. How, then, can we help children to gain a better sense of themselves amidst the stimulation and demand of connecting both the inner and outer sensory environments? More time spent at desks, or in front of computers, televisions, and video games is definitely not the answer and in fact has a devastating and looming effect on our children’s sensory-motor development and sense of self.
It is very important that we come forward to address the current need for developing sensory-motor learning activities in our schools and home environments which challenge the growth of children’s attention between the mind and the body. The learning and refinement of these skills will help raise healthy children in happy and alive educational settings, and serve to nourish both sides of each child’s unique and developing brain. We are aware that children need a variety of new, challenging and fun movement opportunities when learning how to integrate and refine movement impulses, experiences, and physical skills, both subtle and gross. Children learn through creating and repeating specific sensory-motor events which, over time, place them in a more secure and grounded orientation in themselves. Through eye contact and touch we can do a great deal to help children become centered, but this is not sufficient. We need to offer a wider range of playful and precise movement challenges in order to help children climb the ladder of their own developmental movement learning.
The movement vocabulary we learn by age ten is the one we will take through life. Just like learning to speak, to read, and do math, sensory-motor learning develops from the ground up. Infancy and early childhood are the optimum times to explore, nurture and develop motor learning awareness, thereby, creating a healthy sense of self as a focused and confident physical being. By providing infants and children with many guided physical play/skill opportunities, we stimulate their interest in kinesthetic, perceptive and cognitive learning, and nurture a feeling of, "I Can!"
We know that outdoor play and free play are still favorite parts of any child’s day, and give children much needed opportunity to move freely and to be social. Physical education classes also serve to prime the pump through directed physical activity but may be competitive and not necessarily related to exploring and refining the movements of every day life. What children need are a series of intentional and inspiring sensory-motor learning activities interspersed throughout each day, conducted in homes and classrooms directly, and presented by willing classroom teachers and adults. By helping young children learn how to connect their bodies with their thoughts and feelings, we can increase their enthusiasm for learning and help them to develop better mental focus while developing better physical skill. Guided skill/play activities send oxygen to the brain and help make neuromuscular connections and pathways which fire positive responses in the brain. This stimulates excitement for learning and an interest in taking learning farther. By adding directed movement activities to education, we provide an atmosphere of creativity and aliveness in our educational environments.
In order to bring meaningful activities like this into our schools, homes and day care facilities, teachers and parents will need to be shown the value of learning how to bring sensory-motor learning experiences to the children they serve. Adults, as well as children, feel more lively and alert once they engage in guided movement play as part of their daily routine. Movement activities can be used as a window to learning math concepts, developing language and reading skills, enhancing imaginative play, and as a return to the inner world of sensation. Through playful means, movement stimulates learning, and gives children, "...skills to take through life!"