Physical activity is vital for children’s all-round healthy development. Children are now beginning to bounce back from the ill-effects of the pandemic, after months spent indoors with restricted daily movement activities, poor diets and disrupted sleep routines.
Practitioners can lay the foundations for healthy bodies and social and emotional wellbeing by offering children repeated and varied access to opportunities to develop their gross motor skills – through balance, core strength, stability, spatial awareness and co-ordination.
Dr Lala Manners of Active Matters, who was part of a team that wrote the physical development Principles into Practice section of Development Matters, says, ‘Children’s health, at this point, is critical. Regardless of the early learning goals and the curriculum, getting children to move their bodies, through whatever means they enjoy and is developmentally appropriate, should be a key aim for early years professionals over the coming months.’
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