Moving little ones. Part 2

As promised in my previous blog, I have dedicated this entry to posting about some neat and useful resources that exist.

The good news is, even though we lack specific Canadian guidelines on physical activity for children younger than the age of five, we actually have a plethora of resources out there about getting this age group moving.

First I would encourage you to check out the Canadian Sport for Life (CS4L) website. Part of this movement is to encourage strong physical literacy in younger children, before they even try sports. They have a whole staged devoted to children from 0-6 titled “Active Start”.

The focus of this stage is to simply encourage these kiddies to learn to move their body in different ways and in different places, especially during unstructured play. The goal is to help these children learn to control their body, develop locomotor skill (i.e. rolling, crawling, and catching and rolling a ball). Basically to help lay the foundation for strong physical literacy.

You can also refer to the Active for Life website, which I believe is a dedicated spin-off from CS4L to focus on physical literacy. This website is focused towards parents, but also very useful for those working with children as well. You will find the website fun and easy to use.

Another great resource that is full of ideas is A Hop, Skip and a Jump: Enhancing Physical Literacy. This resource will give you ideas of games and activities to lead kids through. What all these resources emphasis is that with younger children physical activity is all about learning to move their body. So when they are old enough to plays sports, the emphasis should never be on competitiveness but rather on skill development.

All resources encourage a blend of structured (i.e. playing sport) and unstructured (active play which does not adhere to rules, time lines), although most put an emphasis on unstructured play.

Also, all the resources encourage adults to be involved (even during unstructured play), to help provide feedback, to model the physical movement, and to help make the activity enjoyable.

To wrap up, I encourage you to watch this video on Active Play.