April is here along with--spring fever! You may have noticed your child’s energy level is elevated, and it is more important than ever to ensure your child is physically active each day. Often children explore their world with their bodies and express ideas and feelings through movement. They find joy in physical activity that can include Locomotive Skills such as running, skipping, hopping, crawling, leaping, sliding, jumping, and galloping or Manipulate Object Skills such as throwing, catching, kicking, bouncing, and rolling.

Your example of being physically active will have a positive influence on your child’s own level of physical activity. Sharing physical activities together is healthy for you both, as well as fun! With the fluctuating April weather—possibly a warm summer-like day followed by a cold day with snowflakes swirling, be sure to offer your child a wide variety of indoor and outdoor opportunities to move their body!

Tip: After your child has been physically active, suggest they stop, close their eyes, and feel their heart beating. Ask if their heart is beating faster than usual, and explain that their heart is a muscle that needs exercise to stay healthy and strong.

Benefits of Physical Movement:

• Builds physical strength
• Improves balance
• Increases confidence
• Promotes body awareness and coordination
• Improves skills
• Reduces stress
• Enhances creativity
• Encourages setting goals & taking on challenges

To Encourage Movement Provide:

• Balls of different textures, sizes, and weights
• Ride on toys and push toys
• Containers with handles and items to put inside, take out, and carry around
• Scarves or material to move in different directions or to jump over
• Boxes to stack or climb in and out of
• Bubble wrap to jump on and pop
• Hula hoops to crawl through, run around, hop in and out of
• Animal costumes and/or accessories such as wings or bunny ears to encourage movement inspired by a particular animal
• Music for dancing which can be periodically stopped (freeze) to encourage body control
• Instructions to “glue” one body part to the floor such as a hand and then invite child to move rest of body while hand is still stuck to the floor
• An indoor obstacle course setting up objects to go under, over, around, and through

Ways to Incorporate Literacy with Movement:

• On a scavenger hunt suggest looking for items that start with a particular sound or letter
• As you read a book to your child, suggest they move along with what may be happening in the story.
• Play Simon Says so your child practices listening to your instructions while moving their body
• Encourage child to make a particular letter using their body
• Using chalk outside or masking tape inside draw big letters that child can walk along or trace with their finger
• Have child describe what they are doing with their body, “I am galloping like a pony.”

Imaginary Creatures have arrived in the Children’s Room!

Invite your child to imagine, draw, and name an imaginary creature. Then bring the drawing to the library to be hung up with reproductions of Eric Carle’s beasts of myth & legend. Reading books about imaginary beasts spurs creative thought and is a lot of fun!

The Tucker Free Library invites you to participate in this FREE program with your child that encourages you to read 1000 books together before your child enters kindergarten. Sign up in the Children’s Room today and get started!

“Reading regularly with young children stimulates optimal patterns of brain development and strengthens parent-child relationships at a critical time in child development, which, in turn, builds language, literacy, and social-emotional skills that last a lifetime.”  --American Academy of Pediatrics