A healthy body develops a healthy mind. A healthy and fit child performs better in the classroom. Children who exercise regularly perform better in examinations when compared to children who do not exercise regularly. Considering the importance of Exercise, EAST has made Yoga exercises an integrated part of the School English language Syllabus.
Preschool is a prime time of physical development, and children must get proper exercise during these years in order to develop their physical abilities. For most adults, physical fitness was taken for granted since they had open spaces, no TV, and secured neighborhoods when they were a child. They could climb up a tree, run, and do all kinds of activities for long hours.
Not any more. Children today won’t go out much for a variety of reasons, including lack of good playgrounds and security. TV and video games eat up much of their time. All these circumstances are making children unhealthy and unfit.
This physical weakness has multiple effects from head to toe. It makes children prone to repeated attacks of common ailments, as their immune system becomes weak. Children become overweight, and they have their stomachs getting upset very often.
Physical sicknesses are just one set of problems caused by the lack of physical fitness, as children suffer mentally and emotionally as well. They start losing their ability to concentrate on a task for a reasonable amount of time. They often feel emotional swings (feeling happy and grieved rapidly). Aggression is one thing we see in children today, and much of it is due to poor physical training.
Most habits are transferred from adults to children. The two most important adults in children’s lives are their mothers and teachers. Children will not exercise if it’s not a priority for their mothers and teachers. Therefore it’s important for mothers and teachers of young children to know that physical fitness is a matter of great importance for the children.
Here are some of the benefits children will get if they start exercising regularly:
1. Children will be more relaxed.
2. It will increase their self-image, and they will think positively about themselves and others.
3. They will start looking forward to going to school since physical weakness is one of the biggest causes of not liking the school.
4. An exercise program helps children to maintain an active weight. It helps them shed extra weight or gain extra pounds if they are underweight.
5. Improves their sleeping pattern as children start going to bed early and get up early.
6. Improved blood circulation, strengthening their bones and muscles, reducing injuries considerably.
These are important enough reasons for mothers and teachers to make exercise a top priority for the children. If not more, then physical fitness should be considered as important as feeding or educating young children. Mothers and teachers will have to exercise themselves as well to make children exercise. It is not like feeding or educating where the child eats or does copy work without the mother or teacher doing the same. Exercise always starts with the adults, and then the children follow suit.
Here are a few things mothers and teachers of young children should know about physical fitness.
Three types of exercises should be done regularly.
The first kind involves running and jumping. These exercises increase the heartbeat and breathing. They improve stamina and blood circulation to all parts of the body. These exercises help children inhale more fresh air into their lungs and increase oxygen to all body organs and muscles.
The second type of exercise your child needs is stretching. It includes opening legs, bending the backbone, and extending hands. It stretches children’s nerves and muscles. It relaxes their body parts making them calm and composed.
The third type of exercise increases your child’s muscular strength. Children do not need much of it at this stage. The first two types of exercises include a sufficient amount of strength-building exercises for young children.
Now a word about the amount of time that children should spend everyday exercising: Young children need approximately two hours of physical activity on a daily basis.
This includes one hour of unstructured exercises where they just play, run, and do physical activities of their choice and one hour of planned physical activities covering the three types of exercises mentioned. This one hour of structured activities should involve the mother and the teacher as well.
Now the big question: what are the most suitable exercises we can do during this one hour of structured exercises?
After extensive research in the area of children’s physical development, our research department has designed a set of exercises that cover all three types of exercises for young children. These exercises can be done easily by children and adults alike. They are designed while keeping in view the three well know physical fitness methods, which are: Aerobics, Yoga, and Tai Chi.
But that’s just one part of this unique exercises program. The other is the way you present this one-hour exercise program to children. These exercises are not done as exercises! They are the rhymes that children practice to learn the formation of English alphabets and numbers. In other words, this exercise program is a part of English handwriting development. This makes exercise an integral part of formal education since children are taught how to write English alphabets on a daily basis in the classroom. Children never realize that they are doing exercises. They practice letter formation in the air, and physical fitness comes naturally to them.
These exercises can be done in open spaces. They are designed keeping in mind the space constraints; therefore, they can be done in a classroom as well. Children get sufficient practice of letter formation and three types of physical exercises; they complete an hour of fun-filled exercises.
Most of these exercises have varying levels of challenge. The older children can exert more and get more out of each exercise. On the other hand, younger children do these exercises at their own level (they can do these using their hands only).
Each exercise is embedded in a rhyme with a nice tune to go along with it. Children can sing these rhymes as they do these exercises. That makes this physical fitness program lot of fun for young children.
These exercises should be done in an informal and relaxed environment. The exercises should not follow a certain sequence every time they are done. As we mentioned earlier, they should be initiated by an adult. The children might not get involved right away as they will observe the adult doing it for a while.
Physical fitness is very important for children’s holistic development. It can come when children are offered one hour of planned exercise program and one hour of free playtime. There’s an exercise program covering all three types of exercises that children require regularly. This exercise program is offered to children in the form of rhymes that children sing and act to learn the formation of English alphabets and numbers. This enables the teachers and mothers to make exercise a part of formal education.
(These exercises are part of Butterfly and Friends English Handwriting Series. They are given under each of the English alphabets).