School Readiness: Physical Development

How can you help and support your child in the area of physical development?  Create activities that address the following areas.

• Promote good muscle control and coordination (able to run, jump, climb, balance, skip, etc.)
• Develop hand-eye coordination (used for drawing, writing, cutting, stacking, zipping and tying)
• Personal hygiene (washing hands, brushing teeth) - BIG IN THE CORONAVERSE
• Learning good safety habits
  

These activities include things to build fine motor skills and increase strength in hand muscles as well as activities that encourage movement, balance, and coordination to build gross motor skills.  Think playground games.  Activities that teach things like washing hands or covering our mouths when we cough are helpful in promoting health and hygiene, more important than ever these days.  Now admittedly, this was never my strongest area.  I held my own in softball and dance, but I was not impressing anyone.  Just last month in my tap recital, I managed to mess up my knee that I had hurt from slipping in class the week prior.  It didn't help that I was dancing like I was 17 again and not in fact 41.  Anyway...

There are a lot of fun activities that you can do.  Bonus, you can do a lot of them outside and get some much needed Vitamin D!  Score!  There are also many activities that can help you reclaim your long forgotten inner child.  Hopscotch anyone?  Red Light Green Light?  Mother May I?  Post Corona I vote we get a big group together and rock out a game of Red Rover!

Jump Rope

I mean, if we're going old school playground days, then you have to include jump rope.  Extra credit if you teach your kids some back in the day chants.  No matter what, this activity is going to teach coordination real quick.

Hand-Eye workout

Way back in infancy we began to master the pincer grasp, the first step of building hand-eye coordination and fine motor development we would need for writing.  We're older now!  We're stronger now!  We can get crazy!  Think of activities such as playing a game of Operation.  Use tongs, clothespins, and even your fingers to play games of picking up different objects and moving them.  Who can move pompoms from a bowl into ice cube trays the fastest?  It could even be a good Minute to Win It activity.  Using something like a clothespin can even help strengthen your fingers.

Water table fun and a song

You could even use a regular old sink for this, but if you make it a whole water fun activity, that's even better.  You know the whole thing of singing "Happy Birthday" twice while you wash your hands to get them really clean right?  Well, make up a brand new song of your very own!  Singing is after all one of the five magical activities to promote early literacy.  You can even take it a step further and color hand soap with food coloring and then mix them together by washing and scrubbing your hands.

Toothbrush fun

Make up a song for brushing your teeth!  Why not?  Songs are fun!

Homemade scarves, shakers, and ribbons

If you don't have scarves, you can use a hand towel or even a kleenex.  For shakers, use anything that makes noise.  You can even put rice in a small container (make absolutely sure it is sealed first) and get shaking.  For ribbons, you can use actual ribbon, streamers, or even shoelaces.  Get creative.  It's all about adding a little something extra.

Build a fort

If you haven't built a pillow fort at some point in your lifetime, are you even really living?  Gather all the pillows and blankets you can and get building.  Cardboard boxes lend themselves quite nicely to the process, and you can even decorate them.

Could I BE Wearing Anymore Clothes?

You've seen the episode of Friends where they're all getting ready for Ross' big event at the museum right?  You know, the one where Joey puts on all of Chandler's clothes?  Why not do it at home and make it a competition.  Buttons, zippers, snaps, oh my!  Great fine motor skill practice and even better photo ops!

Dance it out!

Put on some music and start dancing!  Think of songs that have a lot of movement and specific actions.  While I am personally not a fan, The Hokey Pokey is a good one because it isolates different parts of the body, great for identification.  You can even make up and add extra verses to include more parts (nose, tongue, ear, elbow, etc.)

Mindfulness and yoga

This would be a great activity to do outside.  Getting in touch with Mother Nature can be very centering during a time when so much is out of our control.  It reminds us, that some things continue to operate as usual.  I like to use yoga and mindfulness activities in my programs, especially in my Music & Movement storytimes.  Below are two YouTube channels that I follow and use.  I have also noticed an increase in books on these topics geared specifically towards children and families such as I Am Yoga by Susan Verde, Bee Calm: The Buzz on Yoga by Frank J. Sileo, PhD, any My Mindful Walk with Grandma by Sheri Mabry.

    https://www.youtube.com/user/barikoral

    https://www.youtube.com/user/CosmicKidsYoga

Books

Again, it's my thing!  I will always share book ideas.  Even if I wasn't a children's librarian, I would still do it.  I always liked sharing book suggestions with people, even before I got the fancy piece of paper and graduation hood.  Some keywords to search for these books are health, hygiene, safety, exercise, drawing, movement, dance, nutrition, yoga, and mindfulness.

• Let's dance / original lyrics by David Bowie ; illustrated by Hannah Marks
• Shake my sillies out / Raffi ; illustrated by Maple Lam
• Hop, hop, jump! / Lauren Thompson ; illustrated by Jarrett Krosoczka
• Dancing feet! / by Lindsey Craig ; illustrated by Marc Brown
• If you're a monster and you know it / by Rebecca Emberley and Ed Emberley
• We're going on a bear hunt / retold by Michael Rosen ; illustrated by Helen Oxenbury
• From head to toe / Eric Carle
• Spunky little monkey / by Bill Martin Jr. & Michael Sampson ; illustrated by Brian Won
• Monster boogie / Laurie Berkner ; illustrated by Ben Clanton
• Dance is for everyone / Andrea Zuill
• Dinosaur disco / Deborah Kelly ; illustrations by Daron Parton
• The nuts : sing and dance in your polka-dot pants / by Eric Litwin ; illustrated by Scott Magoon
• Dance party countdown / Eric Litwin ; Tom Lichtenheld, [illustrator]
• Get up and go! / written and illustrated by Nancy Carlson
• The food parade : healthy eating with the nutritious food groups / Elicia Castaldi
• Bear moves / Ben Bailey Smith aka Doc Brown and Sav Akyüz
• Stretch / Doreen Cronin and Scott Menchin
• Bounce / Doreen Cronin ; [illustrated by] Scott Menchin
• Wiggle / Doreen Cronin ; art by Scott Menchin
• Ready, set, skip! / by Jane O'Connor ; illustrated by Ann James