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Ramping it up
Exploring and building upon our emerging physical skills has been of great interest in our Babies Room at BestStart Palmerston North.
We recently purchased an array of various ramps from a local business located down in Christchurch. These ramps include a ladder, slide, flat ramp, and rock-climbing wall ramp. One of our lovely baby room kaiako Sarah, set up a neat little course made up of the planks and some tyres for the children to balance, crawl, slide, stand and sometimes even have a boogie on!
Our tamariki of many diverse ages and stages of physical development have been all giving the new ramps a go, and the ramp and tyre structure has added a great means of extending the children’s emerging balance and coordination skills and build upon their gross motor development.
Physical active play and supports learning across all strands of Te Whāriki, but mainly the Exploration strand. Finding ways every day for tamariki to use and develop their large and small motor skills allows them to gain increasing control and confidence over their tinana (body).
Physical activity also fosters children’s mental and emotional well-being as well as their physical development. Those essential “feel-good” chemicals known as endorphins, get released by the brain during physical activity which help improve one’s mood, energy levels and even sleep, and hey, I’m sure we’re all keen for our tamariki to sleep better.
Just look at all those big smiles!