Coach Casie's Top 5 Reasons to Enroll Your Child In a Parent & Tot Gymnastics Class

Mother's Day is just around the corner and I've thought what way could I give to the mothers out there? Hmmmm. How about my top 5 reasons for enrolling you and your child in a Parent & Tot gymnastics class?

5.) Fitness: A good class gets both parent and child moving. A family that sweats together, stays together!

4.) To be Social: While your young one may love to look at you all day in the house, chances are you get bored. A parent and tot class provides you and your little one quality time together with your child and out of the house. Meet other parents with children your age while your child meets others their age, it's a great time to make new friends.

3.) Reading Readiness: The components of reading readiness are quite similar to the components of motor skill development. A good Parent & Tot program develops reading readiness, gross motor and fine motor skills.  Below are some of the examples:

• Visual differentiation - seeing and feeling different surfaces, equipment and props; knowing how they are used.
• laterality - moving sideways, log rolls
• Gross motor skills - skipping, running, leaping
• Hand-eye coordination - passing balls back & forth
• Distance, size & shapes -  going through tunnels & specialized mats
• Attention spans - staying at a station to finish a task, doing repetitions of a single skill
• Tracking - following bubbles in the air, 
• Fine-motor skills - popping bubbles with the pointer & thumb
• Sensory discrimination - jumping up high enough to land on top of a mat
• Awareness, perception & memory - listening to the teacher
• Expressive language - explaining to others what they did in class
• Auditory - listening to songs & the instructor
• Imitating - watching instructor to see if they can repeat it
• Directionality - learning left & right w/games, songs and skills

2.) The Bond: There is a special bond that you create with your child when involved in an early movement class. You will be physically helping them maneuver their bodies, you will be their cheerleader encouraging & the hug when they do achieve their goals all in one class!

1.) It's FUN!

As I'm about to celebrate my first Mother's day being a Mommy, I realize how much I love being with my little one. She grows up so fast, just like any other kid. It makes me think that these little ones will have their whole school career to be alone with a teacher, let's soak this time up before it's too late!

Fun With Scarves

One of my favorite pre-school props had found its way to the last 5 minutes of a school aged recreation class.

 Fashionista Erika

Coach Irene's colorful back handsprings

Seat drop war. We don't care who wins!

I've learned that these older kids need more fun in their lessons & I'm going to be using much more props with my older kids from now on. 

What are some of your favorite props to use for the older recreational classes? 

The Effectiveness of Using Educational Gymnastics skills on Motor Capabilities and Social Behaviour among Kindergarten children

Recently, I've read a study conducted by Aida Al-Awamleh called "The Effectiveness of Using Educational Gymnastics skills on Motor Capabilities and Social Behaviour among Kindergarten children" for Konstanz University, published in 2010.

It comes as no surprise to me that "Results indicated that motor capabilities, balance, agility, strength endurance; flexibility, explosive power, and muscular endurance improved significantly in the experimental group.Differences were also found between experimental and control groups with regard to social skills and problem behavior according to parents and teachers reports. Gender differences were noted in connection with motor capabilities, social skills and problem behavior. Significant relationships were found between motor capabilities and social behavior. Left-handed children had better reaction times than right handed."

What I found most unique about this study was it seems there was no coach in this study. The researcher designed a program that would was age appropriate with the purpose of improving basic gymnastics skills, loco-motor skills and social skills. The program was recorded on 31 DVDs of other gymnasts (aged 4-10). Each lesson was split into 3 sections: warm-up, the workout, and cool-down. It was an audio-visual program where, they watched and did with their regular school teacher.

If these children are simply imitating a screen, imagine how much more of a significant impact on the differences between the control group and the experimental group were to be if I were coaching them?  I would like to see future prospects of a study like this conducted with great coaches!

I love seeing these types of studies done to really drive in to my heart that what I'm doing is really making a positive difference in a young child's life.

Leotard Design Contest for the first Singaporean to qualify for the Olympics!

Singapore, April 20, 2012 – Singapore Gymnastics (SG) invites all interested individuals to take part in the Singapore Gymnastics Leotard Design Competition to design the leotard for Lim Heem Wei for the Olympic Games, London 2012.


Head over to their website for further details!


Leotard Design Contest

Post on GymMomentum.com

Shoot on over to GymMomentum, I've written a quick one.

Reflection

Only One Minute

In Open Gym last week, we decided to complete 800 cartwheels in only one minute! As you can see, we've got some practicing to do.


Yes, I participated too!

This was a fun collaborative effort and everyone was involved. I walked around and had each kid whisper their numbers so they wouldn't feel as if they were competing.

ADHD/ADD vs. Gymnastics

As an advocate for children living a drug-free life the topic of ADHD/ADD hits close to home. I've heard many children say they are on medications for this "supposed" disorder. I don't think that the parents really understand the risks. The Innovative Educator has been a great resource for parents looking for the truth on ADHD/ADD.

Interestingly, these are symptoms found from webmd:

• fidgeting, squirming when seated
• getting up frequently to walk or run around
• running or climbing excessively when it's inappropriate (in teens this may appear as restlessness)
• having difficulty playing quietly or engaging in quiet leisure activities
• being always on the go
• often talking excessively

This describes EXACTLY the type of kids I want in the gym!