It’s Science Week!
Curiosity and huge ideas were sparked during our recent science theme at Kindergym.
We unpacked 3 science sub-themes: Paleontology, Physiology and Astronomy. These are big words, but our Kindergym kids were really interested in the topics. They listened well and we all learnt together, using movement to bring these concepts to life!
Discover the Set Up
Throughout this theme we got moving on the floor, beams and pbars!
On the blue floor zone we spent time thinking about our senses: smell, taste, hearing, sight and touch. 👃 To practise weight bearing on hands, we rolled forward over the barrel and smelt the scented candle 👅🍔🍭 We learnt about different types of tastes through organising pictures into different taste categories. We then headed over to the picnic area, taking the foods we like with us while balancing along the stepping stones! 👂🔊 Our ears were on high alert as we stomped across the bridge, making the bells underneath jingle and on the air track, we jumped on textured squares, feeling the difference with our toes ! At the end of the sensory path, we used our eyes to look through binoculars to see the whole gym👀
Stomp Stomp Stomp! Look out for all the dinosaurs over at the beam area! We travelled uphill on the beams, keeping a lookout for dinosaurs big and small. A favourite activity was the fossil match. We picked up a tiny dinosaur before crossing the beam to carefully match it to a fossil print! Along the low beams, we stomped our feet on the dino footprints then helped deliver dinosaur eggs through the hoops to hatch them on the other side! 🦖
3.. 2.. 1.. Blastoff into space over at the pbars zone! We jumped from planet to planet on the pbar rails before crawling up high to see all the little aliens below! We also had fun jumping along space rocks before stretching out like a star on the bar 🌟🚀 On the next bar, we used our strong legs to launch us up, just like a rocket, growing our confidence to lean over the bar to reach for the space alien! 👽
How Do You Handstand?
Children naturally learn to crawl before they can walk and this same concept of skill progression is evident in a gymnastics program. Each week at Kindergym we focus on building confidence in movement and developing gymnastics specific strength to help with skill learning, including learning handstands!
Handstand awareness starts with simple movements. During class, we spend lots of time on strong body shapes, like front support and rocket, moving around on all fours for upper body strength, balancing on one leg to assist with weight transfer, holding weight on our hands and turing upside-down. These are all important precursor abilities for a safe and steady handstand, so our Kindergym children are well on their way to having lovely handstands.
During our science theme, there was lots of handstand practice happening!
On our floor circuit we worked on upper body strength by traversing sideways on hands, with our feet up high on a block. The semi-inverted position also helped with our awareness and confidence being upside-down.
We managed a back and forth roll on the barrel, alternating pushing off hands and feet. The feeling of holding weight on hands, without collapsing, is very important for handstand development.
We used dinosaur footprints on beam to encourage lift off on hands. With our hands on the beam, we kicked up our feet, turning upside-down before stomping back down.
The hill slide was a favourite activity! Lying on tummies with arms outstretched, children gently slid toward to the floor with the aim of coming to a stop in a long, strong body position. We added some dinosaur bones to catch attention and give a focus for the stop position.
The coloured buckets were spread out to challenge the length of our stride, encourage balance on one leg and to help us learn to transfer smoothly from left to right sides was fun!
As our children grow and progress through classes, their handstands will continue to improve. Handstands are a complex skill and form a cornerstone for higher level performance, so it’s really important to build nice strong foundations for this skill over time. There is no race to get to the finish line, in fact, in some cases, it might be better to channel the tortoise approach, rather than the hare!
We thought you might like to take a look at where handstands can take you - this video demonstrates some handstand skills learnt at different learning stages in the gym!