Let me tell you a story…
We celebrated Book Week during our Storybooks theme and encouraged the children to dress up as a book character - I think we could actually see imagine coming to life with all of those wonderful costumes!
We ventured happily into the world of books, taking time to explore the world of Dr. Seuss, who created so many memorable characters and classic stories.
With lots of movements prompts, we brought the pages of ‘Where is the green sheep?’ to life, and we even found the green sheep fast asleep.
With detail in mind, our third activity circuit explored the smallest part that makes up a book, looking at letters and the alphabet!
Discover the Set Up
We explored the world of storybooks, characters and letters in our rings, beam and floor circuits!
We headed to the rings area to swing and climb our way through the imaginative stories written by Dr. Seuss. A world of colour awaited, with characters to guide us through our adventure. We stepped through the Truffula Forest from ‘The Lorax’, flew high in a hot air balloon from ‘Oh the places you’ll go’ and hung upside down with Thing 1 & Thing 2.
From first page to last, we journey throught the book of ‘Where is the green sheep?’, written by Australia author, Mem Fox. The tale is full of sheep that helped us to move and play in different ways on the beams. We balanced with batons like the clown sheep, we walked backwards like the brave sheep and we practised throwing near and far on the wide beam with the near and far sheep.
Now I know my ABCs… help sing along with me! Our floor circuit presented a world of letters. Our kindergymer’s practised naming letter by sight as they moved through the activities and we enjoyed talking about letters making words. We climbed up and over the letter ‘M’ frame, slithered cross the ‘S’ blocks like a snake and tippy toe walked around the veggie garden tracing the letter ‘V’.
The uniqueness of group time activities
Group time is a big part of what makes kindergym special! Susan is our resident expert on group time activities and we would like to celebrate her skill and thank her for the incredible depth that she has brought to our program over the past 5 years 💐
Coming from a background as a dance teacher and choreographer at her family's dance school, she began her journey with preschool aged children by starting her own ‘Hop, Skip and Dance’ program - focused on movement to music. She transitioned from there to the kindergym coaching team at Aerodynamix, now creating and teaching the wonderful group time activities we enjoy each week.
Susan’s imagine seems endless and we are in awe of the ways that she
Here is a message from Susan about group times…
“I am hugely passionate about the benefits of child development that group time provides for preschool-aged children: physical skills such as body awareness and fine and gross motor skills; coordination, balance, agility and strength; not to mention all the fabulous gymnastic specific skills.
But Kindergym is far from being just about the physical skills. A huge part of a child’s early learning involves the development of the mind - memory and concentration, imagination and creativity, confidence and self-esteem. Social skills are a major focus too. Group time allows the children to interact with each other, to watch how other children and adults behave, to learn to work together with their friends, to share and take turns, to listen and think and follow instructions. These skills can often be unseen as part of a physical program, but they are certainly a huge part of my planning for group time activities.
I think that one of the things that most excites me about group time is seeing a child’s eyes light up when they manage to master a skill, no matter how small (and seeing the parent’s pleasure too for that matter!). It might be just getting their arms to roll around each other, or be able to balance on 1 leg for a few seconds, or master a complicated musical rhythm on an instrument. Every new skill acquired is so exciting and is a stepping-stone to the next.
The new skill might be just joining in group time for the first time. Many times over the years a parent will tell me that, although their child didn’t actually do some particular group time activity with me, they went home and did it over and over, or showed someone at home how to do it. That means that the child is learning just by being present and watching. They are absorbing the skills as they see them happening around them. That child may have been watching from afar, but it’s usually not too long before they develop the confidence to join us in group time and actually do the activities with us.
There are so many aspects of childhood development that can be enhanced by the learning and use of these fabulous children’s songs including language development and storytelling, memory, rhythm, counting and so much more.
In our group times at Kindergym, we have only a short time to introduce you to some ideas of different songs or movements or activities you can do at home with your children. Please take any of these ideas and give them your own twist to turn them into a family favourite. We love to hear when some particular part of our Kindergym program has resonated with a child and they have gone home to do it over and over again in their own way. This is what childhood learning is all about and nursery rhymes and songs are a perfect way to involve all the family.”