The other day, we came across an article called 'Motivating Preschoolers to be Active'. The article could be found at http://kidshealth.org/parent/nutrition_fit/fitness/active_preschooler.html#. We found the article to be interesting, so, we would like to share what we discovered with you.
After reading the article 'Motivating Preschoolers to be Active', we learnt 3 things.
1st thing we learnt:
No matter which age group the children are in, they enjoy doing activities that are fun! Physical education can be made fun in school and at home. Teachers and parents need to be more creative and be motivated to find out ways to make an activity lively and interesting.
2nd thing we learnt:
We need to understand which skill the children have, and is working on to keep things fun! Teachers and parents need to have a clear understanding about each child's individual needs. We need to know which skills have been mastered and which need strengthening. In that way, we will be able to come out with developmentally and individually appropriate activities for the child.
3rd thing we learnt:
We need to consider the children's opportunities to be active at home, preschool or child care centre. Children need to have access to a playground or large indoor space for activities. There need not be fancy playground equipments for children. Children would just enjoy simple games such as catch and tag, riding bicycles, playing with balls and bats, and dancing around. Hence, children should be given at least 30 minutes free play everyday for them to physically exercise.
In the Malaysian school system, the National Preschool Curriculum from the Ministry of Education is used as a guideline of what must be done in the preschool. However, it is not stated specifically on how the activities should be conducted.
After reading the article, we can think of 2 application in the Malaysian context.
1st application:
Teachers need to be creative and make each lesson fun and interesting for children to enjoy. For example, when we want to teach the children how to balance a bean bag on various parts of the body, we do not just ask them to place the bean bag on that body part and count one to ten. Instead, we can dance together with the children with a song and balance the bean bag on the various parts of the body. This will motivate the children to participate as most children like music and they will not feel they are forced to do so. Children will enjoy what they are doing as they practice their basic skills of balancing.
2nd application:
As parental involvement is important for the development of children, we need to keep parents informed on the activities that have been done with the children and encourage parents to motivate them at home as well. We can help parents by giving them some suggestions on what can be done. For example, if we observed that the child does not know how to catch a ball, we can encourage the parents to play throwing and catching ball with their child. This way, children will have reinforcement at school as well as at home.
Therefore, let us encourage our preschoolers to be active and go outdoors where the air is fresh and clean! LET'S GO OUTDOORS!
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