Movement for little ones

Hi, my name's Kayla. I'm an Accredited Exercise Physiologist and today I'm going to take you through some fun activities that you can do with your kids at home to stay active.

So the things we go through today include some fundamental movement skills including ball skills, balancing and locomotor.

So the things you can do at home to keep them both mentally and physically engaged is some problem solving games, some small obstacles and tasks that they have to complete. Today, go through a range of activities that you can do with them.

First, I'll go through a warm up though.

So first off, can we reach up high, reaching for the sky, and then I want you to come down low, towards your toes.

Now we're going to reach back up, reaching high, stretching tall, up on your toes and then come back down towards your toes.

And again, coming up all the way, nice and tall, twinkle your fingers and coming back down to the ground, reach for those toes, and again, up nice and tall and then down to your toes.

Good, now we're going to circle our arms, so nice big circles coming forward with your arms, kind of like you're swimming in the pool.

Good, nice big circles and this time to the back, all the way, nice big circles.

Good, now I want you to stamp your feet, so nice big steps.

Standing on the spot.

Now I want you to swing your arms.

Good. Now can you do this in a circle, so marching around, facing the back, to the side, and to the front.

Good, I want nice big arm swings.

Good, I hope we're all feeling nice and warm.

So, now we're going to play a game.

So I want you to think of some animals and we're going to do the actions of those animals, so first off, can you hold your hands like this, and I want you to hop like a kangaroo.

Hopping up on the spot, around in a circle, good.

Now, I want to stand like a flamingo, so we're going to stand on one leg, see if you can balance, holding it there.

Good, let's try the other leg so standing up tall on one leg.

See how long you can balance for, holding it here. Beautiful.

Okay, can you stand up tall like a giraffe?

Up on your toes, walking around, can you see anything in the trees? Anything to eat?

Looking around, up, up tall, right on your toes and then coming down.

Next we're going to hop like a bunny rabbit.

So I want you to come down really, really small and we're going to hop, hop around.

Now I want you to try on one foot instead.

So we're hopping on one foot. Good and the other foot as well. Good.

Now we're going to fly like a bird, so flapping your arms, nice and big like big wings and now I want you to try and skip around like you're flying in the air.

So we're skipping and flapping your wings. Nice and big. Good, okay.

Now we're going to play with our ball.

So I'll get you to grab a ball, something like this.

So, what I want you to try and do is see if your ball can bounce.

So see if you can bounce your ball nice and high.

Can you bounce your ball with one hand as well?

Maybe try with your other hand. Good and big bounces, up and down.

You could even try and throw your ball to mum and dad, see if they'll play a game with you, so throwing it to mum and then catching it again. Good.

Holding your ball, I want you to see, can you throw it up in the air and catch. Give it a big throw and catch.

One more time, and catch. Well done.

So now, I want to cool our bodies back down.

So can we start by rolling our shoulders nice and big towards the back, big circles and now coming forward, so we're rolling our shoulders, lifting them up and down and round in circles.

Good, so now we want to stretch our body out, so first can we try and stretch down towards our toes, reaching down, holding this here and coming up.

Good, now we're going to take a seat on the floor, come on down, let's sit with our legs crossed.

So we're going to stretch our arms, twinkle those fingers and come back down.

And again, reaching high, twinkle those fingers and come on down. Good.

Well, well done here today guys, you've done really well.

Remember to stay active with your parents at home and think of lots of fun games that you can play together.