Facilitator: Wendy Perera
Introduction:
- Moving smart is an education and professional development company with a unique focus on the role movement plays in early childhood development and readiness for formal learning.
- How important is movement to thinking and learning? How do we connect the three?
- Moving Child is a Learning Child- the why around child development
- Kinetic Classroom Practice- reading the moves e.g. roll, hang, spin and be upside down
- PMP Parent Workshop- end of March
Morning Session:
What is PMP?
- aims to develop automaticity of the physical foundations necessary for success in the classroom
- achieved by practicing movement over and over again
- automaticity: doing something without having to think about it
- on the road to automaticity- cognitive (modeling stage, associative- practice and feedback, automatic- transfer activity into game situation where skill is applied e.g. learning how to drive a car
- every little person goes through this process- cognitive, associative, autmomatic
- very reliant on connecting the language to experience because this is where the real learning happens e.g. directional language
- how do you know automaticity is happening- child is able to tell a story, sing a song while they are moving
- the story of Millie's milk- lack of automaticity e.g. pouring the milk (learning control and how much pressure to place linked to the ability to control handwriting)
- we want to layer the thinking task on top of the automated task
- monkey bars (handwriting warm-up)- holding the pencil- research linked better handwriting control to girls because they used the money bars more- monkey bars can do certificate
- money bar competition with ECE Centre
- allow children to practice the movement over and over again- we can individualise each activity
- aims to be preventative rather than curative
- for ALL children in the first 3 years of school, with the first yea being the most important
- preferable that the programme is started in the first term of the child's first year i school and as early as possible
- important for class teachers to be involved in at least some of the sessions each week even when specialist teachers are conducting the programme
- recommended sports for children up to 7 year old- swimming and gymnastics
Why PMP?
- developmentally based
- teaches the body first
- develops movements patterns needed for classroom
- sequential
- teaches ONE thinking task at once
PMP Components:
1. Floor Session
- music and mocement
- preparing the body first
2. Equipment Session
- eyehand/eyefoot coordination; balance, fitness, locomotion, eye tracking
3. Language Follow Up Session
- real to symbolic- making sense of language through real whole body experience
4. Evaluation
- providing an ongoing picture of what the child can or can't do
In Early years, the body teaches the brain!
Understanding the Brain and how this is important to PMP:
1. Brain Stem- survival part of the brain
- houses body survival functions ad primitive reflexes
- reflexes that children are still retaining which causes dilemma in their progress
- sensory, vestibular (control balance and eye movements), proprioception (spacial awreness)
2. Mid-Brain- movement part of the brain
- movement and motor skills
- fundamental movement patterns
3. Limbic- feeling part of the brain
- emotional engagement
- understanding/interpreting emotional
- messages ( including body language)
4. Cortex- thinking part of the brain
- formal learning
- abstract thinking
- symbolic understanding
- consequential thinking
FROM 5-7 years of age our focus should be on the Survival and Movement part of the brain
Why are we expecting to teach our children ABC (Cortex part) when they are working on Mid-Brain???
- real vesus symbolic learning e.g. James counting
building language- 10 to 18 months of life
Reflexes: emerges, used and integrates
- postural reflex
- primitive reflex
- babinsky reflex
- vestibular/moro reflex
- palmar reflex- integrated before fine motor, gross motor skills, enjoy tactile/messy play/manipulative play
Balance- Vestibular System
- needed from birth
- slow rolling, spinning, hanging and moving e.g. rolling on the towel
- balance, language, vision, emotional, muscular development and concentration are enhanced by vestibular movements
- stimulates the reticular activating systeme to wake up the thinking brain e.g. James rocking side to side on the mat- by moving, it makes the cortex part of the brain activate
Reading the moves
- the spinner
- the chair tipper spinning
- the fidgeter
- the pencil breaker
- the fist
- the letter reverser
- the pretzel
- the mouth- motor overflow
- the slumber
- the toucher
- the clumper- no spacing
Bi-Laterality- mirrored movements
Homo-Laterilty- one-sided movements
Laterality- opposition movement
Cross-laterality- cross the midline
Times are changing- containersation
- technology
- safety restrictions
- stranger danger
- baby aids
- busy lifestyle
Intuition- proprioception- the sense of me
position- where am I
space- do I fit?
force- how hard do I push/pull
body awareness- what do I look like
real to symbolic e.g. a is for
What am I going to try:
- happy sticks warm up for handwriting
- sheep and cow gates- moo, baa
- crossing the midline activities
- creating more floor space in the classroom for movement e.g. crawling, rocking
- real learning that can be transferred to symbolic learning
Evaluation:
