Gym and Play Classes for Kids
During the early years, movement is the key to educational progress. While the health benefits of physical activities are obvious, the fact that body awareness, control, and coordination serve as the foundation for cognitive, linguistic, social, and emotional development is often overlooked. Children do not begin life as “thinkers.” It is through their sensory and motor experiences that they first start absorbing information, figuring out connections between actions and consequences, linking words to items and events, relating to other people, and gaining confidence in their ability to conquer new challenges. And as they gradually develop the mental mechanisms that allow their understanding to vastly expand and become increasingly sophisticated, physical activities provide a solid base from which they can comfortably explore and easily master all sorts of intellectual skills, concepts, and principles involving language, memory, sequencing, classification, etc. Research clearly shows that during the early years, fun, fascinating, physical activities are far more effective than pencil-and-paper tasks when it comes to preparing children for reading, writing, and math, and far more likely to nurture self-esteem and interpersonal skills.
