Initiating sports for pre primary and how does it help?

 It is believed that a healthy body has a healthy mind. As Sri Aurobindo has rightly stated that —

“Physical education for the body to be effective must be rigorous and detailed,far sighted and methodological. This will be translated into habits. These habits should be controlled and disciplined, while remaining flexible enough to adapt themselves to the circumstances and the needs of growth and development of being”.

Our school aims differently by not simply focusing largely on academics but through inculcating a health consciousness among the students. This has been initiated through the mandatory and active inclusion of structured physical activities in the pre primary level.

The children are happiest moving about, active and playing, whether it is playing informally, competitive play or playing just for fun. Sadly , the parental pressure has been driving academic training albeit at the cost of health and physical fitness of the youth. As the children get older,it can be a challenge for them to get adequate daily physical activity.

Hence, parents along with the schools must take initiatives to inculcate a culture of ‘playing’ from early childhood of a student so that it follows them throughout their lives.

Our school displays an urgency to lay a strong foundation and strengthen physical education and sports. This call of integration of physical education in the pre primary school aims at creating a healthier generation.

While choosing a physical activity for toddlers and pre schoolers, the focus is on the activities that are fun. If children enjoy what they are doing, they’re more likely to want to keep it doing. As physical activity is vital for your child’s healthy growth and development, it can be started very early in life as a part of the child’s everyday play. Playing together encourages a child to develop the gross motor skills well and keep going. Toddlers and pre schoolers need plenty of space to run and play. The school premises and the alert staff suffice this need of the child to the fullest.

*Make up Games that involves different kinds of movement. For example to get a child chase bubbles, walk, run or skip along chalk lines, gather shells through treasure hunt or through cracks and small hiding places.

* Use of Balls of different textures and sizes to practice catching, hitting, balancing and kicking.

* Inventing different Races, like Gorilla Race, Rabbit Hop, Monkey Jump , Flap like a Bird, etc.

* The child is allowed to ride a bicycle or a tricycle – under supervision of course. They enjoy playing with push toys like toy trolley, doll prams etc, invariably picking up different movements.

These sort of modified fun activities or programs usually focus on introducing children to structured, organised sports events like School’s Annual Sports. It aims at developing social skills building confidence and getting everyone to have a go. That’s because there is no need to pressurise young children about perfect technique or winning or losing. It’s more important for them to learn about the fun of playing, being active and trying hard.

Specifically the early inclusion of structured physical activities, Eurhythmics and sports result in the following developments within a child —

Physical activity can have an impact on cognitive skills and attitudes and academic behaviour, all of which are important components of improved academic performance.

When children learn to play with others at an early stage of life it creates a sense of belonging in them and teaches them how to win or lose graciously.

Sports and physical education is the best care for children to lead a healthy lifestyle. Children who are physically active are more likely to grow into physically active and mentally balanced adults.

Physical education as an education tool can contribute significantly to the development and learning progress of the children.

Parents can contribute by encouraging their children to increase their physical activity to improve the health and displace unhealthy behaviours. Parents can assess the physical activity patterns of their children to help refer to appropriate physical activity programmes the school is offering.

Adopting the sports culture in early levels of childhood clearly is a significant step. However, to attain this paradigm shift towards physical education and sports it is of vital importance to encourage the acceptance of this sports oriented culture by parents and school at large which requires a collaborative effort. Like its said in sports, talent wins games, teamwork wins championships.

Together everyone achieves more.