Importance of Movement for Young Children

Physical Development

• Motor Skill Development: Requires guidance, doesn't happen automatically.
• Health Concerns:
  • Childhood obesity crisis.
  • 40% of children aged 5-8 show at least one heart disease risk factor (e.g., obesity, hypertension).
  • First signs of arteriosclerosis appearing at age 5.
  • Children aged 6-10 at risk of sudden cardiac arrest.
  • Potential first generation to not outlive their parents due to sedentary lifestyles.
• Movement and physical activity are crucial to combat these issues.

Social-Emotional Development

• Movement aids in:
  • Playing together.
  • Learning cooperative games.
  • Taking turns and sharing.

Cognitive Development

• Physical experience of concepts is vital for learning:
  • Quantitative concepts in math (e.g., high and low).
  • Spatial awareness and directionality for reading and writing (e.g., top to bottom, left to right).
  • Word comprehension and emergent literacy.
  • Positional concepts (related to geometry and literacy).
• Children need to act out concepts to fully grasp them (e.g., words like tiny and enormous).
• Increasing sedentary behavior is contrary to research on effective learning methods.