Using both the left & right sides of the body purposefully in movement is vital for healthy development in children.

Most children will start to show dominance for one side or the other well before school and favour their left hand or right hand for writing, for kicking, turning and visual focusing.  However, it is important the brain has opportunities to wire up both sides during the early years of development, as brain-body wiring is peaking.

Exploring movement with both our left and right sides, in a variety of different ways supports our whole brain and body to work as one, to access our full learning potential. 

That is where Jnr Gym Kids classes can support this brain wiring process.  We’ll be playing with sides…..

LEFT, LEFT, LEFT, RIGHT, LEFT

Understanding symbols or the language of left and right concepts can be tricky (especially for Under 5’s).  Unlike our other Jnr Gym Kids themes like pirates, mermaids or cars, you can’t see or touch left and right.  It’s a mature concept and not a tangible thing. Learning comes from hooking something new to something we already know – so… how will we make this theme hook?

To make things easier and give our Jnr Gym Kids visual cues, we will be using colours as our hooks.  RED for RIGHT & YELLOW for LEFT will help engage both the left & right sides individually in our body awareness & direction.  Watch for lots of fun marching, turning, rolling, lifting, throwing & looking in both directions during this fun theme!

This is a theme all about engaging, activating and playing purposefully with both sides of the brain and body! (Laterality = SIDES!) We will be encouraging our Jnr Gym Kids to try things on both sides and will be using lots of LEFT AND RIGHT talk as we hop left and right, cartwheel left and right and roll left and right at gymnastics!

The Brain has two hemisphere’s, the left and right side. For the most part, basic sensory functions are equally well represented on both sides of the brain (eg. language). However, each side plays a very different role. We use both sides of our brain to solve problems, make decisions and learn things.

Helping wire things up early, sets children up for life.  Learning to drive and following the road rules; Learning gymnastics choreography in the future; Following the calls from the football coach, step left, pass right…. we need to access the whole brain (both sides) for the best learning input & output or simply being more coordinated.

Imagine children sitting in a classroom and trying to write a story.  The RIGHT side of the brain works on whole picture – the ideas the flow the describing words.  The LEFT side helps with spelling, grammar, syntax. Without both sides of the brain having some great foundational wiring accessing these areas equally can be very tricky….

It’s rich purposeful movement experiences that help ‘wire the brain’s sides up’… so let’s get moving and start building our directional and laterality awareness at Jnr Gym Kids!