Parent Information
We feel that it is very important that parents are familiar with the activities that their children take part in throughout nursery and primary school. The reason for this is so that you can understand your child's development and discuss their learning at home. Your child may wish to demonstrate or show you their new skills!
Within our Bounce activity sessions, children will take part in a number of different warm-up games designed to challenge their movement, thinking, understanding and processing skills. The games will be fun and encourage your child to work as part of a team, in pairs or as an individual. Warm-up games usually incorporate movement skills, such as sprinting, hopping or skipping, or floor movement such as crawling, sliding or bottom
shuffling. All children will take turns in the games which incorporate some form of coordination or agility, having to move quickly to match colours, move or transfer objects, this allows us to assess each child's abilities so that we can focus on any particular skills which they may find challenging, difficult or impossible!
An important part of each activity session are our physical skill challenges – we will attempt then practice at least two different skill challenges each session – the challenges will be individual but many will also involve using a partner. These are various physical skills which start off fairly simple and progress to become more difficult as your child develops.
Here is an example to give you an idea of the progress of a physical skill challenge.
| Name of skill | Level 1 | Level 2 | Partner |
|---|---|---|---|
| Static seated balance | Seated with knees bent and feet flat on the floor, arms behind and supporting the body, lift alternating arms and legs – challenge is to lift both legs and arms up in the air and remain balanced for a count of ten. | Seated with knees bent and feet flat on the floor, pass objects from the left side of the body and back again – challenge is to lift both legs then try and pass objects in a controlled movement from one side of the body to the other. | Seated with knees bent and feet flat on the floor, feet facing your partner and holding hands, raise alternating feet whilst leaning back and then attempt to straighten legs out to the side. Try seated back to back or side to side to pass objects with legs raised. |
| Dynamic balance to agility | Standing on a spot marker, jump with both feet together forwards and then backwards over the spot. Challenge is then to jump side to side over the spot. | Standing on the spot marker, jump into the air and land at 90 degree angle (quarter turn) then jump back. Challenge is to then jump and turn 180 degrees (half turn) then jump back. | Standing over a spot, partners hold hands and jump forward and back, side to side together. Partners can then try jumping and turning together. |
We do not expect that many children age 3 – 4 will be able to successfully complete challenges straight away in a controlled manner unless they are particularly physically skilled. Challenges will be repeated and practised and each individual will have a development record which you can view at any time to see your child's progress. Practise makes perfect!
We will never push a child to take part in activities which they find uncomfortable or too difficult but we do aim to challenge the children and stretch their skills so that they can develop.
Children will take part in different physical skills challenges each week and they will take part in various games to practise movement skills and develop agility.
Children will cool down and stretch by learning simple yoga poses. These poses also help develop balance and coordination.
We are also happy for you to come and watch or join in our activity sessions and we will be happy to answer any questions you may have. Please encourage your children to practice and show you their new skills – they will be given activities to take home and practice on a regular basis!