Barbara Karmazyn

Discoveries in neuroscience have shown that movement plays a vital and crucial role in learning and brain development. In order to fully activate their learning potential children must move. With young children spending more and more time sitting in car seats, baby carriers, and in front of television sets, the potential for growth and learning is sadly limited. Many children don’t even have the opportunity to run about in a back yard or in a playground. By integrating movement experiences throughout the day we can give children the opportunity to grow and learn kinesthetically.

Connection Between Movement and Learning

In Smart Moves: Why Learning is Not All in Your Head, Carla Hannaford, Phd. explains why and how the body grows the brain. She says that all learning in the first15 months of life is centered in the vestibular system,the sensory organs located in the inner ear and the eyes. The first sensory system to develop, it controls our sense of movement and balance, locomotion, muscle tone and precise motor execution. Proper functioning of this system is essential to all higher learning.

Carla also stresses the importance of the corpus callosum, the nerve pathway between the left and right hemispheres of the brain. Activating both sides of the brain in unison, is crucial for building neural pathways. Any activity that crosses the mid line assists development.

Cognitive Movement Break (do both several times a day)

Vestibular Stimulation
spin 15 seconds one way….stop for 15 seconds….repeat the other way
it is in the stopping that this system becomes activated

Crossing the Mid Line
crawling is the obvious choice, especially for younger children.
the opposite game:
sit or stand and slowly touch each hand to opposite knee 4-8 times
then hands to feet, shoulders, ears etc
standing helps activate vestibular system re balance

Integrating Movement Throughout the Day

Movement activities assist in development of all the multiple intelligences, particularly kinesthetic. Integrating movement into the curriculum gives children plenty of opportunities to learn through their bodies, shift emotional states and get rid of the “wigglies”. Ideally, follow a Creative Dance philosophy, giving children open ended activities to explore the concepts of movement: body and spatial awareness, force and time (see Anne Green Gilbert’s Creative Dance for All Ages). However, any movement is better than no movement at all.

Cultivate linguistic and musical intelligence by taking nursery rhymes, simple songs and stories into full body movement

Enhance mathematical and musical intelligence by giving children simple rhythm patterns to follow: use body percussion, voice, instruments and then take these patterns into movement

Facilitate interpersonal intelligence by circle dances and partner dances: use a wide variety of music

Develop visual/spatial intelligence by encouraging children to physically explore the concepts of place, directions, levels, size and pathways

Nurture emotional and intrapersonal intelligence by providing a non competitive, encouraging atmosphere

Conclusion
We can enhance the learning environment and the learning potential of each child by providing many opportunities for children to move and grow.

- Barbara Karmazyn

(Published in The Early Childhood Educator, The Journal of Early Childhood Educators of British Columbia  Summer 2003)