Moving to Learn!

From moving "curvy, straight and round and around" in Village to "sit down, lie down and roll over" in Our Time, and crossing the body's mid-line in "The Broom Man's sweep'em clean" in Imagine That! children are invited to experience and explore movement concepts in our weekly Kindermusik class.

Aristotle once said, "What we have to learn to do, we learn by doing." Or by moving!

Movement is critical to learning and in the development of your child's cognitive growth. According to Rae Pica, "it is now understood that, because a child's earliest learning is based on motor development, so too is much of the knowledge that follows. The cerebellum, the part of the brain previously associated with motor control only, is now known to be, as Eric Jensen, author of numerous books on brain-based learning, puts it, a "virtual switchboard of cognitive activity." Study after study demonstrated a connection between the cerebellum and such cognitive functions as memory, spatial orientation, attention, language, and decision making among others."

Pica also talks about how children benefit from early experiences with movement. When children are given opportunities to internalize movement concepts such as curvy, straight, up or down, they can then transfer that knowledge to more abstract contexts such as forming curvy or straight lines in letters, numbers and drawings. You can read her full article here: More Movement, Smarter Kids