Catrobatkidz Global Physical Education

Quality Fun Classes to Develop:

• Body Awareness

• Balance

• Locomotion

• Gross & Fine Motor Skills

• Spatial Relationships

• Rhythm & Timing

• Strength

• Flexibility

• Co-ordination

Giving your Child the Confidence to Succeed

Ages 2-9 years old

A confident pre-schooler, who is familiar with the joy of success, will cope well with the challenges of Primary School and life in general...

Half an Hour classes, once a week at selected Pre-Schools, Crèches, Nursery Schools, Primary Schools and similar educational institutions.

All Catrobatkidz Franchises offer our Skill Development Programme. Other activities are currently available at selected Franchises only. Please contact the Franchisee in your area to find out which further activities they offer and information on participating schools in your area.

Movement is of vital interest to young children, and important in developing their full potential. Movement enters into all facets of children's development: physical, affective, and cognitive, particularly during the early childhood years when children are learning to move, as well as moving to learn. Movement and learning go hand in hand, using their bodies to gain knowledge about themselves and the world around them. Movement is vital for effective learning. Enhancing children's ability to move more effectively, with control and joy, is a worthy goal of every pre-school curriculum.

An infant absorbs his world in an essentially passive way - watching and listening. As the months and years go by he gains more and more control over his muscles and limbs, beginning to explore his environment through the use of all his senses, and through movement. It is during the pre-school years that a child's fundamental movement abilities (walking, running, jumping, rolling, bending etc.) and movement patterns are developed and learned. A good sense of balance, rhythm and co-ordination are essential for success in these activities.

Learning to move involves the continuous development of children's fundamental movement abilities. Children should be exposed to a wide variety of fundamental movements and be encouraged to refine them. Maturation alone will not account for the development of mature, efficient movement patterns. Children need to have experiences in all of the movement areas in order to maximize their full potential.

The Importance of Physical Development
There are several causes for the poor physical condition of our young children. First the urban/suburban environment often deprives children of fences to walk along and balance on, trees to climb, hills to roll down and large open spaces in which to play ball and run freely. In some environments, due to crime, it is unsafe for children to explore their outdoor environments. Children who have not integrated the movement skills involved in the above activities need to acquire them in an educational setting.

As a result of crime, the fast pace of life, and urbanisation, many children do not have regular opportunity to move and play freely in an outdoor environment.

Children's fascination for watching television, playing television games, and computers has helped create a sedentary society for children. They are not getting enough physical activity. Even those children who participate in free play and have adequate open space available may not develop skills in all movement areas. Many children tend to stay with one free time activity until they gain a feeling of competency and success, while neglecting development in other areas. Active participation in all movement areas by children is essential to their development during these early years.

Children should have fun, be successful, and feel challenged by actively engaging in success-orientated activities. Movement experience plays an important role in how children perceive themselves, how they relate to their peers and how they utilize their free time. The development of a positive self-concept is too important to be left to chance and we must do all that we can to ensure it's proper development.

Catrobatkidz Goals:
The goals of development for pre-school children are:

• Developing full use of all the children's senses.

• Helping children develop good movement skills.

• Enhancing children's positive self-image.

• Developing children's cognitive skills.

• Strengthening the children's three modes of learning:

  • Visual

  • Auditory

  • Tactual

Catrobatkidz Principles:

• Assessment/Evaluation. Your child's abilities will be continually assessed.

• Exploration of the many movements of which children are capable.

• Presentation of movement experiences which are appropriate to pre-school age.

• Presentation of basic skills followed by more complex ones. Lesson plans are sequentially pre-planned for the year.

• Provision for variety and practice.

• Ensuring the children's enjoyment of, and success with, the activities.

Brain Facts You Should Know
Cup your head with your hand just under the bony part of your skull (above your neck). This is where your cerebellum is situated. It forms part of the brain stem and controls movement, balance and body control. Movement in utero is responsible for making the cerebellum physically grow. At birth, a baby's cerebellum should be about the size of a 50c piece, growing to the size of a tennis ball by adulthood.

Edu-profilogist, Dr Anette Lotter, who regularly attends brain autopsies, says that she is very concerned at the decreasing size of the cerebellum in children today. "What we are seeing in the physiology of the brain results from the fact that children today do not move enough. With insufficient movement (too much time spent in baby carriers or in front of TV, for example), or lack of the right kind of movement, there is inadequate stimulation of the cerebellum in the brain stem."

While the brain, just like the body, needs food and water in order to survive, it also needs to be marinated in rich life experiences in order for your child to take advantage of all the genetic potential he/she was born with. In the first year of life, parents are automatically programmed to do things that are most important for brain growth - cuddling, rocking, massaging, singing, playing, feeding, to name a few.

By stimulating the senses through these activities, connections and associations between the brain cells form, and these become more permanent as your baby begins to move. Movement is excellent brain food, wiring the brain for more sophisticated learning tasks later on like reading, writing, spelling and mathematics. 

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