tatty bumpkin-: 2013 Week 26: Tatty Bumpkin's Activity for the Week is WORM!

By Sue Heron – Training Co-ordinator Tatty Bumpkin and Paediatric Physiotherapist

The activity for this week in Tatty Bumpkin classes is WORM!

As the lightning flashes and the thunder claps Tatty Bumpkin heads underground with her friend Worm. She has to go right down on her tummy to wriggle through the worm hole, but soon she realises that if she uses her legs as well as her arms she can wriggle quite fast! The tunnel opens up into Worm Town and Tatty Bumpkin finds other worms hard at work building houses, roads and bridges.

Then it is time for lunch, and the question is, ‘What do worms put in their sandwiches', any ideas?

What WORM Activity Looks Like!

Start on your tummy then wriggle forwards like a worm!

Description – What to Say to Your Child

Lie on your stomach, with your legs bent slightly out to the side and your arms out in front. Bring your elbows under your chest so you are supporting yourself on your forearms. Now wriggle forwards like a worm using both your legs and your arms i.e. alternate between using your right elbow and left leg and your left elbow and right leg- commando crawling! (This alternating action of arms and legs is hard to describe, a demonstration is best!). Crawling under a dark piece of fabric can be fun, you can be a worm wriggling down a worm hole!

Note to parents: Some children, and definitely younger children, will find it hard to bring in their legs into this activity. They might use their arms only and drag their legs behind them. This is fine as it will be strengthening arm muscles and it is better that they enjoy the activity rather than struggle to do both arms and legs and get frustrated! Practising the arm and leg movements whilst lying still may be helpful i.e. guide your child to lie on their stomach with their head facing the right side and with their right arm and LEFT leg bent, then ask them to look to their left whilst bending their left arm and RIGHT leg. See if your child can string several of these movements together. Keep returning to doing ‘worm’ encouraging your child to bring in their legs.

Want to make it harder?

Try to wriggle backwards and sideways too. Now try to wriggle with your eyes shut, remember worms cannot see!

Why it is ‘Good For Me’

Worm pose will give your child the opportunity to:

Strengthen their ‘core muscles’. As your child wriggles in worm pose they will be strengthening their back, tummy, shoulder and hip muscles. Strength in these major muscle group will help your child develop a good ‘posture’ and refine their balance skills.

Increase their brain’s awareness of their right and left sides. This is essential for skills such as writing and dressing which require the smooth co-ordination of the right and left sides and the arms with the legs.

Develop their 'motor planning' skills. In worm pose your child’s brain will be processing information from several senses (touch, sight & their body senses) to produce a fairly complex movement. This sensory processing ability is crucial for motor planning i.e. the ability to learn new movements or do several moves in sequence e.g. skipping, dressing or writing and indeed wriggling!

Make it Multi-Sensory, Educational & Fun

In Tatty Bumpkin classes we use unique storylines to make the activities meaningful and to fire the imagination.

All our classes are multi-sensory comprising of:

Adapted yoga poses and activities which both stimulate and calm the body senses

Dedicated songs and rhythms which are relevant to the stories

Bespoke hand-woven props to look at and feel. Tatty Bumpkin has its own range of fairly traded animal props to back up the yoga poses and bring the stories to life. Our teachers are supported to use natural props in the classes which are great to feel as opposed to smooth plastic

We have carefully linked each Tatty Bumpkin to the new 2012 Early Years Foundation Stage framework. Importantly supporting children to learn ‘how to learn’ not just focusing on what on they learn.

So … The Adventure This Week ..

This week Tatty Bumpkin finds her friend Worm under the Giggle Tree and he invites her to visit his Worm Town. Tatty Bumpkin peers down the dark worm tunnel and feels a little nervous. Worm, however, is full of good ideas and suggests they try wriggling down a shorter, lighter worm tunnel first so Tatty Bumpkin can become a confident wriggler!

Success! It was a good idea of worm's and Tatty Bumpkin and worm wriggle confidently into Worm Town. Tatty Bumpkin is truly amazed by the activity; worms are building houses, worms are rolling roads, worms are even building bridges!

Build a bridge for the worms to wriggle under!

Roll a smooth worm road!

Then Tatty Bumpkin sees the 'Worm Airplane Display Team' taking off over the town. The little planes swoop down low and soar up high, doing rolls in the air whilst leaving trails of coloured smoke across the sky.

Be part of The Worm Airplane Display Team

After all the excitement it is definitely time for a sandwich, but the question is – ‘What do worms like in their sandwiches?’ If you have an idea Tatty Bumpkin would love to know!

This story gives your child an opportunity to:

Practise wriggling on their tummy, using their arms and legs, and rising from squat to stand without using their arms – both these activities are great for increasing body strength, balance and co-ordination.

Use their imagination to think and talk about possible house shapes they would like to build with the worms – could the houses be worm castles, worm flats or maybe worm bungalows?