In this blog I:
- Describe how to do the weekly Yoga activity with your child or toddler at home
- Give reasons why the Tatty Bumpkin Yoga activity is beneficial for your child or toddler
- Give ideas on how to progress the activity and games you can play around the activity.
Remember though, for you and your child to gain the full benefit of all the Tatty Bumpkin Yoga and multi-sensory activities, find out about your local Tatty Bumpkin class at http://www.tattybumpkin.com/classes/find-class.html.
Or, ask your child’s nursery if they are doing Tatty Bumpkin Yoga activity sessions as part of their day. Our qualified Tatty Bumpkin Teachers are fully trained in aspects of child development and Yoga and are kept fully up-to-date by our professional team of paediatric physiotherapists, Yoga teachers and musicians.
The Tatty Bumpkin Adventure This Week
If your child is going to a Tatty Bumpkin class this week they will go on an adventure with Tatty Bumpkin to visit her friends the frogs and will have a chance to:
1. Progress their fitness and balance skills as they jump as Frogs.
2. Progress their communication and thinking skills as they help Tatty Bumpkin solve the problem of frog being bored!
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| Help Tatty Bumpkin solve the problem! |
3. Stimulate their body senses as they turn themselves upside down upside down in Horse pose!
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| Can you kick up your heels? |
Or, maybe, you are thinking of a new career, which gives you:
- The opportunity to work with kids
- A great sense of job satisfaction and
- Flexible working to fit around your own family
Find out how you could be trained to deliver Baby and Tatty Bumpkin classes in your area at http://www.tattybumpkin.com/business/index.html.
Frog Pose – Tatty Bumpkin’s Yoga Activity for the Week!
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| Jump as a Frog! |
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| Jump as Frogs together! |
Ideally do Frog pose with your child as:
- Children under 3 years, largely learn new movements by copying the actions.
- Research is showing that toddlers and young children bond with their parents and ‘key people’ not only through touch and by communicating with them but also by moving with them.
- Frog jumps are great for your own fitness and balance.
- You can do Tatty Bumpkin Frog pose along to Tatty Bumpkin Frog Song. This song guides you to do 4 jumps in a row and then to take a rest, under the lily pad, before jumping once more! See http://bit.ly/1q2kqVQ .
- Start by doing the Yoga activity yourself and then encourage your child to copy you. If you are unable to do parts of the pose you can either encourage an older child to do the pose or use your child’s favourite toy.
- Begin curled up on a mat - as if you’re hiding under a lily pad.
- Imagine you’re waking up and move into the squatting position.
- Come up on your toes to get ready to jump.
- Then leap into the air, with your arms above your head!
- Come back down into squatting and jump up once more.
- If your child is 3 years or over, encourage them to do frog jumps without putting their hands on the floor – great for balance skills.
- If your child is younger, see if they can bend and straighten their knees to jump as frogs!
- If your child is more toddler age, and light enough for you to lift, you can help them to jump by supporting them around their hips. This allows your toddler to use their arms to balance.
What-ever your child’s age only do about 4 jumps in a row before pretending to hide again. In this way your child will remain at the ‘just right level of alertness’ and will become over-excited.
Progressions for Frog Pose
If your child is older they may want to ‘have a go’ at doing frog jumps forwards, backwards and sideways!
Other ‘Frog Games’ to Play
Jumping on Lily Pads
Often carpet shops will be happy to let you have samples of carpet. As these are usually non-slip they make ideal ‘lily pads’ to jump on and off!
As your child jumps off and on the squares- they will be using and organising several of their senses i.e. their visual sense, their sense of touch and their body senses. Doing these ‘sensory rich’ activities will help your child’s attention skills.
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| Jump over lily pads! |
Benefits of Tatty Bumpkin’s Frog Yoga Activity for Your Child or Toddler
Frog pose will give your child the opportunity to:
1. Strengthen their ‘core’ muscles
As your child leaps as a frog, taking their arms above their head, they will be strengthening their gluteal (hip), abdominal, spinal and shoulder muscles. Your young child or toddler needs these muscles to be strong and active so they can improve both their gross (whole body) and fine (hand) movement skills.
2. Strengthen their leg muscles
Jumping will strengthen your child’s quadriceps (thigh), hamstrings, calf, ankle and foot muscles. Your child will be using their own body as a natural weight to ‘work’ these muscles.
3. Develop their foot muscles
As your child or toddler does Frog pose they will be stretching and strengthening their foot muscles in many ways i.e.
Firstly they will be feeling the floor with their feet
Then they will be using their feet to jump up from the floor
Finally they will be using their feet to land back down on the floor.
4. Improve their balance skills
Staying still in the squatting position for a few seconds will challenge your child’s sense of balance. If your child is older encourage them to rock forwards onto the balls of their feet as they prepare to jump and to try jumping up and down without putting their hands down on the floor.
If your child is younger (toddler age) you can also support them round their hips as they jump in frog pose, they will then be able to use their arms to balance themselves. Using our arms to keep our balance in unstable situations is a sign of maturing balance skills.
5. Raise their ‘levels of alertness’
Jumping in frog pose will stimulate your young child’s/toddler’s vestibular sense. Our vestibular system is located in the inner ear and is stimulated each time we move our heads in relation to our body and gravity. This sense helps us achieve the right ‘level of alertness’ for any task we do i.e. via our vestibular sense we are able to move quickly and smoothly from sitting quietly to jumping up and down as we cheer on our favourite team!
If we sit for too long, with little vestibular stimulation, our levels of alertness will gradually go down and we will find it harder to think and process information.
So if your child has been sitting for a while, Frog pose will help them become more alert and to focus once more. If your child tends to be drowsy in the morning, doing a few frog jumps will then to raise their levels of alertness so they are ‘ready to learn’. However, don’t encourage your child to do too many jumps as this can lead to overexcitement.
6. Improve their communication skills
As you talk, sing and make faces with your young child, whilst doing the actions to Tatty Bumpkin Frog song, you will be helping to develop their communication skills.
Tatty Bumpkin Classes
Because each Tatty Bumpkin adventure is carefully linked to the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) the sessions not only enhance your child’s physical skills they also develop their communication, social and thinking skills. Find your local class at http://www.tattybumpkin.com/classes/find-class.html.
Or, to find out how you could be trained to deliver Tatty Bumpkin classes in your area at http://www.tattybumpkin.com/business/index.html
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