Having an outdoor space where to make their children play is a fortune that not all families have. But there are many activities that can be done within our home walls to encourage children’s movement
In addition to the families who own a garden or a large terrace where children can run, jump, make goat and other games, there are also many families who, often in the city, live in apartments where at most they have a small balcony, or maybe not even that. And perhaps in these families they coexist multiple children, who during forced quarantine have the same need to do activities, move and commit the body of their peers who have an outdoor space available.
A “psychic hunger”
Since the beginning of life there are four parallel development paths that provide children with the basic skills for the conquest of autonomy and become great: movement, fine manual skills, language and sociability. Satisfying “psychic hunger” relating to language and manual skills can be relatively simple even in a closed space such as the domestic one, while as regards movement and sociality, attention must be paid, especially in this particular historical period, to find a way to satisfy these needs even in non -optimal conditions.
In this article we will focus on the need for movement, which for young and old is a vital and worthy necessity of protection. How can we offer opportunities for movement in close spaces that allow children to respond to their natural and legitimate need to exercise? Here are some suggestions.
Loosen the rules
At this moment it could be useful, if not necessary, make a derogation regarding the rules of use of the spaces of the house. For example, the prohibition (legitimate and shareable) to borrow the sofa cushions and the bed covers to make a “den” or to use tables and chairs to build motor routes, could be too severe and impracticable in the restriction period in which we are experiencing. At the same time, granting children to carry out games such as those listed, would allow them to engage in activities that require time and great investment of energy, of which parents are often lacking.
Great buildings
By recovering sheets, cushions, sticks, chairs and tables, laundry clothespins, catini and puppets it is possible to offer children the opportunity to build a den, a “tailor -made” place where play “pretending that” and stage and rework experiences and relationships. The more the material offered will be unstructured, that is raw, the greater their possibility of interpretation: the imagination will be able to flow in a free and more spontaneous way and head towards perhaps unpredictable places!
Large washes
When I was a teacher at a kindergarten, there was a child who often committed herself independently in the “great washes”. When he perceived, perhaps on a rainy day that made the garden impractical, the need to exercise, obtained a basin, a sponge and a rag and wissed, rinsed and dried tables, chairs and large surfaces. At the end of his great work he was satisfied and relaxed.
The activity just described can offer children closed in the house the opportunity to move their arms, legs and the whole body. Allow him to choose some furniture (chairs, tables …), let him set up a sheet or a mat with a basin, a brocade, a soap (or, if the mobile has glass surfaces, a special product), a sponge and some clothes to dry. Finally, show him the necessary actions, in the right sequence, to carry out the activity and let them work all the time they want.
Routes on the wire
With a little paper ribbon drawn on the floor a large rectangle, which will establish the path to follow. Recover a tambourine (or maracas) and fun can start. Someone will take care of dictating the rhythm of the walk by striking the tambourine: slow, normal, fast, very fast … at the agreed signal (a bell, a beating of hands) the walk will be able to proceed backwards, to another sound you will have to jump to the same pie and so on.
This activity will allow young and old to get involved on the motor coordination, on the ability to follow a rhythm and respect instructions, will facilitate concentration and attention.
Coding
For this game, suitable from 4 years and up, three players are needed. Two challenge each other and one will do the “auctioneer of sequences”.
Put 10 paper rectangles (about 20 × 10 cm) and write to us the numbers from one to five (each number must be written on two rectangles). With adhesive tape, fix the rectangles to the ground on two parallel rows, making sure that the rectangles that report the same number are in front of the other. Each of the two challengers chooses its own row and positions itself, facing the other, in front of paper number three. At this point, the auctioneer dictates a sequence to be reproduced out loud, for example “3-1-4-5!”, And they must jump in Pie ‘equal on the figures appointed respecting the order with which they were presented. The game will complicate as the auctioneer will say more and longer sequences to memorize and reproduce.
