Movement Sense Activities

Overview

Movement sense activities will help a child to feel calmer, less distracted and in a better place to concentrate and focus.

Many children in the early years seek lots of non-productive movement ie climbing, running, spinning etc and this makes it difficult for a child to concentrate and focus. Alternatively, children can avoid movement ie be nervous movement whereby they don’t want to move so much and are not comfortable with movement. This can equally impact a child’s language and learning development.

The following activities will help a child whether they are movement-seeking or avoiding to process vestibular information better and as a result be less busy and concentrate and focus better.

Seeking Movement

If a child is seeking lots of movement activities then encourage him to:

Swing on a swing set (with support if required)
Take regular movement breaks by becoming the Teacher’s helper or messenger
Use of space-hopper, sit-n-spin, and trampoline (under supervision)
Run, jump, dance and march
Sit on a Movin’sit wobble cushion in the class
Do chair sit-ups

Avoiding Movement

If a child is avoiding movement experiences then: If your child avoids movement activities/experiences then he will benefit from:

Encourage him to slide with assistance
Encourage him to swing gently in a back and forth action with assistance with lots of deep pressure touch
Encourage him to run, jump and dance with assistance