Good night Inchy Inchworm

I can imagine that just about now, bed time routines are being enacted in every household inhabited by toddlers, preschoolers and primary aged children.

Our bedtime routine involves; milk, teddy bear biscuit (or more than one if the behaviour warrants it) books - usually three - and occasionally some gymnastics.

I have been encouraging my Preschooler to do different 'animal walks' to build upper body strength. With Spring, comes many more opportunities to visit the park and make use of a wider range of equipment. Playgrounds for preschoolers provide greater and more exciting challenges.

So we have been preparing for it by building upper body strength - nothing too serious...just lots of opportunities to support her own body weight. Animal walks are great for this.

This evening, we said good night to our 'Inchy Inchworm'.

1. Begin with hands and feet on the floor as close together as possible.

Bottoms in the air and legs as straight as comfortably possible..

2. Keeping the feet still, walk the hands out until then are under the chest.

3. Now, keeping the hands still, walk the feet towards the hands.

4. Repeat

Integrated PE

Physical activity can be cleverly woven into many daily happenings.

We love 'story time' here and like many households, books are part of the 'going-to-bed' routine. But we also like to 'gather a crowd and read aloud' during the day. This is often followed by some form of story stretching activity. Many books lend itself to crafty adventures but I can often find some way to integrate PE into the session.

This is a favourite in many homes...and so I can imagine there are many different improvisations for each of the verbs used to cross the obstacles.

Incidentally, I would be interested to know what readers use for each of the scenes; scarves for the grass, a heap of cushions/river, beanbags/mud, furniture/forest, imagination-noise/wind, blanket/chairs for the cave.

But whenever we read this book aloud, we pay extra attention and take turns to role-play the bear. Getting around on hands and feet (same leg/arm) is one of many methods of locomotion that develops leg flexibility and arm/torso strength.

If enthusiasm and time permits, we go on 'seal' hunts (straight arms and hands turned in toward each other with dragging the legs along, crab hunts (on hands and feet but facing up - walking sideways) and Monkey hunts (same as bear but with opposite arms and legs). Of course, the bear, crab, seal and monkeys are always friendly and everyone goes home happy at the end of our stories.

Happy Bear hunting.