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CHCFC502A: Foster physical development in early childhood

Create opportunities for children to develop a wide range of physical skills

Contents

Develop opportunities for physical activity within the context of the service 3

Resources to include in the environment 3

Select and provide a variety of toys, materials, equipment and spaces to encourage the development of a wide range of fine and gross motor and fundamental movement skills 5

Choosing appropriate toys and equipment 5

Making toys and equipment 8

Identify and seek advice when children require specialist assistance 9

Identifying concerns about physical development 9

Following up concerns about physical development 9

Seeking specialised assistance 10

Create opportunities to support emerging skills of individual children where necessary 11

Opportunities for children to practise developing skills 11

Encourage children of both genders to participate in the full range of activities 13

Use encouraging language 13

Provide opportunities for children to develop and learn new physical skills 16

Benefit of new experiences 16

Creating new interests 17

Provide opportunities for children to consolidate their physical skills towards independence 19

2 Diploma of Children’s Services: CHCFC502A: Reader LO 9305 © NSW DET 2010

Develop opportunities for physical activity within the context of the service

Resources to include in the environmentInclude varied surfaces, varied heights, sand, water, mud, pathways, shade, varied vegetation, a cubby house.

Shady pathways, varied heights Sand, water

Outdoor equipmentSamples of outdoor materials and equipment to promote participation in physical activities

For filling and emptying

Dump trucks, boxes, cartons, baskets, cans, buckets, crates, paper bags, sacks, shells, sand, mud

Diploma of Children’s Services: CHCFC502A: Reader LO 9305 3© NSW DET 2010

To crawl through

Barrels, open-ended boxes, collapsible tunnels, obstacles courses, tyres, hoops, tubes, ladders, tables covered with sheets.

To jump up and over

Foam mattresses, inner tubes, tyres, piled leaves, low boxes, rope.

To construct and build with

Wooden blocks, bricks and tins, tyres and tubes, crates and boxes, pulleys, ladders, pieces of pvc piping, wooden logs, canvas/ sheets /carpet pieces, string, rope. Use to pile in heaps, to stack, to carry, join, enclose with.

To kick, throw, catch, bounce aim for

Balls of different textures, colours, sizes; balls hanging in stockings, punching bags, skittles, plastic bottles filled with sand, small rocks, bulls-eye painted on the fence, cardboard cylinders.


Select and provide a variety of toys, materials, equipment and spaces to encourage the development of a wide range of fine and gross motor and fundamental movement skills

Choosing appropriate toys and equipmentEquipment and toys that foster physical development are numerous, wide-ranging and varied. They can range from very expensive large pieces of fixed equipment to a net bag usually used for oranges filled up with cellophane.

The thing to remember is, of course, that you do not need really expensive equipment in order to develop physical skills. Pauline Berry (2001) in her book Playgrounds That Work has looked specifically at how children use playgrounds. She spent time actually observing children playing in a range of centres on a variety of pieces of equipment. Some of her findings are summarised here.

Sand is popular with all ages...

Sand is the most popular activity for both infants (10–20 months) and four-to-five-year-olds. They spend longer periods of time in the sandpit than at any other activity. Infants prefer large open sandpits, while toddlers prefer cosy ones. School-aged children also use

... as is water

Water is an essential ingredient to an outdoor play space, especially in the sandpit or digging pit.


...and digging in dirt

Digging in dirt is very different from sand. This is a valuable activity that can improve gross motor skills and also release tensions. The addition of water for mud pies is great for those fine motor skills too. Digging areas are more suitable for children over three-and-a-half years of age.

Bike tracks

Bike tracks are a valuable addition to a playground. Berry advises that if multiple ages are to use this area it needs to have two sections?one simple, the other providing more challenges such as rises, archways and strips to make the ride bumpy.

Fixed play equipment

Fixed play equipment is usually very expensive and often does not cater to the different needs of the age groups. Young children are often faced with a safety hazard as structures are usually too high and the handrails are not suitable. Older children usually create challenges by using the equipment inappropriately.

Swinging is a very social activity

Swings appeal to a wide age range of children, though girls tend to find swinging easier than boys. Berry sees swinging as a very social activity and recommends that there be two similar swings for children to be able to interact while swinging.

Slides are a very popular piece of equipment

Slides are also very popular pieces of equipment. Again children will often use them in different ways, sometimes inappropriately, especially walking up the slide. Older children use tunnel slides more than toddlers and they can often be used as a 'secret' place. It is recommended that slides for the early childhood years have a 'slow finish'. This helps reduce accidents and avoids children becoming projectiles.


Climbing frames

Climbing frames have very little appeal to children. They tend to only be used when other props are added. Toddlers and infants seem more interested in the soft fall material below the frames. Balance beams also do not seem to hold much appeal to young children but they appear to really enjoy walking along the edge of the garden beds

You will find that many good-quality toys and equipment can be very costly. You can make acceptable substitutes quite cheaply. Some ideas include:

• steering-wheel covers from cheap shops. These are usually made out of some sort of rubbery foam with material on the outside. They are great to use as quoits for young children to step in and through and to jump from one to another like hoops.

• rolling up newspapers as bats; sticky-tape them together and use them for a variety of ball games

• making large boxes into cubbies• spreading out coat hangers to make a bat, covered with stockings; you can

use these with balloons, rolled up newspaper ball or any light commercial ball

• using socks paired together in a ball as beanbags• using carpet squares for jumping on, as bases or simply to get children to

sit in one place• taping together three or four phone books and covering with contact—

these make great stools or steps• making beanbags by putting beans or another material into children’s

socks and then sewing them up—a great idea for all those odd socks whose partners seem to get eaten up by the washing machine

• substituting ice-cream or margarine containers for witches hats and other markers

• using boxes and pots and pans from the cupboard to create a home corner.

Using plastic bowls, boxes and pans


Making toys and equipment• Allow children to explore and be self-directed.• Allow for imagination and creativity—setting up experiences so that

children can work at their own level and pace.• Avoid stereotypes and bias in materials.• Encourage investigation, discovery and enquiry into the functions of the

play materials.• Use developmentally appropriate materials.

Here are some ideas:

• add rocks and wood to the sensory table• prepare the sandpit by creating beautiful designs in the sandpit• add an array of natural materials to the playdough table including stones,

rosemary sprigs, pebbles. Also add massage tools to create an extra dimension to manipulating the playdough. Display the playdough on wooden cutting boards and other similar item.

• hang a material pocket-holder from the window with lots of different treasures (including plant life, seeds, grasses)—this can spark lots of enjoyment and conversation

• place bells on wooden trays to invite experimentation with different sounds

• encourage children to explore in a pile of dirt, placing the dirt in a container on a wheelbarrow for further investigation

• provide a collection of mirrors and coloured objects on a mirror• provide translucent fabric and other similar fabrics to visually and

physically explore• provide a range of different bowls, baskets and so on with different

shapes, textures and designs• try to keep some open space in the playground to encourage running and

other gross motor activities.


Identify and seek advice when children require specialist assistance

Identifying concerns about physical developmentAn area that every caregiver will encounter at some stage in their career is the situation that arises when a child is not reaching the appropriate developmental milestones. Children may display additional physical needs in a number of areas and for a number of reasons. These reasons may include:

• sensory impairment—vision or hearing• disabilities that interfere with the normal function of bones, joints and

muscles (Allen and Schwartz, 2001). These include malformed or missing limbs, hip dislocation, damage caused by polio and other diseases, neurological disorders such as cerebral palsy and fractures, burns and amputations.

• health impairments such as obesity, asthma, epilepsy or leukaemia.

It is important that you be fully conversant with the indicators relating to physical milestones, as although many children with additional needs s will come to care already identified, there will often be a situation where you will be concerned about a child’s development and will need to follow up.

Following up concerns about physical developmentWhat do you do if you are concerned that the child is not reaching developmental norms?

Activity 1

Accommodating additional physical needsYou may need to accommodate additional physical needs at some stage in your career. You may have a child with a vision impairment, cerebral palsy or spina bifida, just to name a few conditions. This means that adjustments will need to be made to the environment in order to meet the child’s physical needs.


For a child to be accommodated within an early childhood program, the following are necessary:

• staff need to have a positive attitude to difference and a belief that they can meet the needs of that child (Stoneman (1993), Wolery et al (1993), Reber (1995) cited in Hutchins and Sims (1999)).

• make necessary adjustments to the environment to ensure equal access to it

• ensure staff are familiar with correct handling and positioning procedures.

Remember if we are actively including children in our setting we are not necessarily trying to ‘fix’ them, but rather we should be concentrating on changing the environment and our caregiving strategies to meet their needs. Try the following activity.

Activity 2

Seeking specialised assistanceThere will be times when you will need to seek advice and assistance from others to help you accommodate a child’s additional needs. There are a number of specialists available to work with children with additional physical needs. These would include:

• occupational therapists• physiotherapists• speech therapists• early intervention professionals• doctors and other health professionals.

Each service should have a policy and a set of procedures that would guide your interactions with these professionals. You would need to be aware of issues such as:

• privacy and confidentiality of the child and family• who should be contacting specialists—director, childcare worker or family

member• the agreed caregiving strategies between the agencies, the centre and the

family. It is vital that there is clear collaboration with all parties involved when developing a program—family, specialists and staff.


Create opportunities to support emerging skills of individual children where necessary

Opportunities for children to practise developing skillsAs a carer of young children you will aim to provide a quality learning environment that stimulates children to develop and grow. You will do this by providing opportunities for the children to practise their developing and emerging skills.

To be able to do this you will need to develop the following essential knowledge and skills:

• implement the principles of developmentally appropriate practice• create a physical learning environment that caters for the children’s

developmental and social play characteristics.

Developmentally appropriate practice and the learning environment

We facilitate children’s learning by:

• arranging the learning environment• providing materials, equipment and experiences that match or enhance

the child’s level of development and understanding.

This is known as ‘developmentally appropriate practice’. Materials and equipment are carefully selected and set up to meet the general needs of the age range of children in a group.

Each age group of children has distinct and unique developmental characteristics. These developmental characteristics will influence:

• the type of learning experiences we choose• the provisions and equipment we provide • how we set up and present the provisions and equipment.


Children who are cared for in environments where the materials and equipment are matched to their abilities and interests will gain the most benefit from them, as they are provided with the greatest variety of opportunities to practise skills that are developing and emerging.

Providing experiences for emerging skills

A well-designed and well-managed play program should provide children with opportunities:

• for motor skill development• for decision making• for learning• for fantasy play• for social development• to learn about their own emotional responses• to choose and develop individual and group interests• to just play.

Opportunities for motor skill developmentLarge and fine muscle development, eye-hand-foot coordination and balancing and locomotion skills need a range of opportunities for practise and testing of limits of abilities. Regardless of the abilities of children playing, they should have opportunities to practise and extend whatever skills they have, always with something further in reach. When children accomplish one skill, they can test themselves in new ways.

Activity 3a

Activity 3b

Activity 3c

Activity 4


Encourage children of both genders to participate in the full range of activities

Gender sometimes influences the development of skills. For example, boys might be encouraged to be involved in physically active play outside while girls are encouraged to be quieter and play indoors and so spend less time practising those gross motor skills.

We need to ensure that children of both genders are encouraged and have the opportunity to participate in all fine motor and gross motor activities.

Use encouraging languageAs carers we need to be careful our language, both verbal and non-verbal, encourages the participation of all children in activities and does not bias activities to a certain gender.

We need to avoid seeing boys and girls as stereotypes. For example,

How do we portray girls?

As passive, frightened, weak, gentle, giving up easily, unoriginal, silly, illogical, shrewish, nagging, confused, neat, short, inept, dependent, follower, conformer, controlling anger, emotional, playing or working indoors, concerned about appearance, as a parent nurturing children and having an innate need for marriage and children.

How do we portray boys?

As active, brave, strong, rough, competitive, inventive, intelligent, logical, quiet, easygoing, decisive, problem-solving, messy, tall, mechanical, independent, leader, innovative, expressing anger, unemotional, playing or working outdoors, unconcerned about appearance, as a parent playing with children and having an innate need for adventure.


By being positive and inclusive in our language we can help overcome the stereotypes and encourage children to participate as well as for children to accept the participation of all children in an activity.

Suggested strategies:

• Role model non-biased behaviours and language.• Evaluate and challenge any personal biases.• Treat all children equally.• When you greet children in the morning, be aware of your greeting. For

example, you may say, ‘Good morning Diane, I’m glad to see you have your running shoes on today. I’ve set up the obstacle course!’ rather than ‘Good morning Diane, you’ve got your pink flower shoes on today’.

• Make sure your expectations are the same for both girls and boys (eg, encourage participation in running games, obstacle courses, ball games, climbing, mud digging, dance, sewing, threading, woodwork and small construction in both girls and boys).

• Avoid stereotyping jobs or roles (eg, say, ‘Who wants to take on the role of the fire-fighter? Chitra? Connor?’)

• Don’t segregate girls from boys or use gender to group the children (eg, the children can pick a girl or boy to be their dance partner).

• Use inclusive language (eg, I will use the term ‘fire-fighter’ instead of ‘fireman’).

• Make it clear that all experiences are open to all interested children.

Use of resourcesCheck your resources to ensure that they are not reinforcing stereotypes.

Pip, the carer, is reading a book at story-time. She shows the preschoolers a picture showing a group of boys flying kites. There is also a group of girls watching the kite flying. Christa, four years old, exclaims, 'Oh, girls can fly kites too!' Pip realises that story books have been sending Christa the message that roles and activities are gender-defined (ie, there are male roles and there are female roles). As she looks through the books in the centre's collection, Pip can see that the story books mostly reinforce these stereotypes.

Suggestions:

• Provide opportunities for children to participate in non-gender, non-stereotypic activities.

• Use mediums such as books, songs, posters, equipment to provide acceptance of non-stereotypes. Make sure that there is gender balance and gender equality in the posters, books and videos at the centre.


• Provide an inclusive educational environment where children will have the opportunity to interact, learn together, achieving and developing to their fullest potential.

• Base physical activities on the children’s interests extending them where possible and ensure all children have the opportunity to participate if interested.


Provide opportunities for children to develop and learn new physical skills

Familiar learning experiences are a wonderful base for children to develop competence and confidence in their abilities. Familiar experiences provide safe havens for the child’s emerging sense of initiative. It is equally important, however, that our learning curriculum evolves and grows with the children. One way that we can do this is to provide new ideas and experiences once the children have settled into the learning environment.

Our learning curriculum should not remain static

Our learning curriculum should not remain static—it needs to evolve and grow with the children’s emerging interests and skills

Benefit of new experiencesIntroducing new experiences into the existing curriculum has many benefits.

New experiences can:

• re-invigorate the children’s learning and enthusiasm and the carer’s interaction techniques

• challenge children to learn new skills, consolidate existing skills or integrate their skills

• support child’s sense of initiative• provide carers with opportunities to engage and observe children in a new

context


• prompt discoveries and exploration• extend children’s participation and attention span• nurture and create opportunities for new interests• encourage children to work together and share discoveries and ideas.

Gradual introductionThe introduction of new experiences should be done gradually. It should be gradual because suddenly removing all familiar experiences and replacing them with unfamiliar ones can be very unsettling for some children. This is particularly important when working in infant and toddler environments. Introducing one new experience at a time is useful to ensure that the children feel secure and are also offered many opportunities to engage with the provisions. When working with older children, however, introducing one new experience at a time may be unmanageable because of the interest levels and demand that the experience hopefully creates. In this situation it is useful to introduce at least two new experiences simultaneously.

Carer support and interactionsAs with any new experience or learning, we need to carefully consider the amount of instruction, intervention and encouragement we will need to provide to the children.

Depending on the age of the child and their skills and abilities, the level of interaction required from us, the carers, will differ. We should not introduce new experiences without being able to offer the children the appropriate support they require to ensure that they benefit as much as possible from the experience.

Integrating children’s interestsAs carers, we can use our knowledge of the children’s interests to provide the basis of new experiences and ideas. It is important that we implement the new experiences within a reasonable timeframe as children’s interests may change quickly as they are constantly engaging with the learning environment. In this way we can extend the children’s knowledge and learning in interests they have chosen and stimulate their desire to find out more.

Creating new interestsWhile it is appropriate for us, as carers, to present experiences related to the children’s existing interests, we can also create opportunities for children to


develop new interests. Exposure to new experiences is an important strategy to nurture new interests and it is for this reason that we should strive to continually update their play programs and experiences. New interests provide new opportunities for learning.

Activity 5a

Activity 5b


Provide opportunities for children to consolidate their physical skills towards independence

Remember Liam? He is now 15 months old. Read his mum’s observation again.

Liam has started to climb the stairs! I need to be really careful now. He is able to stand independently for a while. He has started to take one or two steps and is becoming much more confident every day. He has started to push the block trolley around.

Activity 6


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