Opportunities for Active Play to Develop Gross & Fine Motor Skills at Bright Beginnings

We are the kings and queens of educational active play here at Bright Beginnings! Each of our 3 sites offers a wide variety of outdoor options of play and learning that extend beyond our playgrounds including: nature trails, a small cottage for enhanced imaginative play, large spacious fields for sports, sledding, yoga and more! Speaking of yoga, our schools are equipped with yoga mats so our teachers can take all their birdies outside and yoga the morning or afternoon away! Yoga is an incredible way of linking mind, body and spirit, as well as helping our students to get to know the environment around them!

We are HUGE on outdoor learning and play (see our blog about outdoor classrooms here) which creates endless opportunities for our friends to develop gross and fine motor skills. The season of fall is perfect for having our students collect leaves (which involves running, using their pinchers (thumb and finger) to pick up the leaves, bending over to pick them up, etc.,) count them, sort them by size, shape, and type and then make a big pile to run and jump into! This is just one example of the many ways we can learn and play outside using our gross and fine motor skills.

Additionally, inside the classroom we have adopted the usage of the program, GoNoodle! GoNoodle is a website that features a wide variety of channels that leads our birdies through fun songs and dances for times when they just need to get their wiggles out! GoNoodle is a great tool for behavior management within our classrooms as the program tracks the class’s progress and awards them for their great work! Also, it can be something that the kids can look forward to at certain points of the day as long as the class rules were followed. Feel free to use GoNoodle at home to continue the fun!

From infants to those getting ready for kindergarten, there are mountains of opportunities for active play here at Bright Beginnings! We encourage parents to join in the fun too! If you have an interest in yoga, a particular sport, dance, even construction, please let your school and director know so that we can set up workshops for you to do right in your family’s own preschool!