Primary purpose: to develop the torso muscles that stabilize, align, and move the trunk of the body.
Classroom relevance: Building strong core strength is like building a strong foundation for your child.
Good core strength and stability will help your child to maintain a good sitting posture at the desk, and will help develop a stable, supportive base for gross motor and fine motor movements.
- A good sitting posture can also help children with handwriting.
- A good sitting posture also may also help your child's visual perception, as the head (and therefore the eyes) are in a better position for copying from the blackboard, following a line of text when reading, and laying work out properly on the page.
Poor core strength can cause poor posture which can also affect gross motor and fine motor skills. Children with poor core strength will tend to slump with shoulders rolled forward while seated, they have poor endurance, and they may exhibit poor balance just to name a few things.
Why Do So Many Kids Have Weak Core Muscles?
We also find that more and more kids are having difficulty with maintaining functional posture at home and in the classroom and with overall body strength. This could be due to a number of reasons including:
-An increase in the number of children with developmental delays.
-The rising trend of children being less physically active during the school day as academic demands in the classroom become more intense.
-Kids becoming more interested in video games and television than a game of tag in the backyard.
A Definite Kid Favorite
Knock Me Over
It can be done with:
smaller children
- on your lap
bigger kids
- on a large therapy or exercise ball
- or even with them kneeling on both knees.
How to:
The goal is for them to maintain enough stability through their trunk to stay upright. If you have a small child on your lap, sit on a soft landing surface like a couch or bed.
Bounce them up and down a few times and then try to knock them over. The first few times, they will fall for sure.
Decrease the amount of assistance it takes to get them back to a sitting position.
Activities for Core Strengthening
*Always make sure that when your child is completing ANY of these activities/exercises that she is breathing! Breath holding allows your child to compensate and not use the crucial core muscles that these exercises target.
Wheelbarrow Walks
Bouncing ( on a mini trampoline or Hippity Hop Ball)
Exercise Ball Work
Swivel ride on toys (with no pedals)
Crab Walking
Skating
Superman Pose – lying on stomach and lifting arms and legs.
Crab Walking
Wheelbarrow Walking
