#physicalfun | Cart Mill Family Centre

Watching the Cart Mill children taking part in todays Mini Kickers session it was easy to see that they were having so much fun!. The boundless energy our children have helps to develop essential skills, and one of the most exciting skills to nurture at this stage is ball control. Ball games can help develop coordination, confidence, team work and physical development. Take a look at some of the activities “the coach” set us today to help develop these skills.

Using our feet to dribble the ball practicing control. This helps children improve hand-eye and foot-eye coordination, which are essential life skills. We were dribbling the ball round the room using little kicks. Picking the ball up and placing it back down ready to kick.

Mastering the ball can boost a child’s self-esteem, helping them feel capable and proud of their accomplishments. Todays group did amazing taking part in all the activities. They responded well to praise and were proud of their achievements. Well done team!

Football is a team sport, taking part in the activities with their peers and working together to build relationships. We were in 2 different teams today. The blue team and the red team. We played a game of trying to score goals in the other teams net. “If you get the ball in the net you win”

As you can see it’s never too early to start nurturing ball control in young children. Mini kickers can develop this skill while having fun a blast with our peers. By making the learning process fun, playful, and supportive, we can help these little athletes embark on a journey filled with confidence, teamwork, and physical development. So, grab a football and let these mini kickers enjoy the magic of ball control.

Article 31 (leisure, play and culture) Every child has the right to relax, play and take part in a wide range of cultural and artistic activities.

This week in the garden, we have been thinking of ways to develop our physical area. We have been working as a team to come up with some suggestions to make it more challenging and interesting.

While doing this, we realised we could add some more things into our obstacle course to focus more on our balancing skills. We talked about what balancing is…

“You freeze, That helps you stay still”

“Put your arms out. That helps you not fall on your face.”

“I can balance like a statue, look!”

“I’m like a flamingo”

This sparked some conversation about being “statues” and how they don’t move because they can “balance”. Think about statues, can they move? Can the wind move a statue?

As the children were becoming more confident with their balancing skills, we explored more tricky ways to practice.

The children found many uses for the tyres in the garden, and ways we could incorporate them into our play to challenge ourselves physically using them.

“Look how super fast I can go”

“I can balance if I lift my feet up!”