After reading ‘helping your child to get fit’ and especially
one particular chapter on ‘School Sports’ I found the National Curriculum very
interesting, and wanted to look into this more. Keeping a warm-up basic is a
good idea, dancers need time to focus themselves, and firstly they need to
increase their heart rate, so running and jumping is a good place to start. I
then wanted to find out when children start jumping, hopping and skipping etc.
I am focusing on the age group during a child’s time at primary school, there
is a huge difference between the ages of 5-11 and their bodies develop and
change all the time.
Age 5- At the age of 5 there are certain motor skills
a child should be doing, or should be encourage to practice is skills such as
running, climbing, jumping, hiding, chasing, throwing a ball, skipping. Being a
dance teacher I know some children pick up skipping at different speeds,
normally a child can only hop on one leg first and need to practice hopping or
their weaker leg. Some children pick up skipping straight away, and other need
to work on it, either way as long as you encourage children they will get there
in the end.
Age 7- By the age of 7 which is only a couple of
years older their coordination will have improved vastly. Their dance movements
will have improved, they should be able to skip with a skipping rope, catching
a ball, batting a ball in ball games. Also balance would have improved too so
riding a bike or walking across a narrow width (for example the beam in
gymnastics) will be much more likely by the age of 7. They will be stronger
swimmers and hopefully would have had a go at skating which most children
enjoy.
Looking into this topic was interesting, from personal
experience I started riding a bike at 7, but my younger sister was very young
to start riding a bike and on the other hand we had an older cousin who found
riding a bike extremely difficult for a few years. All children learn at
different paces, and again there is not a right or wrong way.
Cognitive development- having a general awareness of
the world.
It is important to include many factors when teaching
children to encourage cognitive development. Such as; discipline, repetition,
fun, enthusiasm, praise, encouraging, good communication skills, allow the
child to have a go themselves.
Age Related Issues- when children are under the age
of 10 (which is normally before growth spurt) children’s bones and muscles
still need to be strengthen, body proportions, energy stores and sweat
mechanisms.
By the age of 11 and over more changes has happened once
again, a child’s body is always changing and developing which is nonstop. Their
bones and muscles will be stronger, after a growth spurt children can have loss
of balance and coordination which is very common, during this period of time
children can look clumsy but they are adjusting to their body. During this
transition children will need to sleep more hours and eat more. Once again
children are all different and this is not the case for everyone.
Professional source written by Pamela May, published
Routledge in the USA and Canada (2011)
Thanks for this Gemma - it looks like these sources are relevant to your inquiry. In dance is the cognitive development separate than the physical development? are there some debates about how dance is understood?
ReplyDeleteYes I have done my research on mentally and physically preparing the body for a dance class or performance. Today I have been reading a source that discusses how the emotional state of an individual has an affect on their flexibility training, and how younger dancers should not perform static or Isometric stretches as this weakens their coordination and movement skills which I found really interesting!
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