Ways my body moves
Physical Education · Early Years · The School
Travelling
WALK, RUN, JUMP, HOP, SKIP, CRAWL, ROLL, SLIDE. Say each word and do it. Some are easy and some take practice — hopping on one leg is genuinely hard at three or four, and getting better at it is the point.
Copying
Watch someone make a shape — arms wide, on tiptoes, curled small — and copy it. Then make one for them to copy. Copying a movement is how almost every physical skill is first learned, long before anyone explains it in words.
Stopping
The most important skill is STOPPING. When you hear the word 'freeze', stop still and quiet. Practise it while running. A child who can stop on command can be allowed to run, and one who cannot has to be held back — so this is the skill that unlocks all the others.
Travel from one end to the other six times, differently each time: run, hop, skip, crawl, slide sideways, and creep as slowly and quietly as you can. Then do the slow one again and try to be even slower without wobbling. Most children find the slow one hardest — because control takes more than speed does, which is the point of the whole lesson.