Fact: Adults who are sedentary, teach the children around them to be sedentary.

Fact: 1.8 billion adults are currently at risk from insufficient physical activity. 

That means, children today are learning from the adults in their lives that sedentary behaviors are the norm.

But they aren’t.

Sedentary behaviors in childhood set children up for a lifetime of medical and mental health challenges.

But they also set children up for frustrations in school, from difficulties with attention, learning, and behavior, to poor motor patterns needed to master reading, writing, math, logic, problem-solving, and creative thinking.  Sedentary behaviors make it harder for children to sit at a desk, hold a pencil, or hold a book simply for lack of basic strengths that should have been developed in a childhood filled with physical play.

Children learn with their bodies.

Children’s brains depend on their bodies to perform in and out of school.

But if their brains don’t know how to use their bodies for school and play, then their brains get frustrated, and their brains will make their bodies move even when it is not appropriate.

Their brains will make their bodies move, distracting them and making it almost impossible to attend.

It is time to stop this madness.  It is time to turn back to developmentally appropriate schooling for our children.

And that starts with building a foundation on which all other learning builds.

As we start this new school year, we at Pivot to Play® encourage you to

  1. Get your students moving in the school day as much as possible.  This includes permitting yourself to stop everything when you see your students going sideways and getting them active for as little as 1-2 minutes. Even better, take note of what happens each time you get them moving.  We bet 9 out of 10 times if not 10 out of 10, your students will be more focused and attentive after moving. (Need help?  We gotcha!)
  2. Argue for more moving during the school day, both free and structured play, on the playground and in the classroom. (Need help?  We gotcha!)
  3. Talk to parents, other teachers, administrators, and any decision-makers about the power of physical play to a child’s academic journey. (Need help?  We gotcha!)

We humans, big to pint-sized, are designed to move our bodies.  Our minds, our health, and our bodies aren’t separate parts acting in parallel but as a whole synchronous package.  When we treat each part separately we fail to honor their interdependence.  When we add moving back into the school day, we are improving the learning process not hindering it.