- Value and provide space for the ways children choose to move.
- Give as much opportunity as possible for children to move freely between indoors and outdoors.
- Talk to children about their movements and help them to explore new ways of moving, such as slithering and twisting along the ground like a snake, and moving quickly, slowly or on tiptoe.
- Encourage body tension activities such as stretching, reaching, curling, twisting and turning.
- Be aware that children need to practise walking, climbing and jumping on a range of different surfaces
- Provide a range of wheeled toys to encourage children’s balance such as toys to pedal, scooters, toys to sit astride.
- Provide safe spaces where children can explore, challenge themselves and solve problems like how to balance on beams, climb ladders and use a swing.
- Agree acceptable levels of risk and challenge to enable children to explore and acquire new skills and abilities.
- Encourage children in their efforts, such as to pour a drink from an appropriately sized jug and to manipulate objects in their play: Can you put the dolly’s arm in the coat?
- Provide an easily accessible range of tools, loose parts and construction equipment to encourage children’s emerging manipulative skills.
- Encourage stages of movement related to sides of the body: one-sided (wave, draw, kick), both sides (jump, clap), sideways (crawl, climb), crossing one side to the other (dancing, sports).
