By Sue Heron – Training Co-ordinator Tatty Bumpkin and Paediatric Physiotherapist
The activity for this week in Tatty Bumpkin classes is cat pose.
This week Tatty Bumpkin meets the stretchy, stripy cat and together they set out to discover what people do all day.
They meet:
The bus driver taking the children to school and the people to the shops
The farmer working in his field
The builders carefully building houses of all different shapes and sizes.
Lookout! A house is on fire! Tatty Bumpkin thinks fast and calls the fire brigade – in no time the fire fighters are tackling the blaze.
Which job would you like to do when you are older? Would you like to be a bus driver, a farmer, a builder or a fire fighter or maybe something completely different?
What Cat Pose Looks Like
Description of Cat Pose - Older children
Note to parents - It is always best to do cat pose with your child so they can copy you, this is especially true if your child is younger. If you know you have back problems then be careful as you arch your back up in cat pose and do stop if the movement hurts or irritates your back further.
How to do it (What to tell your child)
Kneel on all fours with your hands under your shoulders and your knees under your hips imagining you are a very clever cat. Sowly arch your back upwards towards the ceiling then downwards towards the ground. Be careful not to arch your back downwards too deeply. Then meow just like a cat! Stretch out one arm or leg to shake either your paw or tail. Put them back on the floor and shake your other paw or tail as you are a magic cat with two tails!!
Want to make it harder?
Wave your magic tail!
Start kneeling on all fours, stretch out one arm or paw and then your opposite leg or tail, lifting them both off the floor at the same time! Put them back on the floor and repeat, this time stretching out your other arm and leg.
Description of Cat pose – Younger children and Toddlers
Crawl as cats - looking for mice!
Note to parents As with all poses it is best to do the pose yourself so your toddler can copy you. Find a mat or area of carpet and move onto your hands and knees into cat pose, encouraging you toddler to join you.If you do not have any back problems, you can tuck your chin in towards your chest and gently arch your back towards the ceiling – like a cat having a stretch. Try to breathe out and tighten your tummy muscles as you do the movement. Hold this arched position for a few seconds, breathing normally but keeping your tummy muscles tight, then gently bring your back down to the starting position - once again encourage your toddler to copy you.
Other games with Cat Pose
Once in cat pose you can:
Make meowing ‘cat’ sounds with your toddler or young child along with funny faces – this is great for early communication skills.
Go looking for mice! Hide a toy under a rug or chair and then pretend to be cats – setting off to find it! If your child is younger, you may have to repeat this game several times so they get the idea, remember to make questioning/ thinking gestures with your toddler as you ‘wonder’ where the toy is.
Find a blanket or sheet and place over two chairs to make a little cat house – then do cat pose with your child crawling in and out of your new home!
Cut out a small piece of white fabric and place it on the floor in front of your child, this is their ‘milk’! Often giving your child a ‘goal’ makes the activity more meaningful for them and helps their motivation to ‘keep on trying’. Encourage your child to come forward onto their hands more and to bend their elbows so they touch the 'milk' with their noses – just like a cat sniffing the milk to see if it will taste good!(see picture above)
Download Tatty Bumpkin Cat song from iTunes or ask your Tatty Bumpkin teacher for the Tatty Bumpkin CD. Then move and stretch as cats along to the words of the song.
Why it is ‘Good For Me’
It is good for children of all ages to have the chance to play on their hands and knees in the crawl position as this activity has so many benefits. In cat pose your toddler or child will be:
Strengthening their whole body. As your child moves into cat pose they will be have to use a range of muscles to keep their body up off the floor. In cat pose they will be strengthening their back, tummy, shoulder, arm, leg, and hand muscle.
Stretching out their back muscles. Perfect after sitting for a while.
Developing their fine motor skills. If your child is younger, cat pose encourages them to take weight through their hands and stretch their wrist joints as they do this they will be developing the arches in their hands and their fine hand muscles. If your child is older, cat pose will increase the overall activity in their shoulder muscles and this will indirectly help their hand and writing skills. The activity of stretching out one arm whilst using the other for support mimics the writing action; hence it is a great pre-writing skill
Strengthening their shoulder and tummy muscles for development of their rib cage (toddlers). In cat pose your toddler will particularly strengthen their shoulder and their deeper tummy muscles. These two muscle groups work together to stabilise their rib cage into a more mature, downward position. Rib cage strength is important as more complex movements often rely on rib cage stability
Forming their spinal curves (toddlers). The action of crawling will help your toddler to further develop the natural curves in their back. This is important for good posture as they get older
Advancing their visual skills (toddlers). As your toddler crawls round the room, negotiating furniture, they will be using their “distance vision” to look ahead. Occasionally they will be stopping to play with a toy or look at their hands and this will require them to use their ‘near vision’. This refocusing and adjustment is excellent training for their eye muscles and will help your toddler to start to use their eyes together – binocular vision. Good binocular vision is essential for reading and writing.
Progressing their social, cognitive (thinking) and emotional development (toddlers). Crawling will open up a whole new world for your toddler giving them the chance to experience a wider range of emotions and tackle new challenges i.e. As your toddler crawls:
They will feel increasingly independent – they are now able to move to where they want to be by themselves!
They will be motivated to explore and will start to set themselves a variety of goals. For example, your toddler may decide to crawl across the room to pick up a toy they want. If they manage to get their toy - they will obviously experience those warm feelings of success and this will boost their self-confidence. If, on the other hand, the toy remains frustratingly out of reach, maybe having rolled under a chair, your toddler will then have to problem solve and this will boost their thinking skills. In this example they may try to reach forward with one hand or go down on their tummy to retrieve their toy.
Make it Multi-Sensory, Educational & Fun
In Tatty Bumpkin classes we use unique storylines to make the activities meaningful and to fire the imagination.
All our classes are multi-sensory comprising of:
Adapted yoga poses and activities which both stimulate and calm the body senses
Dedicated songs and rhythms which are relevant to the stories
Bespoke hand-woven props to look at and feel. Tatty Bumpkin has its own range of fairly traded animal props to back up the yoga poses and bring the stories to life. Our teachers are supported to use natural props in the classes which are great to feel as opposed to smooth plastic
We have carefully linked each Tatty Bumpkin to the new 2012 Early Years Foundation Stage framework. Importantly supporting children to learn ‘how to learn’ not just focusing on what on they learn.
So … The Adventure This Week ..
In this weeks adventure Tatty Bumpkin and Cat find out about all the different jobs people can do. Each job has its good bits and bad bits – a bus driver might enjoy driving their bus but they do have to sit down all day. The farmer can move about – but then they might get cold if it rains. The fire-fighters seem to have an exciting job – but then it can be very hard work fighting fires!
What kind of job do you think is best for you? Do you like: moving about and being outside, making or growing things or maybe you enjoy doing something with machines or perhaps helping other people?
Come and think about different jobs whilst, of course, having fun at your local Tatty Bumpkin class.
Drive over the hills - whizz round corners in your bus!
Be careful as you plant those seeds!
This story will give your child an opportunity to:
1. Strengthen and stretch a range of muscles as they do cat and cycling poses
2. Use gestures or words to express their feelings – imagining they are feeling:
‘Curious’ like cat at the beginning of the story - wondering what people do all day?
‘Cold’ like the framer in the field as it starts to rain
‘Tired’ and ‘hot’ like the builders and the fire-fighters
‘Happy’ and ‘pleased with themselves’ - like anyone who feels they have done their job well
3. Develop their sense of rhythm as they crawl and stretch to Tatty Bumpkin Cat song
4. Express their own ideas as they think off different shaped houses they would like to build or different jobs they would like to do
5. Calm themselves and try to stand really still as they ‘wait for a bus’!
6.Have fun with their friends: driving over the hills and whizzing round the corners as bus drivers, carefully planting seeds in the ground as farmers, building different shaped houses as builders and working together to put out the fire as fire fighters! Find your local Tatty Bumpkin class at http://www.tattybumpkin.com/classes/find-class.html
