East Taieri Preschool

One of the most simplest and most effective ways to stimulate such brain development is through physical movement. 

In this technological age, our children are growing up being exposed to more and more screen time. Research states children aged less than two years should not watch any TV, and those between two and five years should watch no more than two hours a day. This is because of the huge potential for brain development during these early years. The brain is like a super sponge in infants, absorbing new information at an amazing rate. When a baby is born, their brain is only about 15% of the size it will be when they are an adult. This increases to 85% by the time they are two. These years are a critical time for making brain connections that help make fundamental movement skills such as running, walking and jumping become second nature.

One of the simplest and most effective ways to stimulate such brain development is through physical movement. Children under 5 need at least 180 minutes of physical activity a day to adequately develop gross motor skills such as crawling, running and jumping. Too much screen time can also cause children to get optical lock. This is when their eyes move with their head and can cause problems when trying to track an object or ball or even when reading across a page.

That’s not to say children should not watch any TV, (there are some education programmes for children), but it is important to monitor our children’s screen time and provide plenty of opportunities for them to participate in physical activity and play.

Some fun ideas you can do as a family to encourage physical activity:

• go for a walk before or after dinner,
• turn on some music and have a boogie,
• make a game out of household chores,
• balloon volleyball,
• rolling a ball down the passage
• kicking a ball outside