Movement is the Foundation of Children's Learning
Photo by Chris McIntosh
A recent Community Playthings article focuses on movement as the foundation of learning, and the importance of physical activity in preparing children’s brains to be able to do focused learning.
“We have seen a shift in our culture, placing a significant focus on success as measured by academic milestones. You’ve seen all the headlines about reading and math test scores. The pressure to achieve academically has translated to more time devoted to sit-at-a-desk work at younger and younger ages. …. This focus on seated work ignores the fundamental connection between movement and brain development. In other words, our sit-to-learn culture is crowding out time needed for the physicality that wires the brain for appropriate growth. Children’s bodies seek what they need, so replacing needed movement with seated work just causes the body to find movement in other, less productive ways.”
The article itemizes a number of examples of physical skills that are essential for academic success and which can only be achieved by moving the body, ideally through play:
To read:
Eyes need to be able to focus on a focal point and move left to right across the page.
The core needs to be strong enough to hold the head steady and erect.
Arms and hands need to be strong enough to hold a book.
To write:
Hands need to be strong and dexterous enough to grip and control a pencil.
The body must understand the appropriate amount of force to apply to the pencil.
Students must have the spatial understanding of how much room a letter or word takes up on the page.
To solve a math equation:
Students must be able to recognize patterns.
They must also be able to understand and repeat a sequence of steps.
Examples of play activities that support the development of these essential physical skills include:
Throwing and catching so the eyes learn to track and focus.
Climbing, pushing, and pulling so the upper body, hands, and core become strong and the brain understands force.
Playing hide-and-seek to learn how much space our bodies take up.
Jumping and skipping to practice sequencing and patterning.
The author argues that behavioural challenges can be rooted in lack of physical skills development: “Without a mastery of foundational skills, learning higher level skills is difficult and frustrating. We are doing our children a disservice when we ignore the physical nature of these foundational skills.”
Further, Blackburn argues that “movement also plays a role in developing executive function skills like working memory, resisting distractions, and the cognitive flexibility to integrate new information”. Blackburn cites a recent study (Garcia-Alonso 2025) in the journal Pediatric Research, that found “executive function in preschoolers is much better in those who have a higher physical fitness level, and a higher fitness level is only going to be achieved from ample time in big-body physical play”.
The article offers some suggestions for incorporating physical activity into circle time:
Young children can only attend for 2-3 minutes for every year of life (4-6 minutes for three-year-olds, 8-12 minutes for four-year-olds). So, a twenty-minute circle time for a group of four-year-olds is a no-go. But breaking that circle time into shorter bits that include moving will help them keep their focus while building skills. You can:
sing songs with body movements
stomp out rhythms call-and-response style
do yoga poses that relate to your story
What does this look like, practically speaking?
A teacher in a half-day preschool reported that she was able to calm her students with a bear crawl safari of their classroom to break up circle time and calm one child in particular who had been doing donkey kicks at his spot. In just two minutes of this upside-down hard work, her students returned to the carpet ready to attend.
Another teacher in a full-day preschool shared that she moved away from the traditional bubble-in-your-mouth transition by incorporating stories with heavy movement to get the children from place to place. She incorporated frog jumps, log rolling, and walking backward, which kept the children focused and challenged simultaneously.
Finally, the author recommends that children should spend as much time as possible of their free time outdoors in self-directed play, emphasizing that professionals working with families have a role to play in educating families on the importance of physical activity and self-directed play. “This sort of play helps them build strength in their bodies and helps them internalize an understanding of space, rhythm, timing, and force. Whether it is a pickup game of Kick the Can, the building of a fort, climbing a tree, or riding a bike, this play satisfies their brains and calms their bodies.”