​For the past couple of weeks, we have played outdoors a lot and experienced one of the joys of winter weather: SNOW! We have extended several of our recess times to allow the children opportunities to play in the snow building snowmen. The children were astonished at how heavy big snowballs are, and how difficult it is to lift them up to make a snowman! We have also allowed the children to play on our hillside and snow pile, and we have also explored the giant field behind the playground and admired all the snowmen and other creations the big kids had made. It has been so much fun, and it has allowed us new opportunities for helping the children strengthen their gross motor skills.

Gross motor skills involve the large muscles of the torso, arms and legs and include three categories of movements:

• Locomotor activities which include running, hopping, climbing, skipping., etc.
• Non-locomotor activities which includes movements like twisting, bending, pushing, pulling, stretching, etc.
• Manipulative skills which involve movements such as throwing, kicking, catching, etc.

​There are many reasons these skills are important. The first is the most probably the most obvious: we live in a largely sedentary society and gross motor skills will enable a child to reap the benefits of enjoyable exercise. Other benefits include the following:

• Release of physical, social and emotional energy
• Growth in confidence and self-esteem
• Growth in the ability to assess and take risks
• Development of neural pathways
• Nurturing of imagination through active play
• Better Sleep
• Happier Kids!

While there are lots of activities which can be done inside, nothing beats playing outside to develop gross motor skills!
Of course, with Thanksgiving so close, we have also talked a little bit this week about gratitude, and also about how challenging it was for the Pilgrims in the New World. With no stores to buy their food, they had to make everything they ate. On Friday afternoon we capped off our week of gratitude by making bread in a bread maker, and, since fresh bread is much better with butter, we let the children experience the hard work of making their own butter by shaking cream (using those gross motor movements again!) until it separated and formed grains of butter. It took a long time, and many of the children said it was too hard and that they just couldn’t do it. They needed a lot of encouragement to keep going, but the joy on their faces when they finally accomplished it was so worth all the effort!

Hopefully they will remember that lesson the next time they go shopping to buy bread or butter!