Physical Activity Is Good for the Mind and Body

Child Care Health Consultant Quarterly Webinar: 
Physical Activity Is Good for the Body and the Mind

Melissa Lin: Now we can begin on today's webinar. We're so pleased to have Ms. Kimberly Clear-Sandor and Doctor Mercedes Gutierrez presenting. Now, I'll first turn it over to Kim to kick us off. 

Kim Clear-Sandor: Thanks, Melissa, for all that good information. Good afternoon, good morning, good day to all of you that are joining us. We're pleased you're choosing to spend some time with us today for our child care health consultation quarterly webinar series. 

This is our first session in our new year, our first quarter for child care health consultants. We are excited to be talking about physical activity being good for the mind and body. It's a fun topic to talk about. I know it's also coming up on January, where we're all thinking of good ways to continue to take care of ourselves and be able to support the children in our care. We hope today gives you some good information and new ways to think about engaging in physical activity in the early childhood settings. 

My name is Kimberly Clear-Sandor. I'm with the National Center on Health, Behavioral Health, and Safety. I have worked as a child care health consultant for many, many years, working with nurses in child care programs and Head Start programs, and have been with the National Center for over 10 years working with all of you. It's always so wonderful to spend this time together with our shared passion, caring for our children, families, and our communities. I am so happy to be joined by my colleague at the National Center, Doctor Mercedes Gutierrez, who is our co-presenter on these series and brings a lot of insightful information and energy to our sessions. I'm going to pass it over to Mercedes. 

Mercedes Gutierrez: Hi, everyone. Welcome to our session. As Kim said, my name is Mercedes Gutierrez. I am a senior training and technical assistance associate here with the National Center on Health, Behavioral Health, and Safety. Like Kim, I'm also a child care health consultant. I have worked with Head Start programs for close to 15 years now in the capacity of a health manager but also as a child care health consultant. 

I too am very excited about today's session. We love to bring some topics to you, help you think about them in another way, help you think about them in the aspect of being a child care health consultant. Let's get started. 

We're actually going to start with a video today instead of going right into the objectives. This video is kind of silly, kind of fun. It is available to you on your resource handout that will be popped into the chat. There is a link for several adult recess videos. 

You can use this as an icebreaker. You can use this as just a way to break up your day. I hope you guys can take a minute to get a little silly with us as we watch this video and play along. It's 1 o'clock here. I know some of us have been sitting for a long time already. It's nice to get a little bit of movement. I'm going to stop talking and play it all for you here. Please join in with us. 

[Video begins] 

Narrator: Today's game is called up, down, stop, go. The rules are pretty simple. When you hear me say up, you put your hands way up in the air. When you hear me say down, you put your hands on your knees. When you hear me say stop, you freeze in place. 

Extra points for making a silly freeze. And when you hear me say go, you run in place. Let's make sure you've got the basics. Down. That's right. Hands on, knees. Up. Yep, hands in the air. Go. Running in place. Stop. Freeze where you are. 

[Music playing] 

Now we'll mix it up. Go. Stop. Up. Go. Down. Stop. Up. Go. Up. Down. Stop. Nice. 

Now, we're going to try to make it a little trickier. You're going to do the opposite of what I say. So when I say up, you put your hands on your knees. When I say down, you put your hands in the air. When I say stop, you start running in place. And when I say go, you freeze. Ready? 

Stop. Go. Down. Up. Down. Stop. Up. Go. OK, a little faster. Stop. Up. Down. Go. Up. Stop. Down. Up. Up. Down. Go. Stop. Up. Go. Nicely done. 

[Video ends] 

Mercedes: Did you guys mess up as bad as Kim and I? It gets a little fast there. I actually want to see how you're feeling, though, after doing that. In the chat, just tell me you know how you're feeling, how it made you feel. 

What did you notice in your body as you were doing it? Energized, ready for action. Lost. Me too. I got lost. 

Kim: I did too. Silly. I saw someone said silly. 

Mercedes: Yeah, I had a smile on my face. Confused. Anxious I love that somebody that is an honest, honest reaction anxious and confused. Sometimes I can be completely honest with you. Some of these things that we do for wellness sometimes makes me a little anxious. 

What is good for one is not good for all. That's just something to take note of. But it's OK if it got too fast for you. Slow it down. Try to get that silly feeling back. 

Kim: There's a lot of good in the body but also good in the mind like, the happy, the silly. I feel woke up. I feel refocused. Those good brain feelings are all coming out too. 

Mercedes: That's good. I'm very, very happy about this because what we wanted you to get from this is that, of course, today we're going to be talking about physical activity. We want you to realize that movement is not only just good for the children in our programs but also good for the adults as well. 

This is good for staff wellness when you think about that and then how the adults feel, the adults that are leading the classroom, really translates to that relationship and that energy in the classroom. It's important that we have a minute or have a way to release some energy, reset. Remember, if you're sitting at your desk all day or if you realize you've been non-mobile for a minute, take a minute to stretch and get that blood moving because you'll bring that energy that you were feeling just now. 

That really leads us into our objectives for today. Today, we were going to think about how and why physical activity is good for both children and staff. We will talk about the benefits of physical activity. We're also going to identify different ways that movement supports early learning and development. Then we're going to explore some strategies for how you can add physical activity and movement into the daily routine. 

We want to start off with a poll. I know that the top of this poll, it says in my role as a child care health consultant. Sometimes, we have other people here, not just child care health consultants. If you're a health manager, if you're a teacher, if you're a family worker, family engagement specialist, think about your role. 

In your role, what you do with physical activity in your program? Are you the person that helps provide that professional development or training for staff? Are you writing policies and procedures? Remember, you can select more than one. Select all of them that are true for you. 

Are you reviewing the outdoor play structures, making recommendations, reviewing those daily schedules, and looking to see if physical activity is somewhere incorporated in there or reviewing lesson plans? We have about half of you participating in the poll. We'll leave it up a little bit more. Remember to scroll down if you cannot see all of the options. Scroll down. Click all of them that make sense to you and your role. 

We're going to talk about this today. All of these things that we have listed here, we want to highlight for you in ways that you can actually be this person. Be honest. If it's not who you are yet, hopefully we can give you some strategies for how you can do some of these things for the programs that you work for. 

Kim: Sometimes, it's that perhaps that the programs you're working with hadn't thought about asking you to help in this way. Or maybe you hadn't seen yourself as participating or doing this work with a program around these different areas. As you look at it, just like the dance, just like our recess, there's really no right or wrong. It's a matter of where do you fit and how does this work for you in the context of your work. 

Mercedes: It’s slowed down a little bit. I want to see if we could end the poll. If you didn't have time to participate, no worries. Or if you're mobile and the poll didn't pop up for you, you can surely add whatever you want to add into the chat. We'll take a look as well. 

If we share the results here, we can see that a lot of you provide the training for staff around children's physical activity. Just wondering if you're thinking about physical activity for adults too because we specified children's physical activity there. Then it's kind of split. I think the second highest one was review lesson plans for opportunities for physical activity, which is great. Hopefully, you're able to give some suggestions in that way. 

Let's see. The lowest one is review and recommend outdoor play equipment or materials. Maybe it's not part of your role yet. But it could be. I see also policies and procedures about around physical activity is a little low too. We'll talk a little bit about that today as well. 

You might have to close out of that box. I'll move us forward. This slide talks about our child care health consultation competencies. We usually at the beginning of all of these quarterly webinars go through the two resources that outline all the child care health consultant competencies. 

This time, we just added them to that resource list for you. Make sure you go into the chat box. Download the resource list that you can get the full resources of what the child care health consultant competencies are. But specifically, today, we're talking about competency number 13, which speaks to nutrition and physical activity. 

As a child care health consultant, you will be working with programs in many, many different ways to ensure that staff are able to provide sufficient opportunities for physical activity throughout the day. It is your responsibility to understand the recommendations for physical activity and the differences between infants, toddlers, preschool children, and school-aged children. We're going to talk about what these different types of physical activity recommendations look like throughout this session here today. 

Overall, all of the things that were listed on that previous poll could be something that you do with programs. That could be how you are working with programs. Again, if it isn't something that you currently do, think about, maybe they just didn't to ask you. Or maybe you do have some recommendations and specific areas around policies and procedures as well. 

Again, I know this was a high level overview of this competency. I just want to reiterate on that resource list, you will have access to the full competencies that we suggest that all child care health consultants have. I'm going to go to the next slide. 

I think this one is pretty self-explanatory. I think we all know that there are really great benefits to adding physical activity to our lives and to the lives of children. But what we hope to dig into a little bit today what we like to call we're going to geek out with you all today. It means we're going to learn a little bit about how the brain works and what's happening when we do this stuff and how important that is for child development. 

We know overall that children that are incorporating physical activity into their daily routine, they're really gaining that confidence of moving their body. They're learning how their body moves. They're learning how to take risks and play safely. We like to say children should be playing safely but exploring at the same time. 

They're exploring. They're learning how to judge, how to make judgment calls for their self. They're building strong muscles and having this coordination which helps them maintain healthy weight and strengthen bones. Overall, it's really improving their social skills. We know that giving children the opportunity to move their body overall can support their focus and learning. I'm going to let Kim tie that all in together for us. 

Kim: Thanks, Mercedes. Yeah, and this is our little geeking out session. It's fun to dig in a little bit deeper about how actually all those things happen on that slide that Mercedes has had on the previous slide. How does that all come together through physical activity? 

As a health consultant, you may be working with program leadership, directors, educators, teachers who are really thinking about that learning domain. They're thinking about a child's approaches to learning, social emotional development, language and literacy, cognition, perceptual, motor, and physical development. Oftentimes, people only think about physical activity in that space, that physical development of fine motor, gross motor place. 

Really, it can do much more. With intentional focus and some deeper understanding and thinking about what's really happening during activity, we can really tie physical activity to many, many different learning domains. We're going to share that with you a little bit today. 

Hopefully, maybe some of it makes sense to you. Maybe you're using some of this information. Think about what it means to you and you and your role and how you can bring it back to your program. 

We're going to specifically talk about using movement to build the brain. Think about that brain-body connection, how it works together. We're also going to talk about that movement language, vocabulary. 

We know that the words children hear and understand are critical to their future learning. Teachers are good at bathing children in language. Let's think about movement language. 

How can we use language that's going to support them in their learning, in their movement activities? We're also going to talk about the benefits of physical activity all day long. Adults often think, oh, I'm going to go to the gym and work out for an hour or take a class and work out for a certain amount of time. 

That's not how kids do it. Kids need to be moving all day and have a cumulative physical activity. They're spending a lot of time in early childhood programs. How can we make sure we're getting those big movement activities during that time that they're there? That's really the frame we're going to use as we go through the rest of this hour. Next slide. 

The first thing we're going to talk about is movement to build the brain. Just look at the slide in those pictures. We have eight months, six years, and 14 years. This is really showing the neural networks that connect the brain and the body. 

They are the information highway that bring information from our brain out to our movements. In general, our neurophysical development goes from head to toe and inside to outside. Our fine motor skills with our fingers and writing are really those last, our manipulations being able to pick things up. Those are those harder movements. They come later. 

Learning how to move and learning where your body moves in space, that all happens in that early, early brain development. Those neural networks that are happening, the connection between the brain and the body, is all look at all that work that's happening at six years of age. All those lines between eight and six years are being built. 

Then you can see as children continue to grow at 14 years, they start to get a little bit of pruning. The ones that aren't being as used as much actually start to change and go away. We're not going to I was going to ask you a question about it. 

Just think about that. Think about what's happening during those years of zero to six. I always think about that baby who's fully dependent on you to hold them, feed them, dress them, change their diaper. By six years of age, they got it all together. What all that work that's happening in that space, it's like a rush hour of information going from the brain that tell the body to move. Next slide. 

Another part of that important network that's happening with all these messages going and our desire to create as many pathways as we can, we also have to think about our brain and how the brain sends messages to move through those neural networks. The neural networks move the information within the brain as well. We like to just remind everybody of this thing called the corpus callosum. 

It is in the middle of the brain. It separates the brain into the right and left side. In general, we know the left side of the brain controls the right side of the body. the right side of the brain controls the left side of the body. How do we get the brains and the body to really work together? 

That corpus callosum has 250 million nerve fibers. That's a lot of fibers. It is what is sending those messages back and forth across the sides, left and right. One said six years is on fire. 

Yeah, it sure is. That's a lot of things going on in our children's little bodies there. There's also much opportunity to build that. Movement activities that require information to pass from the right side to the left side of the brain help these cross the midline type of neural networks develop and fire. It's important for complex behaviors in children later on that we intentionally think about activities that help the right side of the brain to the left side of the body what to do. 

Another way to think about that is to think about midline and space awareness. We talk about crossing the midline. You think of the brain with the divided section with the corpus callosum down the middle and the importance of the right side telling the left side what to do. We really think about three different midline and spatial awareness. 

We can think about cutting or drawing a line from our head down to our toes that we have a right and left side of the body. We can think about having a midline across from the middle, left to right. That you have a top and bottom. Think head, shoulders, knees, and toes. 

That's your top and your bottom midline for spatial awareness. Then you can do a really down the side cut so that you have a front and a back. Think about the hokey pokey. 

You're putting it in front of you. You're shaking it behind you. You're putting it in front of you. You're shaking it behind you. All those things that are educational and are fun and their songs and their movement, those activities are really intentionally teaching children and helping their bodies move up, down, left, right, and front and back. 

That takes a lot of coordination. I think back to the one person who said that they were confused. They didn't know what was going on. They were anxious during that activity. It's not necessarily, again, about doing it right or wrong. It's about doing it so that you have the opportunity to practice those movements because children are going to learn how to go up and down and how to go front and back and left and right through those intentional, repetitive activities to be able to do it. Next slide, please. 

Another thing is to think about movement and the alphabet. Take your hand. Just move in a figure eight sideways, just like that red ribbon is on the screen. Just move your arm like that. 

Then what do you notice? What do you notice about where your arm is moving? I just want to pop that in the chat. What are you noticing about where it goes? 

Christy, across the midline. Thank you, Christy. Left to right. Up and over. Crosses the midline. Moves in a pattern. Yes. It's funny because I automatically did it just like the one on the screen. When I said figure eight, I guess an eight is up and down. It really can go either way. Now, my arm is doing this big motion. 

Let's think about the idea of their fine and gross motor development. It's much easier for a child who does not yet have that dexterity and fine muscle control to do those big arm movements. You're doing a big arm movement. You're moving left to right, top and down. You can actually do it that way too. They're doing those big movements. 

What are those little neural networks happening? They're being created. They're understanding this motion. They're firing. They're making neural networks that the body begins to understand this motion. 

Now, let's think about that motion. Let's think about the ability to write letters and practice early writing skills. If you look, the first little box on the far left requires you to start at the midline and move to the left. You're going to do an a. You're going to do a d or a g. It's on the left side of the midline. 

The second box or the third box on the far right, you can see that the b goes to the right of the midline. The f, the h, the m all happen from the side to side. The ones in the middle, those are the ones that go up and down and sideways. 

Look at the x. Look at a t. It's crossing it right there. You can see where these activities are really supporting that left to right movement and those future fine motor activities, like writing. I'm not sure if I'm missing anything in the chat there. This is one of our get excited geek out moments. 

Mercedes: It is. It is. 

Kim: I think we often think about activity and movement as it's good for their body. But how about how it helps support that learning that's going on and how those large motor activities really support some of those fine motor activities we're going to ask children to do later. With that in mind 

Mercedes: You're saying playing the hokey pokey with kids is helping them learn how to write. 

Kim: That's it. That's exactly it. It's good for their body. It's fun, especially if you shake it all about. How might you use a scarf? 

Now that we're thinking about this big picture thought, how could you use a scarf to stimulate a child's brain development? Any ideas? I know there's some creative folks out there. Elizabeth love it. Food for thought. Yes. 

Mercedes: Yeah. 

Kim: Here we go. Dana moving the scarf in a movement pattern. Side to side. Music in motion. How to tie. Yes. 

Mercedes: Oh, texture of the scarf. 

Kim: Mm-hmm. Peekaboo with babies. I love that you're bringing infant toddlers into this. That zero to eight months to six, we saw those neural networks going. Someone said bring in colors, side to side, blowing it in the air and catching it, moving the scarves in circles over the head. Use it to create letters. Use of scarves to create a letter or a shape. Now, you have something really big making the letter or making the shape for the child. 

Tossing it you're doing that up, down. Follow the leader. Tossing is also a great brain movement activity because it's helping the child see where they are in space and then track things. They're tracking something throwing up, down, or throwing it to the right or throwing it to the left. It's allowing them to use that peripheral vision, which we know is so important, especially in this day and age, where we have a lot of screens in children's lives. 

Follow the leader with music. Oh, you guys are good at this. Fast and slow, twirling. Here, I was saying I can't wait to see what people are saying. Once again, blow it out of the water with great ideas. Be sure to go through that, folks. Grab some of the ideas folks are sharing in there. Really wonderful ways to intentionally plan to incorporate movement that supports some of that learning. OK. Oh, this is me. Sorry. You're good. 

There's actually two courses that are on the future HeadStart.gov website that are part of the … it's called the IPD platform, which is Individualized Professional Development portfolio. It's a free platform. You can go and create your own account. 

These are two courses that are pulled from the I Am Moving, I Am Learning. If you want to geek out some more, they really dive into this a lot in part 1 and part 2. I do encourage folks to check that out. 

I know our team is busy putting all of these the resource list in the chat. In the chat, you're going to see a link. When you click that link, it's going to open a Google Doc that has information about the recording, the slides, and then all the resources we're talking about. 

You really want to make sure you're able to check that out. This is great for your own knowledge. But also, as health consultants, you may want to share this with other folks in the programs you're working with leadership teams to build consensus and help other folks so you're all talking the same language together. It makes a big difference when you're able to participate in something, this kind of learning together that you can talk about, hey, how does this work in our program? How can we think about bringing some of these ideas to life in our space? 

Mercedes: As Kim mentioned earlier, the next component of this physical activity that we want to just highlight for you is incorporating language into some of these physically active moments. This is a great resource, again, from IMIL, from I Am Moving, I Am Learning, for you all. It is on your resource list. 

These two squares or rectangles here highlight physical activity movements on the left and then modifiers on the right. This is just a reminder to think about all of these vocabulary words that you can expose young children to because it's a really important part for language processing and that early learning and coordinating your body to some of these words that we're hearing on the screen here. 

This is funny to me because I have a five-year-old. She came home the other day and told me her abdomen hurt. I was like, where did you learn that word? Like, when did we switch from belly to abdomen? It's all good though. 

Kids are just sponges. They're able to really incorporate these words into their own vocabulary when we expose them time and time again. Just thinking about some of the ways that you can look at these language movement, language words, and incorporate them. 

Again, you can pick a body part on the left and say your ankle. Then pick a modifier and say, my ankle moves fast, or, my ankle moves slow. Ask them. See how they would do that. How would you move your ankle fast or slow. All of these words can be incorporated into any of the activities that you're doing throughout the day. You just need to be intentional and consider how you can add them. 

I just want to, in the chat, ask you all. If you were thinking about that scarf that Kim had brought up, where we were making the figure eight motion or you had all of these great ideas, what other movement language words could you add to those activities? I know somebody said, throw it up in the air and watch it fall down. We had so many ideas of how to use that scarf. What are some movement language that you can add to that activity with the children? 

Positional words. Maybe bring the scarf back or bring the scarf back and forth. OK, good. Long swift is a movement, is a motion. It categorizes that fast, slow. Yes. Across, below. Yes. If we're moving the scarf across our body and up. Popcorn kernel tell me more about that. Take it. Float it. Rapidly. I love it. 

We're adding these movement vocabulary words. We're really expanding the child's language at the same time. They're going to have fun. I think if we're thinking of back to our opening activity of going up and down and moving all around, there were easy words that we all know. But remember, we're at the age of critically exposing children to these new words. 

This is great. Just consider adding some of these words. The next slide is really just a handout. There are free resources from Choosy Kids in both English and Spanish that include vocabulary movement. I really love this handout because it also includes nutrition and oral health words to add in. 

It will help the children think about their healthy choices for nutrition, different parts of your oral health and tests that they can do. Take a look at this again. It's going to be on that resource list that's in the chat box. But this is a great resource to figure out ways to incorporate healthy movement vocabulary and healthy habit vocabulary into your daily routine. 

Kim: One of the things I love about these handouts is that sometimes as adults working with young children, we can get stuck saying things the same way or doing an activity the same way. These movement language sheets can really help you think about OK, we're always talking about moving the scarf and throwing the scarf or something. We never talked about balancing it on your hand and not letting it fall. 

I love when you said, I can wiggle my ankle. Those are all those different kinds these are one of those things you share it with an educator. They're like, oh, my God, I could do it like this. I can do it like this. Then it's so fun to watch what happens in the classroom because educators are used to bathing children in words and understand the importance and best practice of using lots of different words. 

These words, they help with the movement and the learning. They continue to build that mind-body connection. If you're talking about moving your ankle a certain way, a child is learning they can move their ankle in that certain way. 

They're learning that by doing it. I think about all the things we do all the time. My husband and I were cleaning something up the other day. He just tossed it to me. I laughed hard because it just happened. 

Guess what. I just caught it. How did he calculate how hard to throw it, how far to throw it that it came into my hand? It was just a neural pathway that lit up. Plus, I'm just good at catching things. 

We were cleaning up stuff that was on the floor. I was laughing. I was like, oh, I'm good at this with you. That's our clean up routine. He tosses me the blankets. I fold them. That's how it goes. 

All those decisions are being made in that moment. Children learning that their bodies do these things and learning how to throw a little farther or throw a little softer, those are things that can help them learn how to begin to make those judgments. Have fun with these. As a health consultant, I've enjoyed bringing these back and just talking with the staff about it and hearing what they come up with because, again, I have the utmost respect for our educators' creativity in the classroom. I love that your daughter says abdomen. It tells us a lot about how you're using vocabulary in your home. 

Anyway, there is a lot of movement. We want to talk about getting that movement throughout whatever period of time the children are with you broken up into little bits and pieces throughout the day. Let's talk about the how a little bit. How much? What kinds? What does it really look like? How do we get it to fit in the day? 

We like to Caring for Our Children, which is our national online standards database. They have a standard again, it's in your resource sheet that talks about physical activity guidelines specifically. Again, we're talking very generally right now about total movement throughout the day and children birth to age six. 

Now, remember, birth to age six should be physically active. The recommendation is that they have two to three opportunities to be outdoors in the outdoors with active play obviously, we're going to follow best practices on weather guidelines and dress and things like that that they have two or more structured or caregiver-led activities or games that promote movement over the course of the day and that they should have those continual opportunities that happen throughout the day. Next slide. 

We talk about outdoor play and moderate to vigorous physical activity. They actually have recommendations about how much time children should spend outdoors in those two to three times per day. Again, the recommendation you have to think how many hours your children with you to kind of wrap your arms around how much time you're thinking about. 

For infants, there's no recommended time, just that they do have an opportunity to be outdoors. Toddlers and preschoolers, they recommend 60 to 90 minutes total throughout the day. Moderate to vigorous physical activity, We are thinking 60 to 90 minutes for an eight-hour day and preschoolers, 90 to 120 minutes. Notice they're in minutes because it's going to be that sprinkling that's cumulative that happens through throughout the day. 

MVPA, Moderate to Vigorous Physical Activity, it might be a new word to some folks. But think about the idea of going outside and sitting in a sandbox and playing with the sand toys. That might not get a child's heart rate up. It might not get them breathing heavy or talking more chopped or feeling like they're catching their breath again in the same way that skipping and hopping and running might do. Thinking really intentionally about those moderate to vigorous MVPA activities that gets those heart rate up is really we want to be able to have those types of activities sprinkled throughout the day.

How can we do it? There's two different ways. You might have heard in that first slide me saying structured physical activity, caregiver-led. Then there's unstructured physical activity that is child-directed. Structured physical activity is planned. It's intentional. It's led by an adult. It has a purpose. 

Teachers, caregivers can intentionally think about the children's age and their development in the classroom and design activities that are appropriate for them and the motor skills and the pieces of learning that they're working on as well as what they're able to do. Make it fun. It involves the children. Children don't wait for a turn. They're all involved at the same time. Waiting for a turn takes a lot of regulation. We want everyone to be active and engaged. 

Some ideas of structured physical activity that a caregiver may do is something like ball tossing games, following the leader, musical chairs. Sometimes, they do reading a book, where if I say as we read the story about a duck, every time the duck says quack, we're all going to get up and dance and move around and act like a duck and then sit back down. 

Also transitions, like moving from one activity to another. Maybe we're doing cleanup and getting ready to have a meal. We're going to make sure that that transition while we're doing the cleanup activity involves some sort of a movement. That's a caregiver-led type of movement. 

The unstructured physical activity, sometimes we call it free time or child selected free play, child directed. These are things children can start to do by themselves, like riding a toy or a bike or playing tag or playing on a playground structure. It's led by the child. But the caregivers have created an environment that allows for this, intentionally thought about what small parts to put out that can encourage this type of activity with young children. 

How do we do that in the midst of a day? The next slide, this slide shows an example of a full day schedule. Now, back in the beginning of the poll, some folks said they did look at the daily schedule and worked with the teachers in the program to think about the intentional planning of some of this movement. This gives an example of how one program was able to think about how many minutes. Where am I going to put some of the activity throughout the day? 

Really, they're planning. They're teacher planning, lesson planning. They were very intentional about saying, as I'm doing this planning, where am I going to add that type of movement activity? I think it's kind of a neat, fun way to look at it because you can see, they're going to do the read aloud and act out a story. They're going to do small groups and do some physical activity in there. I hope that's helpful to see how someone was able to give the little bits throughout the day that end up to a good total at the end of the day. 

Another thing next slide, please that I have found been helpful working with our caregivers is some of these pre-done activities and lesson plans. I think of them more as like a primer getting started type of a tool that can be used that teachers can really think about intentionally planning that physical activity. What it does is it shows you an idea. 

This one is shake, rattle, and roll. It tells you it's for children six to seven months that you need a rattle. Then it tells you what you can do with the rattle. But then it has those learning outcomes. 

Our lesson plans, our child assessments, things that caregivers are doing with teachers often revolve around these assessments of children and their learning, growth, and development. You can see how the activity and the way it's described is tied directly to those learning outcomes. It is not necessarily something extra that needs to be added to a classroom activity. It's just intentionally planning physical activity to help meet some of those learning objectives. It's just another tool to support their learning. But it's using that physical activity idea. There are resources on the link that's in the chat with different ideas like this that you can take a peek at. 

Mercedes: OK. Let's do a quick true or false question. You can answer in the chat. Read carefully before you type your answer. This is a common question that we tend to get on our info line. 

It's just a big topic of conversation right now with children being exposed so much to screens and digital media use. True or false, at least one hour of screen time or digital media use is recommended for children under two years of age in the early child care setting. True or false. Oh, they're like flying. 

Kim: We know they [Laughs] 

Mercedes: OK, good! I got all my no way, no way. OK, you are all correct. It is false. We did put the Caring for Our Children standard on the resource list that relates to screen time and digital media use. Just you all know, when you go to that link, you'll see that screen time and digital media use should not be used with children ages two and younger in the early care setting. 

For children ages two to five years total exposure, which includes in school and at home, total exposure to digital media use should be limited to one hour per day. This is a good time to encourage programs to speak with the family as well and say “Oh, well, hey, well, what are you doing at home? How can we coordinate our digital media use in school as well? Because we don't want you to go over that suggestion.”

Whatever your opinion is and your views on it, you want to make sure you're working in that collaborative way because this is kind of one of those individualized things. Even though there are recommendations out there, please take a look at what Caring for Our Children says about screen time and digital media use. Also, talk to and collaborate with families. 

We know that the impact of screen time, there can be some benefits. There can be some negative outcomes. One, we want to make sure that when we talk about digital media use and screen time, we're not talking about children with disabilities who actually are using these communication devices using screens as communication devices. 

Well, let's throw that recommendation out. That's not considered in that lump. We're talking about when you're using a screen for enjoyment purposes or even just for a lesson, they should be lumped together for that. Excessive screen media usage in children can have positive and negative impacts on their development. 

We are seeing a lot of physical health relation to screen usage, including you see how you can even see this young boy in the picture with his neck turned down a little bit and posture. You see how it can impact physical health. Early screen exposure has been associated with lower cognitive abilities and academic performances in later years. Even we're seeing that the social connections aren't there. 

I know I don't have to say that to you. We're seeing a different generation where talking and communicating with each other is not as easily done. These recommendations are helping you realize the impact of screen time overall. 

I'm going to go to the next slide because I want to talk a little bit about the social determinants of health. I'm not going to get into all of the social determinants of health. But what we know is that 80% of your health outcomes are impacted by these social aspects of your health. Your access to quality education, your access to quality health care, the economic stability that you and your family have, the social and community context in the neighborhood and built environment in which you live. All of these things are really impacting your overall health. 

We've been talking today about physical activity. We keep saying, yes, incorporate physical activity. Encourage families to incorporate physical activity. If you think specifically about the neighborhood and built environment that families live in, what you want to consider before you go making broad recommendations, like go outside and let them go play, is, is their neighborhood and built environment a safe place for them to do that? 

Is the quality of the housing and access to transportation well enough for them to reach clean parks and safe parks where children can explore and incorporate physical activity? Overall, do they have a social and community context in which they feel like they're in a neighborhood that really cares about the children within their neighborhood? We bring this up because we want to make sure that you all as leaders, as health leaders, health managers, child care health consultants, are considering this when you go to make recommendations for physical activities. 

Consider all of these aspects, these social determinants of health, that can really impact the overall health outcome. I know I went over that really quickly. But that's because I want to hear from you all what you think. 

If the families in your program did not have access to safe physical activities, if they lived in a neighborhood where they assure there's a playground, but it's covered in unsafe things broken glass, bottle, things like that where they just don't feel like going that it's safe what are some ways that you could encourage physical activity? What are some other ideas that you have instead of just telling the family, go home and be more physically active? What are some things that you can do in your program or to support physical activity? 

You can drop it in the chat for me. Play the floor is lava. Oh, find a local YMCA. Dancing indoors. Provide ideas for indoor activities. Create obstacle courses. I like that. Obstacle courses are fun. I have fun with them too. Go for walks. Great. Dance. Encouraged to help rake leaves. Shovel snow. These are great. These are excellent. 

Kim: I love that they're also tying in some of those community spaces, a YMCA, a Boys and Girls Club, a church activity, some other places that maybe you learn about through your good community relations and partnerships that provide a safe space. 

Mercedes: Yes, that actually leads to our next slide because you guys are all right. If you're thinking about those community places, that can actually hit two of the social determinants of health. We talked about neighborhood and built environment. We talked a little bit about social and community context. 

Those of you who suggested find the local YMCA, think about the relationships that family can build. If they do those things and go to those places or if you in the program host a community event or host a walk or a run in a safe space in a safe area or host a playground cleanup that we can make that playground safe for our families, just remember that children spend the majority of their time in your programs in an ECE setting. We don't want you to just stop there and think about what physical activity can be part of their daily routine. Understand that this all carries over into their life as they go home to and how you can make an impact in both settings. Are we running out of time, Kim? 

Kim: Oh, we're good. I mean, I also love some of the activities that folks shared about supporting families to think about ways to be active at home because they can do that learning too. When you do clean up, maybe you clean up all the red things first. Or maybe you dance silly. Or swing your arm like an elephant. All the things that happen in the classroom to incorporate physical activity can be done in the home as well. You guys hit so many great ideas around that. 

Mercedes: There's a question in the chat. It would be cool to talk about it together. I have some ideas immediately. I know we were going to leave space for Q&A too. 

My program is looking for ways to give children some physical activity after lunch and before they lay down for nap. The concern is that most activities will wind the children up and not help them settle and be ready to sleep. Any suggestions? I'll let any of your colleagues answer that first as we I'm going to just pop up the next slide for us too. 

I immediately thought about meditation and yoga and guided meditation. Even though it seems like they're still moving with some yoga moves, a lot of these slow movement yoga moves, can help them wind up my kids. Somebody said yoga. Yes. OK, good. Breathing and meditation. 

Listen, all of these movements count whether they're the moderate MVPA like in the moderate to vigorous activity is counting for different types of movement. That other guided movement, teacher-led movement, it's still counting to moving their body. Yes, mindfulness exercises and yoga seem like a great way to wind down. My eight-year-old still loves a nice, guided meditation before bedtime. It works. It's helpful for a lot of reasons. 

Kim: I think it's important to know that, actually, kids often do better after exercise calming and regulating their body because they've gotten an opportunity to move their bodies and do the things that they need to do. They actually find that they are able to follow directions a little bit better and regulate themselves. It'd be interesting as you think about it and implement it to really see if your concern actually plays out. I mean, these are all wonderful. 

Somebody said swimming on their cot. It's so creative. But I also challenge us to think that. Just because we got kids moving, it doesn't necessarily mean they're going to be rambunctious afterwards. Oftentimes, it helps them calm. 

Mercedes: Release that energy. 

Kim: Release that energy, yeah. Yeah, is there another question? Are we good with that? 

Kim: No, that was it. 

Kim: OK. We're happy that you were able to be with us today. I know it's at the top of the hour. We always have so much fun sharing information with you. It always feels like a whirlwind. We could spend probably three or four hours together sharing some of these great experiences. 

I do encourage you to look at that resource list. also, check out the groups on MyPeers. It's another place to share information. Melissa will be sharing information with you at the end on that. 

There's lots of information that all of us are doing. We can continue to learn from each other to think about how to make sure that we are intentionally planning for movement because it's good for the brain and the body to think about using that language. How can we add more language, different language, that help to encourage those brain-body connections and build those neural networks, cross the midline in all different directions, sprinkle it throughout the day so that children have an opportunity to use their bodies? 

It's so much learning that's happening. It helps them to learn. Then to really intentionally reflect on your work with families in the community you can support learning throughout the day and be that real, true partnership with your interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary teams to achieve these goals. Next slide. 

Another highlight, another resource that pops up, the I Am Moving, I Am Learning is, again, not a curriculum. It's an enhancement to what folks are already doing. There's a number of resources on that included in your list as well. I think we hit all the questions. 

Mercedes: Yeah, we did want. You want to hand it over to Melissa? 

Kim: Do you want to say bye, thank you for coming first? 

Mercedes: Me? Oh, bye? 

Kim: Mercedes, thank you for hanging out with us on our quarterly webinar series. 

Mercedes: Yeah, thank you all. It's been a really fun chatting with you. I've learned some really cool techniques today too. Thank you for sharing. 

Kim: Melissa, we're over time. But it's all yours. 

Melissa: It was worth it. Thank you so much, Kim and Mercedes, for this time together for sharing the important information with our national webinar audience. Thank you all for being our wonderful audience. 

If you have any more questions, as always, go to my MyPeers. Or write to health@ecetta.info. On the screen, you'll see the evaluation QR code. You'll also see the link in the chat as well as after you I was going to say hang up the phone. 

After you log off the Zoom, you'll also get the link to respond. We encourage you to respond. This helps us to improve our future training and technical assistance offerings. Next slide, please. 

Mercedes: Someone loves your cat in your background. 

Melissa: This is thanks to our wonderful artist, Carol. Thank you so much for joining us today. On the next slide, I'll just encourage Oh, OK. I encourage all to follow us on social media. Connect with us on MyPeers. 

On the next slide just a reminder, we're getting ready to welcome the HeadStart.gov or Head Start website. You'll be seeing that URL soon. Then I think on our next slide if you have any more questions, you know how to reach us. 

You can find today's resources and more on the Health section of the Head Start website. Please subscribe to our mailing list. Thank you, everyone. Happy holidays. 

Mercedes: Bye, everyone. Thank you. 

Melissa: Thank you. Again, the evaluation QR, if you need it, I'll give it a moment. I wish everyone well. Thank you. Kate, you can close the webinar.