Gymmie knows children expand their imaginations, interact with others and explore their world through unstructured (free) play. Structured play can also help children develop social, emotional and physical skills. Finding the appropriate times for each type of play can be surprising. Here is an example: On a mid-August Thursday of a very hot summer, the three and four year olds at gymnastics camp seemed to have less concentration than usual. The kids had zipped through the obstacle courses in record time and were dashing to the monkey bars, parallel bars, and hanging rings whenever they could. Now it was time for our block of yoga. As the kids sat down on their yoga mats, they fidgeted and squirmed. It was going to be a challenge to keep them focused and participating. Generally, our yoga starts with music and some imagery while allowing children to choose their own movements. I could do that and their level of distraction wouldn’t matter. Instead I decided to be more structured and do a series of sun salutation movements to the music. To my surprise as I looked up from my first down dog position, almost every child was in down dog. I kept going with a brisk series of movements including some tricky ones. The kids followed, trying new poses and staying totally engaged. We had a great yoga session; probably the best all week.

I continued to think about the yoga experience through the afternoon. At a time when my first reaction was to give the kids more free play time, giving them structure worked better. Thinking more, I realized that when I have trouble concentrating it helps to have a task with defined steps. My brain needs to grab onto someone else’s structure. Other times when I am clear-headed, the creative, out-of-the-box ideas flourish.

Both unstructured and structured playtime help children develop. While my example outlined a successful use of structure, there are many other circumstances when giving children free playtime is what they need. Gymmie encourages anyone who works with children to provide both types of play experience.

Gymnastics and yoga are the perfect combination for a young child’s education. Why? Through gymnastics children learn movement skills, body awareness, control, sequencing, balance, and coordination. Children have fun while maneuvering through obstacle courses, swinging, climbing, balancing, and jumping. Yoga also helps children gain body awareness, balance and flexibility. Yoga exercises children’s imagination and requires self-regulation to transition from activity to stillness. Most of all, children have fun learning physical and mental skills which provide building blocks for learning and enjoying physical activity