Ways to Make the Olympics Fun for the Whole Family

The 2016 Olympic Games are starting soon—Friday, August 5, to be exact! The Summer Games are always eagerly anticipated with news reports of star athletes, the sports facilities in the host city, and television coverage schedules. Sometimes, all the pre-game excitement leads to a bit of a letdown once the games begin. Keep up the enthusiasm in your home with some fun Olympics-related activities and everyone will have a good time.

Preparation

Your kids will enjoy watching the Olympics with you more if they understand at least a bit about the games. Talk about how the Olympics is a sporting event that involves athletes from around the world coming together for peaceful competition. Visit the Olympic website to learn about some of the athletes and sports represented. Encourage your kids to choose a favorite flag to draw and color, or hang up a world map to track the medal winners.

Don’t forget about Rio de Janeiro! This host city is a fascinating place. Explore it online, then play some lively Brazilian music while you set the stage for Olympic Games viewing.

Team USA

Of course, Team USA is likely to be the most popular team in your home. Add some red, white, and blue streamers to your family’s main TV area. Plan a viewing schedule that lets your family see their favorite sports without overwhelming anyone. NBC is broadcasting the games this summer; a special website lists all the details of their coverage. The website also features information about Team USA athletes, including both men’s and women’s gymnastics teams. Using a U.S. map, see if your kids can locate their favorite athletes’ hometowns or training sites.

Snacks

Watching all that competition will give everyone an appetite! Plan some snacks around an Olympics Games theme. A simple snack is a vanilla ice cream cone with red sprinkles that looks like the Olympic torch. You can also decorate cookies with frosting in the colors of the Olympic rings.

Get Active

In between viewing sessions, encourage your kids to burn off their energy imitating their favorite athletes. Turn some cartwheels in the back yard or get the neighborhood kids together for a track meet at the park.

Whatever you choose to do, remember it’s meant to be fun. If your kids aren’t interested, don’t push them, but if they see you having fun, they’ll likely want to join in.

Let’s Celebrate Dance!

National Dance Day is July 30th so let’s celebrate!

Dance existed in America long before Europeans came to this continent, as Native Americans incorporated dance into spiritual rituals. Throughout the colonial period, settlers from different parts of Europe brought their folk dances to their new homes and Africans preserved their traditions as well. Eventually, all these sources combined and mixed in new ways and added the influences of our changing society. Today, American dance includes ballet, modern dance troupes, jazz, and hip-hop. Social dancing ranges from the waltz to the fox trot to the jitterbug and beyond to the forms that grew up with rock and roll.

Whatever it looks like, dance is a form of emotional expression. Dancers may be moved by sorrow, religious fervor, or the joy that Friday has come at last. Children are natural dancers. Think of a toddler’s response to music. There’s a lot of jumping and jigging and spinning going on. While it’s not structured, it’s dance.

Dance Classes

Children old enough to participate in a group benefit greatly from dance classes in a variety of ways. The physical benefits may be obvious: increased range of motion, coordination, strength, and overall fitness are among them.

Dance involves movement patterns, and one of the most important benefits for children is an awareness of these patterns. Why? The ability to recognize patterns is an inherent part of learning such academic skills as arithmetic, reading, and spelling. Remember your early lessons of “cat, bat, rat, sat”? That’s a pattern, as is counting by twos, fives, and tens.

As with gymnastics classes, dance sessions also allow kids to work on their social skills, although they don’t see it that way. They think they’re having fun as they listen to instructions and interact with peers. Learning how to cooperate in a group here will help with those group projects in school and, later, on the job.

Emotional Expression

Perhaps the greatest benefit of participating in dance classes has to do with emotional expression. Even in a structured class and dance routine, each dancer brings their own interpretation to the performance. For kids who have trouble managing their feelings, dance can provide an appropriate and constructive outlet for that emotional energy.

So be sure to celebrate dance on July 30th as we honor the contributions to our cultural heritage made by America’s dancers and choreographers!

Education and Fitness, Rolled into One! Why the Tumblebees Learning Center is the Perfect Preschool

What could be more fun for your two-, three-, four-, or five-year-old than the combination of an exciting preschool program and the activity of gymnastics classes? We can’t think of anything, and we’re willing to bet your child can’t either. The children enrolled in the Tumblebees Learning Center think they are just playing, but all the while they are learning a multitude of important skills and lessons that will help them through the rest of their school years and beyond.

Young children learn through their play. This is how they practice and reinforce new skills and concepts. Teach your young child to sing “The Alphabet Song” and pretty soon you’ll hear her crooning it to her stuffed animals as she plays school. Introduce a new phrase or concept and it will become part of her dramatic play repertoire. Tumblebees Learning Center focuses on learning in a fun, safe, and dynamic environment.

We build lots of time for physical activity into our daily preschool schedule. Your child will spend time in our gym learning age-appropriate gymnastics skills and engaged in physical fitness activities. Creative movement, such as rhythm and dance activities, are also part of the physical program. And because this all takes place indoors, the kids still get a chance to run, stretch, climb, and tumble every day, even during inclement weather.

As much as kids like gymnastics, they need some quieter activities as well. Inside our child-oriented classroom, your preschooler will participate in circle time where he will learn to sit quietly, listen, and take part in a discussion. Our curriculum includes art activities for the development of fine motor skills, science exploration, and reading readiness for four- and five-year-olds who will be moving on to kindergarten the following school year.

Throughout all of our preschool activities, the children are encouraged to develop critical thinking skills by solving problems and evaluating results. Numerous studies have shown that children who participate in gymnastics consistently do better in school. Gymnastics classes reinforce the listening, social, and problem-solving skills needed for academic performance.

Learning the joys of physical fitness as early as the preschool years sets the stage for a lifetime of healthy activity. In addition, as the children learn to control their bodies and develop better coordination, they also gain the confidence needed for success.