With a down-to-earth style accompanied by lively color photographs, A Moving Child Is a Learning Child explains the learning link between the body and the brain and what early childhood educators and caregivers can do to guide it.
As a thank you for all you do for kids, we’re giving a copy of A Moving Child Is a Learning Child to 5 lucky readers! Note: this contest ended 2/28/2014.
How to Enter: Leave a comment below telling us how you support children’s healthy development.
For additional entries, leave a separate comment below for each of the following tasks that you complete:
Each comment counts as a separate entry. Entries must be received by midnight, February 28, 2014.(This giveaway is now closed.)
The 5 winners will be contacted via email on or about March 3, 2014, and will need to respond within 72 hours to claim their prize or another winner will be chosen. This giveaway is in no way affiliated, administered, or endorsed by Facebook, Twitter, or Pinterest. Winners must be U.S. residents, 18 years of age or older.
We welcome your comments and suggestions. Share your comments, stories, and ideas below, or contact us. All comments will be approved before posting, and are subject to our comment and privacy policies.
© 2014 by Free Spirit Publishing. All rights reserved.
Need to provide more opportunities for movement
I’m a MS/HS librarian who encourages students to browse, to move around and explore the areas of the library, to create, compute, draw, scan, digitize and make their projects come to life.
I’m a Speech-Language Pathologist working in an Early Childhood Intervention agency. I evaluate and treat children with developmental delays/disorders, and educate parents /families on how to foster developmentally appropriate play/language/feeding skills.
Students have freedom to move, we use brain gym and sign langauge. We get up and move a lot and talk about making healthy choices.
I just pinned you to pinterest and followed you on facebook. I don’t yet twitter.
I support children’s healthy development by teaching ECFE in Minneapolis, publishing children’s books about strong girls (resourceful, too) and being a great neighbor to the children in our neighborhood.
I am very excited about this book both as a parent of an active 4 year old and a school counselor who witnesses the difficulty students have being confined to a seat in a classroom 8 hours/day. I look forward to using this book as both a parent and school counselor.
I am the health and welfare consultant (registered nurse) at a children’s charity in Victoria Australia. We support kids who are experiencing disadvantage in some way (e.g. Socioeconomic) to come and enjoy a week of exciting outdoor beach activities in a camp environment. Their whole week is filled with learning through movement, activity and reflection. I do some basic Braingym activities to help with switching their brains on too. I’ve always been passionate about the idea of moving to learn and giving children as many opportunities as possible to intergrate their senses and develop a greater understanding of themselves and the world around then. I’d love to win a moving child is a learning child book so that I have more skills to pass on to the thousands of kids we see each year. Thanks 😊
I encourage social development at my child care by having my children to interact with each other. This allows them to understand how to interact within a society.
In Multiculturalism I teach to my children but I also have my children share their cultural background with each other. This allows them to learn from each other.
I work with children each day who are impacted by trauma. Finding ways to help them learn is always important.
I am a big believer in kids needing to move around to learn. They cannot be sitting still all the time.
I recently filled out my children’s school survey and wrote in the comments sections that the kids needed more “out-of-their-seat” time. When I worked in an elementary school, one of the most effective things the second grade teacher did was have the kids stand up and stretch or take them outside for a quick walk around the building before moving on to the tough subjects or after long periods of sitting. It really woke the kids up, energized them and created a much more positive atmosphere. I’ve seen it in action and believe it really works to the children’s and the teacher’s advantage.
I am the 4-H Youth Development Agent for our parish. The 4-H motto is “Learn by Doing”. Movement not only helps kids release energy which helps them focus on the task at hand, it also provides a part of the 60 minutes of daily physical activity kids need to help burn calories. Any time a learning experience can be reinforced in a variety of ways, kids will remember more than if they just hear someone talk about it!
As an Elementary School Counselor, I have noticed that my classrooms that incorporate BrainGym or other motor breaks have fewer discipline referrals and higher learning engagement. I am looking forward to sharing this book with teachers and administration.
The importance of movement to cognitive development is crucial from birth onward. This would be an excellent book to share with parents as well as colleagues working on emergent literacy. I look forward to reading it when it is available.
A moving child IS a learning child – as the title says. Love that!! Children learn in so many different ways – but sitting in one spot many hours of the day is not optimal for them (or us). Would love to add this resource to our professional library!
I work in three programs in the Minnetonka Public School District supporting children and families. I am a licensed Parent Educator and work with families with children birth to age 5 through our ECFE and Preschool Program. I also help support children’s healthy development through our home visiting outreach program and advocate on behalf of children and their families through our School Readiness Program. I appreciate the opportunity to receive the book – A Moving Child is a Learning Child!! Thank you!!!
HI Ann, nice to see you are still making a difference in children’s lives. I’m glad to know you are out there supporting the healthy growth of children. Annette Gagliardi.
At the Indiana Youth Institute, we promote the healthy development of Indiana children and youth
by serving the people, institutions and communities that impact their well-being. This book would be a great addition to our free lending library, and would be shared with youth workers across the state.
As a Learning Specialist at a school that serves students from Preschool through sixth grade, I recommend strategies to make sure children are actively engaged in their learning. I would welcome a resource that would help all faculty at my school learn how to keep kids active.
I work with children with special needs and motor breaks/movement are an essential part of their day!! Also, having a very active child at home has shown me how movement helps him as well. He is typically developing and is a child who needs recess everyday and PE everyday. Thank goodness we live in a district that allows him to have these options because he would struggle otherwise.
would like to read this book. I feel better & more productive when I’m active; I’m sure children must too
Currently, I am the director of a partial care program for children aged six to eleven. Prior to that I was a clinical supervisor in residential treatment facilities. Over the years, children who would have gone into residential are now being enrolled into partial care– if they are lucky enough to get any treatment at all. We are now dealing with children who represent about 0.01% of the population– children who are psychotic, children who are actively hallucinating, children who are dissociative, etc., on an outpatient basis. Little research has been done on how best to treat these children. As a result, we try treatment interventions and note the ones that work. What we have observed is that incorporated movement– stretches, dancing, wiggling games, etc, seen to have positive benefits for the majority of our clients. I would love to present this book to my staff. I think that the information and instruction would help us better serve this vulnerable and difficult population.
Our School (Bookman Road Elementary in Elgin, SC) believes in “Brain Breaks” – movement activities to stimulate the brain. This will be an awesome resource for our new and veteran teachers. Thank you for this opportunity to win a free copy!
I teach a therapeutic program for students with social, emotional & behavioral disorders. Movement is key in our day!
This would be a great resource
In my PreK 4 class, we move and play and learn all day long. We have music and movement activities everyday, along with a full hour of outdoor play. One of my students’ favorite songs is “Count to 100 Everyday.” They love the “exercise” song, as they call it, and are often singing the refrain “Keep your body and mind in shape!”
Last year we added exercise bikes to our English classrooms, so students could ride and read. The students love it,and it promotes movement in the classroom. This year we are replacing some of our chairs with balance balls. They engage the core and allow for some “wiggles” while working.Our sixth grade English team is working to make our classrooms kid and health friendly!
I liked Free Spirit on Facebook.
As an OT I’m always trying to come up with unique ways to get kids moving in whatever way will best help them to learn, whether at home, outside, or in the classroom!
And I just followed you on Pinterest. 🙂
I liked you on Facebook. 🙂
As a homeschool mom I supported the healthy development of my children by valuing and facilitating outdoor, creative play. I would very much like to read this book and share the wealth with my grown children.
As a psychologist and therapist who works with traumatized children, I and my team have learned, with the help of a sensory integration occupational therapist, how movement assists children to heal themselves. But I also know that children blessed with all the advantages also develop via movement. I own this book already but want to give a copy to a school that I am connected to so that teachers can look further into how kids learn best when able to move and use all of themselves.
I liked FreeSpirit on Facebook
I am following FreeSpirit on pintrest
Creating opportunities to foster children’s learning of various social emotional skills is one of the role I currently play in my career. I love learning new ways to encourage healthy development in young children.
A child from a very early age should have the opportunity to grow up as a person who believes in oneness of humanity and human solidarity. The publications and products of Free Spirit Publishing are creating that opportunity and helping children to become a responsible global citizen inculcating the culture of peace in their lives.
As a SLP and supervisor of therapy I see a great benefit to all children in using movement as part of their learning. What a great book and resource for us to use and become further educated on the importance of moving and learning.
At our Early Childhood Center our occupational therapist created a bulletin board entitled “Cool Move of the Day”. The classes make this part of their daily routine and the kids love visiting the bulletin board “reading” the move or moves and then executing the “Cool Move”. Great way to give the kids one more opportunity for movement in their day.
I am a Speech-Language Pathologist and daily see the benefit of movement in children as they are learning. I have students utilize a variety of forms of movement in order to increase focus to participate in activities/tasks including: standing and shifting weight back and forth on feet at the table vs. sitting, sitting in a “spinning” chair, sitting on a rocker (gaming type) seat, even climbing from chair to chair…whatever works to get the activity/task completed!
Brain development is directly linked to movement and as a kinesiology major, teacher, coach, and now a parent educator, it is more evident after observing children on a monthly basis. Peter Strick and his staff traced a pathway from the cerebellum back to parts of the brain involved in memory, attention, and spatial perception. Amazingly, the part of the brain that processes movement is the same part of the brain that’s processing learning. The more research that is done on this concept, the more they will find that it is true.
I support children’s healthy development by including parents as partners in our school and in their student’s education – we all have something new to learn each day!
Since many of my students are parenting students, this is a wonderful resource for next generations.
As Nana to four little ones aged 2 – 8, I know the best thing I can do with them is to encourage them to use all their senses to learn about their world. We cook. We play and run in the rain, snow and sunshine. We stop on walks and smell flowers and look at blades of grass and petals on flowers. We watch the clouds in the sky and find shapes and tell stories about what we see.
I do all I can to keep their minds occupied.
I have a “gross motor” section built into my lesson plans. Everyday I use at least 1 activity that incorporates movement to teach or reinforce skills.
Letting the children use their 5 senses and explore, let them be aware of their surrounding. Letting them feel everything and experience it. From their hands to their brain, knowledge and delight comes!
As a therapist, dance instructor, and former athlete, I whole-hearted believe in the power and value of movement in our lives and in the early development for children. Our children today are buried in technology, and unfortunately miss so many valuable developmental tools in learning social skills, emotional regulation, problem solving, communication, etc…the list could go on and on! I encourage everyone in the natural support system of a child to engage them in more physical activites and assist them with understanding the benefits.
I am following Free Spirit on Pinterest!
The SEEDS Program supports families with young children in foster, adoptive, and kinship care, We are going to use the kinetic scale in our next staff meeting as a way of understanding our children’s sensorimotor strengths and challenges. We would love a copy of the whole book. Thank you!
I work for an ECFE and there is never enough information to give to parents letting them know that keeping their kids moving and not watching TV is so beneficial to their growth and brain development.
I am a retired teacher. As a grandmother, I am concerned that my grandsons spend so much time on computer games. I would welcome having this book in my library to use with them and to share with their parents.
One of my children is a real wiggle worm. To help her get her reading minutes in, I let her bounce on an exercise ball while she reads to me. It works every time!
This sounds like an awesome book I would love to have in my library! I want to read it myself then share with parents, teachers, and therapists. We all need to sing and dance and play every day and learn from one another and the world around us. I am an occupational therapist working in a rural school district with students from birth through age 21. We naturally encourage lots of movement for preschoolers, but with current pressure to achieve testing goals in K-12, there is too much expectation for students to sit still and listen for too long every day. Glad to find this great resource to help demonstrate the learning/brain benefit for healthy movement for all of us throughout every day.
As a parent and foster parent I have used several of your publications including Speak Up and Make Friends, The ADD/ADHD Durvival Guide, The Gifted Child Survival Guide and How to get the Grrr out of Anger. I recommend these to friends and colleague often.
My master’s thesis was about kinistheyic learning in the primary classroom. I am so happy to see and eager to read this book about this very important and often over looked learning style.
Working in elementary schools as a counselor I find students relish the opportunity to move while learning. They get excited about playing a game and are more receptive to learning.
I am so excited to have found this website, I love the books and use them in my personal and professional life. Amazing!
I offer a movement-based story time for children at my library.
I am a therapist, and former teacher.
I am pleased to see literature supporting what common sense tells us. We’re designed to move, not merely sit and absorb.
I am a Family Educator Support Specialist for the city where I live. We offer playgroups and parenting workshops for parents/caregivers and their children from 0 to 8 years old. These playgroups are an opportunity for parents to interact with their children in a playful way, doing activities that are fun and educative and meeting other parents/caregivers. We serve families who are coming from all over the world and with different background, education and socio economical status. We often have to find ways to show to adults why playing, moving, and letting children be physically active is important for their development. We always welcome new ways to share useful information with parents/caregivers. We have the philosophy that parents want to do their best with their children. Sharing resources with them help them to chose what works for their family.
I encourage lots of hands-on and outdoor play.
working with children who have ADHD or just kids in general, they like to move. Would like to learn more about movement and how the brain makes connections to facilitate retention in all senses!
I have been a child care provider for 10 years. Getting outdoors allows children another means of learning. Moving is on our schedule every day.
As an educator and parent, we know that children learn through playing and will most of the time learn through activities/situations that they can make a connection too. I read to the children a story and connect it to various sensory activities where they can indulge in hands on and make that story their own.
Young children learn best through play. As a school social worker and parent of young children, I am interested in learning more about incorporating movement in learning activities.
I am a teacher in training and I have been learning about the connection between learning and the brain and how learning can become more effective if children receive the proper nutrition as well as stay active physically. This keeps them focused and engaged for the day, prepared to learn.
Just followed you on Facebook! Love your educational tools!
I’m following you on Pinterest too!
I’m following you on Twitter!
I liked you on Facebook!
I support my children’s healthy development by encouraging lots of exercise and creative, free play….less time on electronics. It’s a struggle nowadays, but they are so much happier and better off when they get outside and get moving.
In our classroom, we move to music between our Morning Meeting time and Math time. The furniture is positioned in a way that we can have a constant circular flow around the room as we move and sing. The songs are often connected to an idea or skill that has just been taught or will soon be taught that day.
Another activity we use is while counting our days in school, we exercise. I ask the children at times to come up with the movement to use as we count by ones to “109” for the 109th day of school.
It also helps to have learning activities throughout the lessons so students are not sitting for long.
One movement activity we use during word focus is “air writing” the letters as we spell our words. Students use their gross motor skills as we write the letters from sky to ground. Not only are we focusing on healthy learning, but the movement also helps keep the attention of my active first graders.
As the librarian for the College of Education at a New Jersey university, one of my projects over the last 18 months has been to update the materials on health, exercise, and the human body, which were really out of date. The college has a preschool with play yard, a program to educate early childhood teachers, and a Department of Health and Exercise Science. The Instructional Materials Center serves all of these constituents. A Moving Child Is a Learning Child sounds like a “must have” for us.
I am a Child and Youth Worker and a mother with two young children, and I would love to win this book!
I couldn’t agree more that your overall social/emotional health means you also have to take care of your body physically. I think this book would be beneficial in my role as a school social worker to help encourage this even more in my daily work and pass this on to parents.
I spend any free time reading and educating myself on ways to be the best parent and always be mindful. I like to have lots of fun activities with the kids and get them involved with local events. We do a lot of downtime outdoor and indoor play that is just for fun, too. Just hanging out at a park with other families or doing an informal play date is great for interaction.
My entire philosophy of teaching is based on the body mind connection. I am a strong believer in a program called Minds in Motion developed by Candance Meyer. I would love to read this book and share it with the other teachers in my building.
Allowing students the opportunity to talk out their feelings, thoughts and opinions help them to stay healthy.
Kindergartners through the 6th-graders are the greatest teachers of all. Over the years I have worked with the habits of the mind and body. One of the many things that I use when I teach in the classroom are mindful breathing and mindful stretching in yoga movements as well as movements with crossing the mid-line. It amazes me when I have encouraged students to walk, ride their bikes, or just get outside to play-how easily they can see the connection between the physical and the emotional. Even the “cool” sixth-graders appreciate how exercise and movement, while a bit unorthodox in the classroom, can energize them and allow for more flow of learning.
We do a motor lab with preschoolers weekly and we have seen a difference in the readiness to learn on motor lab days.
I support children’s health development by individual counseling, group counseling and classroom activities. When I meet with individual, I always have things for them to do and play with. Many times this is playing catch or bouncing on a ball. During groups, we use bean bag toss games as well as yoga. I eat lunch with every 1st, 4th, and 6th grader in my school two times during the year. I also run a positive incentive store where the students can buy foosball. They then come in at recess to play foosball with 3 friends. They use skills and problem solving.
I recently bought some of your books and enjoy reading with my kids. I am drawn to this book since so many kids spend more time indoors and on technology I am looking for ways to help my kids become more active.
Almost graduating with a degree in education. Interested in books that can help me be prepared!
Exercise is a great way to improve mood!
Following on Pinterest.
I’m always working on eliminating the r-word and the inappropriate use of “gay”. Liked on Facebook.
I would love to win this to use in my Parents as Teacher’s program. I will be able to share the ideas with the parent educators to use on home visits, as well as share the ideas with the preschool teachers in our building. Here is an example of how I support this philosophy: This weekend I had my 5 and 7 year old grandchildren for a visit. We played obstacle course, Olympics, and rolling the dice to physically move our own bodies to follow the words on an instruction card. The cards had simple words and pictures such as: jump like a frog, fly like a butterfly, crawl like a snake. My 5 year old grandson has Apraxia, so we also said the words out loud, making sounds for the animals. They begged to play these games over and over through out the visit. The TV was never on!
I follow Free Spirit on Pinterest!
I liked Free Spirit on Facebook!
Love this! At the beginning of each lesson, we “get the wiggles out” by doing just a few fun exercises that students love!
I am a middle school counselor, and I support my students’ healthy development by encouraging them to be physically active in order to reduce anxiety, stay active, and relieve stress. In fact, next week I’m bring a yoga teacher to my classroom guidance classes to teach yoga moves and deep breathing to my 6th and 9th grade students!
I support healthy development by being the school counselor. Part of my job is covering social and personal health. Helping students to become mentally healthy is important to me.
I was immediately drawn to this book and subject. As a therapist who works with children, I am always trying to educate adults (and kids) about how young children integrate information through play, moving and doing.
He is given lots of food with antioxidants, brussel sprouts, carrots, leafy vegetables. He enjoys salmon, dark meat chicken. We eat honey nut cherrios for dessert for breakfast. Cheese and potatoes are his weaknesses. And, these foods are given when behavior has been appropriate as well as ice cream sandwiches. Oranges for fruit and plenty of water and milk.
As a school social worker for students of all ages, I think it is important to continue opportunities for movement and sensory stimulation for children of all ages… let the high school kids move more too!!!
I am very involved in Challenger baseball and other sports programs for persons with disabilities. I find that the greatest obstacle that many children face is not whether or not he or she can do the activity – most will get by in one fashion or another, and the effort is far more important than any result. The greatest obstacle is instead the parent who says “my child has X, and therefore can’s do it”, denying the child a chance to try.
In Kindergarten we have PE 3 times a week, one or two daily outside recess times and plenty of brain breaks!
I use movements and gestures paired with content when teaching so that kids can remember the content. For example, if I am teaching “Stop, Walk, Talk” I have a gesture for each step and then also have students role play in pairs and then select a few to demonstrate to the class.
I liked Free Spirit Publishing on Facebook! 🙂
We have physical education as part of our program every single day.
I allow kids to move in my classroom as well as allowing for movement breaks throughout the day.
I incorporate movement activities into my counseling lessons as frequently as possible. I find the students are more focused and pay better attention throughout the entire activity if they get a chance to move around.
Looks like a great resource that I could use to better support and provide services for students. I provide behavioral health groups for identified students who attend an alternative school. We cover everything from self-esteem building, anger management, friendship and social skills, life skills, grief and loss, the list goes on! Applying moving as a learning tool to what we do with students excites me.
I am following you on Twitter!
At the Kindergarten Center I work at, we encourage movement through various modes. Everyday, students have Play Center time where they interact socially through play; they also get SMART or Boost Up time each day where their brains are activated to learn by using specific physical activities like slap mats, tunnels, trampolines, and monkey bars. We use Total Physical Response when teaching concepts and vocabulary to further embed the learning in multiple modalities.
I encourage the use of exercise and relaxation techniques. I teach children how their physical health and their emotional health affect each other.
As a pediatrician and advocate for early childhood education, I support healthy child development in educating families about the importance of play, healthy habits and physical activity. It is important to help families learn that playing outside and keeping everyone moving should be fun and a worthwhile activity to do together!
Sounds like a great book!
I think movement brings in another mode of learning to help them remember letters such as moving your arms like an alligator mouth for the letter “A”.
As an educator and instructor of pre-service teachers I think this will be an a great opportunity to share cutting edge information across the board – including parents.
As a school counselor, I try to meet the needs of all of our students. By keeping them moving many of them are able to better understand abstract concepts compared to just sitting in a desk listening. We work with learning styles and this would be a great asset to that.
At my school we have many yoga balls in every classroom so that students can move as they work. I have also created a Wiggle Room at my school – a room where students can engage in sensory motor activities as needed throughout the day.
I just followed you on Twitter!
As an educator, I feel that cutting recess in school is deplorable. We must nurture the whole child.
This is so important for students, not just young ones, and it seems to be lost in the conversation about learning.
We are constantly working hard to research new and plyable ideas from proven resources. Students moving as a learning tool appeals to the idea of the correlations of motor skills and common core education.
Looks like a great addition to the counseling/psychology library and a possible keynote speaker for our SELPA’s annual summit! I support students as a counselor and school psychologist at a TK12 span school
Awesome idea for a book. When I was a teacher of the hearing impaired I used movement a lot to help students understand a variety of concepts that were foreign to them due to their hearing loss. I am excited to see a book that I can share with other teachers for them to use to help get their students moving and to see the importance in movement as a learning tool.