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What are Exercise Rhymes?

Why Exercise with Kids

Rhyming is Essential for Reading and Phonics

Academic Skills (PE, Language Arts, Math & Science)

Teacher’s Guide

What are Exercise Rhymes^™?

Exercise Rhymes are fun playful rhymes and exercises for adults to do with children ages 3 to 7 years. The go everywhere card deck fits today’s active lifestyles. Exercise Rhymes are a useful tool for parents, educators and therapists in developing a child’s learning skills while promoting fitness.

Why Exercise with Kids?

The age of technology and communication has opened a world of opportunities for our children. At the same time, spending hours each day on the computer or cell phone has cut into their active playtime. Children need more exercise! Climbing obesity rates in children and adults have resulted in stress related disease, learning disabilities and low self-esteem. “Let’s Move! is a comprehensive initiative, launched by the First Lady [Michelle Obama], dedicated to solving the problem of obesity within a generation, so that children born today will grow up healthier and able to pursue their dreams.” ¹ Exercise is a key element of the solution. Establishing an exercise routine with young children leads to better health, positive attitudes, and fitness habits that last a lifetime.

r Kids focus and learn better when they regularly exercise.

r Exercises for the mind & body form patterns that reinforce learning.

r Playing together helps build lifelong fitness habits.

Kids Focus & Learn Better when they Regularly Exercise

Beyond the health benefits of exercise, research shows a correlation between academic and physical achievement. Researchers at the University of Illinois concluded:

We have found a strong relationship between academic achievement and fitness scores,” said Darla Castelli, a professor of kinesiology whose area of expertise is effective physical education practices. “Those who scored well in academics also did well in physical fitness.” …[Co-researcher, Charles Hilman, a kinesiology professor at Illinois stated:]“…fit children made fewer errors than sedentary ones.²

Exercise & Rhyming Form Patterns that Reinforce Learning

Exercise Rhymes brings fitness into the classroom and complements academic lessons. Exercise Rhymes^™can be incorporated into classroom activities for preschool and primary elementary students, and tied to the curriculum. The exercises can be a regular part of the day to allow children to exert physical energy in short bursts so they can refocus on academic lessons. Getting children out of their chairs to stand, move and strengthen their bodies increases attention spans and enhances learning. Children that stretch, jump and pretend and are better equipped to focus their attention on academics. Eloise Elliott, PhD and Steve Sanders, PhD recommend “learning through movement” in an article Keep Children Moving: Promoting Physical Activity throughout the Curriculum:

It has often been said, "children learn through movement." In addition to the health benefits of physical activity, movement is an integral part of the young child's life and education, for it is through movement that children develop social, emotional, and cognitive skills. For young children, movement is a critical means of communication, expression, and learning. It is imperative that classroom teachers give children as many opportunities as possible to be physically active and to learn through movement. ³

Incorporating movement into the curriculum benefits learning. Dr. Sherry Bush, a prominent Clinical Pediatric Psychologist, contends that the area of the brain responsible for motor coordination is also involved in learning. According to Dr. Bush, movement engages motor centers that strengthen brain to body connections, establishes muscle memory, and enhances learning. Even simple movements like standing and writing on a chalkboard help children retain information. ⁴

Playing Together Helps Build Lifelong Fitness Habits

Exercise Rhymes bring parent and child together to form positive associations that last a lifetime. For children to truly adopt healthy habits they need to observe the adults in their lives modeling those behaviors. As children become adults, they will fondly remember how play inspired their lives and encourage their own children to develop lifelong fitness habits.

Rhyming is Essential for Reading and Phonics

Children are drawn to rhymes. Rhymes do more than make words memorable. Rhyming is well known among educators to be a building block for phonics and reading skills. As Chief of Child Development and Behavior at the National Institutes of Health, Dr. G. Reid Lyon stated :

Children who are read to frequently at very young ages become exposed in interesting and exciting ways to the sounds of our language, to the concept of rhyming, and to other word and language play that serves to provide the foundation for the development of phoneme awareness.⁵

Dr. Lyon concludes:

…as your Moms and Dads know that read to their kids, [who] really build interest in literacy, if you read books that have a lot of rhyming in them, you’re playing with the language, you’re unpacking the language, it gives the kids these foundational sound capabilities, it builds vocabulary, and these kinds of interactions also build brain systems that are instrumental in learning how to read.⁶

Dr. Paula Tallal, an internationally recognized cognitive neuroscientist, has done extensive research on the timing mechanism of the brain and its relationship to language. Dr. Bush goes on to explain that phonics, music and sports improve the brain’s timing mechanism, particularly for children with related difficulties:

When you learn the sounds of your language, interact with colleagues and teachers, become proficient at sports or playing a musical instrument, or engage in countless other learning activities, timing plays a critical role in the functioning of your neurons, in the communication between and within sensory and motor systems, and in the interactions between different regions of your brain…The success or failure of interpersonal communication and social interaction using gestures, facial expressions and verbal language also depend critically on exact timing.⁷

Exercise Rhymes in Educational Therapy

Exercise Rhymes can be easily adapted for use with special needs children. By focusing on two lines of the rhyme at a time, children are encouraged to fill in the rhyming words. In a short time, the rhymes become a cue for children to perform the physical exercises. Exercise Rhymes are a wonderful tool for therapists to recommend to parents, helping to make at-home therapy more fun. See the Therapy Page for more information.

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¹ Obama, Michelle (2010). Solving the Problem of Childhood Obesity in One Generation. Abstract retrieved April 19, 2011 from http://www.letsmove.gov/white-house-task-force-childhood-obesity-report-president

² Mitchell, Melissa (2004). Physically fit children appear to do better in classroom, researchers say. Abstract retrieved April 24, 2008, from http://www.news.uiuc.edu/news/04/1018fitness.html

³ Eloise Elliott, PhD, Steve Sanders, PhD (2002). Keep Children Moving: Promoting Physical Activity throughout the Curriculum. Abstract retrieved April 24, 2008 from http://www.pbs.org/teachers/earlychildhood/articles/physical.html

⁴ Dr. Sherry Bush shared information with Marina McLennan about rhyming, movement in learning, and brain development during a meeting on April 1, 2008 in Scottsdale, Arizona.

⁵ Lyon, Dr. G. Reid (1998). How Do Children Learn to Read? Abstract retrieved April 24, 2008, from http://www.brainconnection.com/topics/?main=fa/learn-read5

⁶ Lyon, Dr. G. Reid (1994). Radio interview with Norman Swans. Literacy. Abstract retrieved October 30, 2008, from http://www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/8.30/helthrpt/stories/s1240933.htm

⁷ Scientific Learning Corporation (2006). Dr. Paula Tallal and Scientific Learning Corporation Collaborate in Creation of Cutting-Edge Research Center.” Abstract retrieved April 23, 2008, from http://www.scilearn.com/company/news/press-releases/20061207.php

Photo: Dave Chapman

Academic Skills

Physical education Skills

r Stability skills while standing, swaying, stretching, jumping, and transferring weight.

r Locomotive skills are supported when children do Exercise Rhymes in different directions and pathways (e.g. forward, backwards, to the right and left, in a zigzag direction).

Language Arts Skills

Oral Communications

r Listening skills are used as students listen to and learn the rhyme.

r Speaking skills are encouraged as children say the rhyme.

r Requires the children to follow direction and model the teacher doing the exercise and rhyming.

r Seeing the image of the Exercise Rhymes’ topic supports viewing skills.

r Pretending while doing the Exercise Rhymes is a form of representing.

Reading

r Provides variety in reading content.

r Supports reading for pleasure, fun and exercise.

r Rhymes and instructions expand the children’s vocabulary.

r Pictures provide comprehension clues.

r Sound/symbol relationships are supported between the flash card pictures, seeing the exercises done, and saying the rhymes.

Writing

r Research and writing assignments can be based on the rhyme topics.

r Can encourage children to spell familiar and unfamiliar words in the rhyme and instructional text.

r Before doing the rhymes, children can discuss the flash card pictures based on their prior knowledge.

r Children can predict word meanings of any words they don’t know based on the clues in the rhyme and then research the word meanings.

r Children can find other rhyming words related to the rhyme.

r Children can brainstorm other words that relate to the Exercise Rhymes’ subject.

r Children can write a story about the Exercise Rhymes’ topic including any personal experience, extending understanding.

Media Studies

r Provides variety in content with rhymes, pictures, rhyming instructions and instructional images.

Science and Math Skills

r The Exercise Rhymes can be tied to specific science lesson plans on the Exercise Rhyme’s subject (contact us for specifics).

r Numeracy skills are supported while counting the exercise rhymes repetitions.

Exercise Rhymes™ combine rhyming with physical exercises. Movement is known to enhance learning and Exercise Rhymes can be incorporated into classroom lessons and used to support many academic skills. The rhyme topics provide opportunities for children to identify and discuss the rhyme’s subject, supporting core knowledge & cross-curricular learning.

Photo: Julie Hughes