Healthy Bodies Healthy Minds

Posted: 2nd January 2023

Strong, healthy bodies grow strong, healthy minds.

All month we’re celebrating the benefits of play – it’s something we know all about at Gymboree Play & Music. We host age-appropriate activities to help develop the cognitive, physical and social skills of little ones as they play.

Most people know that exercise in early years helps a child’s physical development. But did you know that exercise also supports cognitive development too?

Expert Opinion

Studies found a strong connection between little ones who exercised frequently and their cognitive function through to adulthood. The Chief Medical Officers of England, Scotland and Wales released the Physical Activity Guidelines in 2019. The guidance highlighted all the benefits of early years exercise.

The report concludes that active children are healthy, happy, school ready and sleep better.

As well as the benefits of exercise, they also say that physical activity for early years “contributes to brain development and learning” too. It also recommends aiming for at least 180 minutes per day for little ones aged 1-5.

Keep Children Active

The guidelines say: “Children under 5 should not be inactive for long periods, except when they’re asleep. Watching TV, travelling by car, bus or train, or being strapped into a buggy for long periods are not good for a child’s health and development.”

“All children under 5 who are overweight can improve their health by meeting the activity guidelines, even if their weight does not change. To achieve and maintain a healthy weight, they may need to do additional activity and make dietary changes.” Recommended activities include playing with blocks and other objects, jumping, walking, dancing, climbing, skipping, throwing and catching.

Meeting Their Development Needs

At Gymboree Play & Music, we enable parents and carers to take a big step towards their daily target at our classes. Furthermore our Babies, toddler, and pre-school classes enable little ones to be active straight from newborn to age 5.

Expert teachers deliver our programmes at our centres nationwide, where thousands of little ones develop healthy minds through play.

So why not enquire now and come along to experience the benefits of play at Gymboree Play & Music!

Next up – Let’s Get Rough & Tumble

Benefits, child development, classes

Reviews

Both of my children (3.5 years and 11 months) go to Gymboree Play & Music and love it. My toddler goes to their drop-off Lego class which she raves about. It's very creative, working not only on Lego skills but also painting, drawing etc. My infant son loves his Gymboree Play & Music Crawlers class - particularly loves crawling all over their props, through the tunnels, etc. Great way to get the infant crawling over obstacles! Gymboree Play & Music is part of our weekly schedule for both kids and we look forward to participating every week. Invaluable!

Natalia, Hampstead

Gymboree Play & Music was a lovely and positive experience for my son Leo. We started when he was 9 months and he is now 3 years old, I wish we had started sooner.
He loves the songs (which is part of our daily singing at home), the freedom to explore and he was happy there. He looks forward to class every week and once class is over he will tell everyone about Gymbo and what he did.
For me, I liked that it taught him how to get down safely from a height, how to learn to use his body, and touching on different topics every 2 weeks. It gave me confidence in other environments to trust that he has the ability that he learned from Gymboree Play & Music and to trust him.

Sheena, Sevenoaks

I’ve been taking both my newborn and toddler to Gymboree Play & Music for a couple of months now and both boys are really loving the classes and open gym sessions. It’s a great way to meet other mums, entertain toddlers at witching hour(!) and get ideas for sensory play with babies. Sophie and Cat are fantastic and have so much energy and loads of different ideas for the classes, plus make sure the activities it’s help children meet their development milestones as well. Highly recommend this if you’re thinking about joining!! Thanks so much Sophie, Cat and the wider team :-)

Pippa, Tunbridge Wells