04/16/2025
Recently, Castle Park reopened after a prolonged closure for remodeling. It was humming as I walked with my friend past the park.
She commented on all of the activity. Families with children filled the new play areas. It was sunny and cold, but that didn’t stop the children from enthusiastically playing with each other and the new equipment.
Everywhere children were running, climbing, chasing and sliding; engaging in gross motor movement.
Gross motor movement involves the use of our large muscles in movement and physical activity.
We know it is good for children to play outdoors, and gross motor movement is emphasized for benefits like a stronger cardiovascular system, increased muscle and bone strength, and a reduced risk of obesity.
But the benefits of gross motor movement extend beyond general health to promoting cognitive development.
As a child engages in movement, the brain, central nervous system, and muscles form a motor memory that becomes built into the neural architecture through repetition of the movement/s.
The more a child repeats a movement, such as kicking a ball, the child’s neural networks are refined to perform this movement with automaticity, i.e. without much conscious thought.
Learning and enacting complex movements will beneficially shape the way the brain develops, producing additional benefits in other areas of development.
Read this article: bit.ly/4j7SFef
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