News from Jump!

I ♥ Gymnastics

National Gymnastics Week ~ Feb. 8-14th, 2009
This week is national “I love Gymnastics” week. We’re hoping that your little Leap Frogs can help decorate our walls with some of the many reasons why they love gymnastics (more on that below), but first I’d like to talk about why I love developmental gymnastics for young children.

My goal, for my own children and for all of the kids at Jump! is to help them learn to be active for life. A few of them may go on to athletic excellence in gymnastics or another sport, but I want all of them to love being active when they grow up. We have no idea what will interest our children as they grow – they may come to love a family favourite or they may branch out on their own. Children who have only learned sport specific skills have a hard time transferring to new sports as the gap between them and their peers increases. A child who doesn’t like what they can do, and can’t do what they want to do is a recipe for inactivity.

So, instead of building a sport specific skill set we want to help children develop physical attributes such as agility, balance, coordination, strength, flexibility, and speed – essentially the ABCs of sport. Children then have the tools to A motorcycle jump in action!

pick up sports as they interest them, and are more likely to stay active as a teenager and adult. Developmental gymnastics is the ideal sport for building a child’s physical literacy due to the huge variety of movement offered. Often a sport will have 3 or 4 dominant movements and focus on one or two physical attributes, but with gymnastics there are literally hundreds of movements that encompass all of the ABCs. The more ways a child learns to move their body and develop all of the physical attributes, the easier it is for them to apply this solid foundation to other activities and pick up new sports.

So, I love developmental gymnastics because it helps children become active for life.

Jen

Jennifer Hood, Director

Jump! Kids love Gymnastics
Calling all Artists

We love the fact that Jump! kids feel at home in the gym. We’d like to make it feel even more like home by hanging up their masterpieces. To celebrate 'I ♥ Gymnastics' week we’re calling on Jump! kids to create an original work of art (no colouring pages or “help” from mom and dad!) about why they love gymnastics. We’ll frame and hang them up (in rotation if we get a large selection). All Jump! artists will be entered in a draw for some great prizes, including a Jump! birthday party.

Masterpieces should be on paper no smaller than 8.5x11 and no larger than 27 X 19. Please bring us your creations by February 17^th. They should be “signed” (with first names only) and have a submission form attached (available at the front desk).