Our learning areas - Physical Development

By Susan Richmond

Article topics: Physical development, toddler, pre-school, school, special needs
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Introduction to ‘Physical Development’

Physical development is all about movement, awareness of the body, gaining a sense of space and understanding health and what the body needs.

This area of learning looks at how children develop their ability to move their bodies, hands, feet and fingers and use their senses and movements to explore the world around them.

You might have heard people talk about ‘fine’ motor skills or ‘gross’ motor skills. These skills are simply actions that involve a person using their muscles. Fine motor skills are small precise movements and gross motor skills are larger movements. Like any other skill, babies and children need to practice movements regularly to get them right.

At CBeebies, we have linked our 7 learning areas with the EYFS curriculum. Our ‘Physical Development’ area closely matches the EYFS curriculum area of Physical Development.

What is the EYFS?

The Early Years Foundation Stage is a curriculum used by all care and education providers working with children from birth to the age of five (or the end of your child’s reception year).

It describes how adults working with young children can support the development of a child’s existing knowledge, skills and understanding in all areas of their learning.

The EYFS recognises that all children are individual and will learn and make progress at their own pace, aiming to achieve the Early Learning Goals by the end of their reception year.

The EYFS curriculum is delivered through a play-based approach to learning, offering fun and practical activities and hands-on experience. As a parent or carer, you will know your child best and it’s important that you share your knowledge of your child’s achievements with the adults they are working with.

The EYFS is currently divided into 6 areas of learning. These areas are:

Personal, Social and Emotional Development

Physical Development

Communication, Language and Literacy

Problem Solving, Reasoning and Numeracy

Knowledge and Understanding of the World

Creative Development

Ideas for supporting your child’s physical development with CBeebies

The CBeebies website has a big choice of songs that both you and your child can enjoy moving and dancing along to. Here are a few ideas for games you can do at home to support physical development:

Get up and get active with Boogie Beebies’ Sports Song ‘We Want To Be Fit’. Talk to your child about how their heart beats faster and their body feels hotter when they’re moving around.

Click on Bob the Builder and learn the actions to Big Fish Little Fish. Your child can copy each movement to the song until they have built up a whole new dance routine. (They’ll love it even more if they see you joining in!)

Draw a picture with Mister Maker’s Magic Paintbox. Get your child to move the mouse or their finger on the touchpad to choose a colour. Watch as they practise the skill of ‘clicking and dragging’ to move the crayon around the page. This is part of the EYFS curriculum and encourages increased control over a mouse or keyboard, whilst developing hand-eye coordination.

Click on the I Can Cook game and follow Katy’s instructions to sprinkle flour, roll pastry and cut food. Your child can learn to click the mouse in specific areas or move the mouse to roll the pastry in different directions and at increasing speed. Moving with control and coordination and persevering with a new fine motor skill is part of the EYFS curriculum.

Visit Song Time and move around in different ways to the theme tune of your child’s favourite CBeebies show. The EYFS curriculum encourages children to move with confidence and imagination in time to music.

Tree Fu Tom is a show created around the idea of movement, both small and large. Both within the TV show and on the website, Tom and his friends encourage young children to copy and learn special moves that create magic.

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