What was the best thing about the course?

Who should know about it?

All childcare workers. It's a must!

Sarah Harper | CIW Registered Childminder

Everything .. all completely new to me despite having worked in childcare for the last 12 years. Thoroughly enjoyed it and can see using this approach from now on. Simply brilliant!

Developmental Movement Play Online

Shaping physical foundations

Feeling right in your own skin is a huge part of becoming a confident mover and a confident person

Imagine trying to co-ordinate your limbs, manage your body in space, or even tell someone how you feel if you didn’t have great body awareness. It wouldn't go well.

These children are telling us they may need more time to build The Feeling of Me

However, lots of our children are trying to do just that.

We humans are not born with body awareness in place. It's a significant piece of early development that our babies and young children are very busy building. They need to be able to process the streams of information about how their body feels - on the inside as well as the outside - in order to make their body work for them.

Ben looks as if he could trip over his own feet at any moment
Ruby drops things all the time and it always seems to surprise her
Rafal point blank refuses to get involved in tidy up time. Is he just getting out of the task, or is there something else going on?
Deepa is never still, always moving even at story time; always leaning against other children - pushing, fiddling, poking
Danny separates himself from the group at circle time. He would love to be part of the hubhub but it doesn't feel safe

Discover what creates body awareness

Learn about four streams of sensory information that children need to develop at their own pace, in their own way - to create a steady and reliable Feeling of Me.

Touch: we are born with over half a million touch sensors all over our body which provide a constant stream of information that is vital to our survival, our learning and our wellbeing. It's a big job to learn to process all this information in helpful ways.

Proprioception: (or the body-map sense), gives us the internal, felt sense of where all our body parts are and helps us to co-ordinate them. Shut your eyes and you still know where all your limbs are without looking. Or reach down and touch your big toe with your forefinger ... and it is your proprioception that it telling you how to do it.

The Vestibular Sense: (or sense of movement) tells us where we are in space as we move, how fast we are going and how to adjust our body to maintain balance. And it plays a big role in our emotional foundations and how grounded we feel.

Interoception: tells us how we feel on the inside. Hungry, thirsty, tired, ill, anxious, happy, sad, confident … it provides the information we need to answer the question ‘How do you feel?’ And to regulate our selves in busy, demanding lives.

Building The Feeling of Me is as important as the development of motor control in shaping physical foundations.

Why do some children find it so hard to regulate themselves. And how can we help them to develop the sensory foundations they need to understand and manage how they feel.
Why do some children frequently get 'over excited' when they move and find it hard to risk assess and keep themselves safe.
Why are these the very children who will benefit most from robust movement play? How can we support them to engage safely?

Sensory processing challenges

What is sensory processing, how does it support body awareness and how do we support it?

The Feeling of Me

£42 per person

Single Pass

Group Booking

Use increased knowledge of these four senses to build your understanding of how your children are processing body - sensory - information.

Build simple sensory

profiles of your children

Observe them at play, notice themes in their play and reflect on what this might be telling you about the work they are engaged in to build their sensory systems and their body awareness... The Feeling of Me.

Strengthen your

physical development curriculum

Understanding more about body awareness and sensory processing changes the way we think about, and observe, children’s movement.

It encourages us to value and support a whole new strand of physical play - the movement that children do to create (and understand) sensation in their body, alongside the movement they do to build motor control. Look again at wriggles, jiggles and constant motion; at pushing, pulling, lolling, rolling and tumbling; and the amazing movement improvisations children invent to bring their body alive.

When children feel right in their own skin,

when they have a strong and grounded sense of their physical self...

their wellbeing soars.

They can become calm, powerful, adventurous movers

and confident, expressive social beings.

The Feeling of Me

Body awareness and sensory processing

Join thousands using Developmental Movement Play

The Feeling of Me

£42 per person

Single Pass

Group Booking

1. Choose a course

Choose a single course or grow your understanding of the full approach.

2. Press play

Dive into a world of new knowledge about physical development.

3. Embed practice

Take the approach into your setting and implement immediately.

Build a package

When you've taken an on-line course, drop in to a live 'ask me anything' session with the course tutor. Bring questions, challenges, specific case studies, that makes the learning completely relevant to your setting and your children.

Course Tutor

Penny Greenland

Jabadao Director | Developmental Movement Play Specialist

Penny is a movement and body specialist, exploring physical and felt experience across many somatic practices. She’s a thinker, a mover, and driven by the goal of developing a learning culture that supports body and cognitive development equally.

Between 1998 and 2009 she led an in-depth action research project exploring how we support our youngest children’s physicality. Developmental Movement Play was created from this research, which continues to evolve and deepen. Penny loves to share ideas and offer training at all levels.

She is author of Hopping Home Backwards: body intelligence and movement play and a contributor to several early years text books about physical development.

Billy

Sitting still is just about the most difficult thing there is to manage in our body.

But we treat it as if it is easy - easier than complex movement.

Billy doesn't find it easy.

Sitting still requires him to read and co-ordinate absolutely everything happening in his body all at once - all the motor skills (the positioning of every muscle, tendon, ligament and joint), plus all the feelings, the sensations, emotions and alerts that are a huge part of his every moment.

So sitting quietly and without movement is the hardest thing for him to do, the farthest point in an unfolding physical development.

Clever boy if he seeks out lots of movement experience now, to build the body that will be able to sit still in future.

Building an accurate and comfortable sense of our body - the ability to read the signals it gives us and be able to quieten those signals when we are not actively engaging with them - is one of the most important pieces of development we do.

And yet we give it precious little attention.

When we do focus on it, suddenly so many things become clear - so many behaviours, things children do, ways they move.

That’s why Ajay looks so rigid in his body!

Is this why Jia finds it so hard to ‘play nicely’ with other children!

Of course Rose finds it difficult to self regulate if her body is overwhelmed by confusing body signals!

This is information that helps us to be more compassionate and understanding practitioners.

Helpful adults.

Rose

Gail MacDonald

Flying Start Advisory Teacher

Ceredigion County Council

" Where do I start? The simple way that all the information is relayed, normal everyday language and humour added into the mix. The stories are brilliant. Some are very emotive and gave me goose bumps whilst listening.

It should be a part of secondary education alongside Parenting.

Parents need to know this, it gives us a much better understanding of why babies and children do certain things and how we can best support them develop further.”

Movement Play Resources

Add a resource kit for each participating setting to receive alongside the Movement Play Area course.

Live Sessions

Build in a Live Zoom Check In after each online course to deepen the learning and develop shared pedagogy.

Online Courses

Step by step or the 4-course package. Easy to take on any device.

All you need to know about the course

Content: 25 short filmed lessons. 13 audio stories, a structure to create sensory profiles of your children, plus downloads to support your on-going learning. And quizzes along the way to check your learning.

How do I access the course? Via the Jabadao website. Create an account, log in and access the course whenever you want, through your dashboard.

Is there a CPD certificate? Yes, you'll receive a certificate on completion of all the elements of the course.

Course topics

Module 1 - Introduction: Focusing on sensation-driven movement and how it builds body awareness and sound sensory processing.

Module 2 - Touch: How the touch sense works. How it underpins learning and wellbeing. What children need to develop their touch sense. How they show us they need more time to develop their touch sense and how it can affect life if it isn’t well developed.

Module 3 - Proprioception: What is proprioception, how it works, why it’s important and what kinds of movement play help to develop it. How children show us they need more time to develop their proprioceptive sense and simple ways to support them to get what they need.

Module 4 - The Vestibular Sense: What is the vestibular sense, how it works, why it’s important and what kinds of movement play help to develop it. Which aspects of life are affected by it and how children show us they need more time to create sure foundations.

Bookings

For individuals

Select Single pass and follow the online checkout. Create your Developmental Movement Play account and start the course.

For teams

To enrol several staff members please take the Group Bookings option and one of the team will be in touch to set up your courses.

For groups, networks and local authority areas

If you want to set up training for multiple settings and advisors across a district, or within a network, please follow the Group bookings option, one of the team will be in touch to develop a programme to match your aims.