More of Me
The 10-year action research project that underpins Developmental Movement Play As we began to develop a new approach to supporting...
Resource hub
Jabadao Library
Supporting children who seem to be struggling with more complex movement
Meet Mason - I expect you know him well. Mason (4) is unsteady on his feet. He loves the energy of the playground and wants to be in the...
A summer of sliding
Do your children love to slide? In winter it might be on mud or ice. In this weather you might put down a length of polythene outside...
Wellbeing and Physical Development
Wellbeing is a complex concept, but we all intuitively value and understand it and want it for our children. We know it makes a huge...
Evidence of the power of movement play
In 1998, JABADAO began an independent research project within the early years sector, recruiting early years practitioners to join us in...
Exploring cross-lateral movement
If you spend any time at all reading about physical development, it won’t be long before you bump into the phrase ‘cross-lateral’...
Lingering effects of lockdown on physical development
Lots of early years practitioners have been telling us that they are concerned about physical development following lockdown. Three...
How we're using tech to create great training packages
I absolutely love teaching on Zoom. And attending other people’s courses on Zoom for that matter. I love the way it makes it easy for...
Welcome to Jabadao
An interview with Penny Greenland Q - How would you describe JABADAO in a sentence? We’re a national charity re-thinking physical...
Hardwired to move
It sometimes feels as if there is a battleground between adults and small children around the body and movement. Children want and need...
Coming through lockdown
September 2020 Interesting listening on the radio this evening - talk about children going back to school, and especially what they’ve...
The Third Thumb
Did you see an article on the news recently about fitting a third thumb to the human body? It was one of those more jolly pieces at the...
DMP for short
Back in the 1990s, in a rapidly growing collaboration with the early years sector, the JABADAO team of movement specialists was trying to...
Going Barefoot
Babies and children often like to pull their socks and shoes off and go barefoot. We adults, for all kinds of reasons, (like cold,...
Personal, Social and Emotional
Tens of thousands of years ago, before our ancestors had written language, they danced. Why on earth did they do this? In a life very...
She follows her body
It’s lockdown and the kids are at home. All day, everyday. A parcel arrives. It is the new rug for the sitting room. In the evening, the...
Unpacking Touch
All of us in the early years work with Touch, most often focusing on the hands. Probably with great fine motor skills in mind, but also...
Reflexes - our best buddies
If you’ve taken a Developmental Movement Play course with us, you’ll know that we talk about reflexes as a crucial bit of our physical...
How many senses do we have?
Most of us if asked to name the senses will name five. Sight, sound, taste, smell and touch. But with different specialist viewpoints the...