Beginner’s Long Jump

We’ve been on a roll here at Castle View Academy with our sporting posts.  We’ve been inspired by the Olympics this summer.  The children have always enjoyed finding ways to learn about the Olympics and celebrate them at home, and as they are growing, there’s more that we can do.  The latest activity they’ve done is the long jump.

Running and jumping is something that most kids love to do, and take for granted.  So why not give them a little challenge and channel their energy into something positive.

This is such an easy activity for kids!  Tristan and Kallista simply used the concrete slabs in the back garden as their starting point.  They lined their toes up with the edge of one slab, then jumped as far as they could.

When Tristan did the jumping, Kalista marked the point where his heel hit the ground using some sidewalk chalk.  When it was Kallista’s turn to jump, Tristan did the marking.  Each child had a different colour of chalk to make things easy (until they wanted to use different colours, so then they added an initial to their chalk lines).

Sometimes they mark which jump it was, other times, they don’t.

They like to see which of them can jump further, and as it varies with each jump, it makes it more interesting.

And in addition to this, they also try to reach a personal best with each long jump.

This first time jumping they didn’t measure how far they’d jumped, but the first dry we have (hopefully this week), they want to go out again with a tape measure and a piece of paper and start tracking how far they can jump, and see if their jumps improve over time.

It wasn’t very long ago that Tristan wasn’t keen on even trying to jump because he wasn’t very good at it.  However, seeing Kallista enjoy jumping so much, and with some parental encouragement to keep trying, Tristan has persevered and his skills have greatly improved.  Setting up fun games like this, he actually enjoys, he keeps on trying; even using the kitchen floor tiles for practice.

I simply love seeing my children want to try to improve their skills through continued effort!  I have noticed that over the past month or so, when they can see themselves improve in one area with practice, that they don’t complain as much about not being able to do something – they’re (slightly) more likely (with encouragement) to keep trying at whatever it is that they need to improve upon (math, art, making a bed).

Children are definitely the champions when it comes to learning new skills and applying them to life!