For young children, movement isn't simply a break from learning—it is an important part of how learning happens. Walking, jumping, balancing, reaching, stretching, manipulating objects, and following pathways help young children explore their environment while developing gross motor skills, coordination, spatial awareness, body control, and confidence.

In preschool, Pre-K, Head Start, childcare, and kindergarten settings, intentional movement can also be incorporated into early literacy, math, sensory experiences, transitions, and everyday classroom routines. For early childhood educators, the question isn't simply “How can we get children moving more?” It can also be: “How can we use movement to support development and learning throughout the day?”

Why Is Movement Important in Early Childhood Education?

Early childhood is a period of significant physical, cognitive, social, and emotional development. Movement gives children opportunities to develop their bodies while interacting with people, objects, and the physical environment around them.

Well planned, purposeful movement activities can provide opportunities to practice:

• Gross motor skills
• Balance and coordination
• Body and spatial awareness
• Following directions
• Sequencing
• Sensory-motor skills
• Cooperation and turn-taking
• Early literacy and math concepts

Movement also doesn't have to be separated from academics. It can be seamlessly integrated into learning. A child might hop to a letter, count while jumping, follow a sequence of shapes, balance along a pathway, or respond physically to a teacher's directions. The result is an environment where movement and learning can happen together.

What Does New York State Require for Movement in Pre-K?

For New York educators, movement is more than a recommended classroom enrichment activity. New York State Education Department regulations specify that Pre-K learning experiences include fine and gross motor activities. The regulations also call for materials and equipment that allow children to participate in active and quiet experiences in indoor and outdoor environments.

Movement is also embedded within the New York State Prekindergarten Learning Standards, where Physical Development and Health is identified as one of the major developmental domains. Educators can review the official New York State Prekindergarten Learning Standards: A Resource for School Success and the NYSED Elementary Requirements for Prekindergarten Through Grade 4.

New York State Pre-K Standards: Where Movement Fits

The New York State Prekindergarten Learning Standards provide several particularly strong connections between movement and early childhood development. Let's summarize a few of the indicators within Domain 2: Physical Development and Health, that closely align with movement.

PK.PDH.2 — Uses Sensory Information to Plan and Carry Out Movements

Children develop awareness of their bodies as they move through different spaces, learn to use appropriate movements for a task, and develop awareness of spatial boundaries.

In practice: Sensory pathways, directional activities, visual movement cues, and defined movement spaces can provide opportunities for children to practice body and spatial awareness.

PK.PDH.3 — Demonstrates Coordination and Control of Large Muscles

Children demonstrates balance, posture, coordination, and control of large-muscle movements during everyday physical activities. Indicators for this standard include maintaining balance and developing movements such as running, jumping, walking in a straight line, and hopping on one foot.

In practice: Hopscotch, balance activities, jumping patterns, movement trails, and other gross motor activities can provide repeated opportunities to practice coordination and body control.

PK.PDH.4 — Combines a Sequence of Large Motor Skills With and Without Equipment

Children learn to combine multiple gross motor skills and movements, with or without equipment, through activities such as balancing, throwing, games, and movement sequences. Young children develop the ability to combine gross motor movements and participate in sequences of movement.

In practice: Movement stations, obstacle-style pathways, follow-the-path activities, and teacher-directed movement sequences can encourage children to combine multiple movements instead of practicing skills only in isolation.

PK.PDH.6 — Engages in a Variety of Physical Fitness Activities

Children learn to articipate in physical activities that build endurance, strength, balance, and flexibility through large-muscle movement. New York's Pre-K standards address participation in a variety of physical activities that use large muscle groups and promote physical development.

In practice: Educators can create opportunities for movement during classroom activities, transitions, indoor activity periods, and outdoor learning—not just during a designated physical activity period.

What Are Some Simple Movement Activities for Preschool and Pre-K?

Movement doesn't require a gymnasium, large playground, or complicated equipment. Even relatively small early learning environments can provide opportunities for purposeful movement.

For example, children can:

• Hop to different letters, numbers, colors, or shapes.
• Count while stepping or jumping.
• Balance along a line or pathway.
• Follow two- or three-step movement directions.
• Move over, under, around, beside, or between visual markers.
• Recreate simple movement patterns.
• Follow a sensory-motor pathway.
• Use movement as part of a transition from one classroom activity to another.

These activities can support physical development while also reinforcing concepts such as letter recognition, counting, patterns, positional vocabulary, listening, and sequencing.

Creating Early Learning Environments That Encourage Movement

One of the easiest ways to incorporate more movement is to look at the spaces children already use. Where are children already learning, gathering, waiting, or transitioning? Is it outside waiting for the day to begin? Is it in the classroom or hallway? In the playground area? Or all of these areas? A classroom floor can become a place to practice letters, numbers, shapes, balance, and gross motor movements. A hallway can provide a short sensory movement pathway. Outdoor surfaces can provide visual prompts for hopping, jumping, balancing, counting, and following directions. And portable activities can provide another option, particularly when early childhood programs use multipurpose spaces. An activity can be introduced when needed and removed when the space needs to serve another purpose.

These spaces can all be enhanced as active learning spaces with educational tools such as sensory pathways, portable activity mats, self-regulation graphics, reusable playground stencils, and wall and floor-based learning activities. These kinds of environmental movement tools can give educators additional ways to incorporate physical development into the spaces and routines they already use.

Educators looking for examples can explore the Fit and Fun Playscapes Early Childhood Education Movement & Learning Collection.

Movement Doesn't Have to Compete With Learning

Perhaps the most important takeaway is that early childhood educators don't necessarily have to choose between movement time and learning time. Movement can become part of learning.

A letter-recognition activity can involve jumping. Counting can involve stepping. A transition can incorporate balance. Following directions can become a movement sequence. Shapes and colors can become destinations for gross motor activities. New York's Pre-K standards reinforce this broader view of development by including physical development and health alongside other areas of early learning.

When movement is thoughtfully incorporated into the early childhood environment, it becomes more than an activity to fill time. It becomes another way for young children to explore, practice, develop, and learn.

Check out our collection of over 100 amazing products that can help support learning with indoor, outdoor, and portable products, perfect for early education settings. From sensory paths and portable activity mats to playground stencils and classroom movement activities, our products help develop gross motor skills, school readiness, social-emotional learning, and active play in engaging indoor and outdoor learning environments.

A Note for Educators

Movement activities and environmental tools can support opportunities to address New York State Pre-K Learning Standards, but an individual activity or product should not be described as independently “meeting” or “satisfying” a state standard. Schools and educators determine how learning experiences are incorporated into their curriculum and instructional programs. If you would like further support or guidance on incorporating movement into your "littles" day, feel free to schedule a call or meet with us. We'd be happy to help!