“We love Little Feet. It’s got the children engaged and choosing to walk and wheel to nursery.”
It’s never too early to establish healthy habits. Here’s how Little Feet - our range of walking activities for children aged 2-5 years old for use in early years settings – is helping young ones in West Yorkshire to move more.
Little Feet resources introduce the benefits of walking to young children and their families and encourage them to adopt healthy walking habits through topics linked to the Early Learning Goals. Physical activity has a big impact on young children’s weight, bone and muscular development, and social skills. We know that children learn best through active play and being outdoors, so walking and wheeling is a great way to support your child’s development – and it doesn’t have to be every day if that’s not realistic for you and your family.
And as part of Little Feet, children across the UK are discovering the joys of walking and wheeling with Elmer the Patchwork Elephant. Our special Little Feet and Elmer activity packs include a set of colourful resources that can be used in nurseries and pre-schools to introduce the benefits of walking to young children.
"Starting the day with some gentle exercise makes us all feel a bit healthier and happier. We love Little Feet!" - Mrs Thomas
In West Yorkshire, we are working in partnership with the West Yorkshire Combined Authority Project and early years settings in the area to encourage young children and their families to get active through regular exercise.
Northern Lights Preschool in Halifax is one of those settings. After speaking with practitioners at the preschool, we identified that many families might need some additional encouragement to walk or wheel to nursery. Some families drove to the preschool and if they walked, children often arrived in pushchairs or were carried.
We visited the preschool to introduce Little Feet to the children through a fun, interactive launch session. Children were introduced to the Elmer’s Walk story, their new sticker chart, and were introduced to the challenge of helping Elmer reach Grandpa Eldo at the finish line, meeting lots of friends along the way.
Children explored the joys of walking, and the benefits to their health, happiness and quality time with family and friends, and seeing all of the wonderful things around them. The Little Feet initiative, plus their new Elmer classroom mascot, meant that children were encouraged to tell Elmer what they saw on the way to school or nursery that day.
The Little Feet activities inspired families to choose walking or wheeling to the preschool and parents and carers were encouraged to take photos of their active journeys, which were then shared on the nursery app. Children were therefore even more excited to take part and tell their friends and teachers about how much exercise they were getting.
Families found that walking or wheeling to nursery was a simple and easy way to achieve recommended daily activity levels. It also meant that they could spend quality time together at the start or end of each day. On these journeys, parents or carers and children can talk about the things they see, make new friends, and learn important road safety skills.
If you want to introduce one of three Little Feet variations into early years settings, visit Little Feet or contact [email protected].