To start your ‘Baby Classes’

We are super excited to be able to welcome all new parents and their little Bugs (4-10 mths) to join our classes at The Little Gym.  The team at Little Gym are very aware of the implications Covid-19 has had on many new parents and their little ones and we are here to help you start to socialise with other babies and parents in a Covid-19 secure environment.  We have recently re-opened with strict Covid-19 policies & procedures in place, click here for full details and we would love to welcome you to our Little Gym!!

We are lucky that we are able to control access to our purpose built facility and although our normal schedule of classes won’t start until September, we are keen to welcome new parents as soon as possible.  So our Bugs (4-10 mths) class will be restarting on  Friday 7th August at 2.45pm.  Spaces are limited so do book early to avoid disappointment!

You might think that 4 months is a little too young to start gymnastics but you’d be surprised just how much they are learning from such an early age. Everything we learn as a baby sets up for the rest of our lives. So why would we not want to get them off to the best start?

We love teaching fun, rich classes for our little baby Bugs, as we call them, because we know that by developing the little brains in our baby Bugs we’re shaping their entire life and setting them up for success.

Those big adult brains we all have started out as little brains. And those little brains are hungry, they need to be fed so that they can reach their full potential at every stage of life!!

Why is it important to start young?

Your baby’s brain grows with every experience – everything they smell, see, touch, chew, every movement they make, every surface they feel. And in the first months and first years, their body is the engine for all of their brain development.

That’s where our Bugs classes for 4-10 month olds are unique. We know that the more Bugs move, the more they experience, the more we stimulate all seven of their senses (not just FIVE!), then the bigger their brains get. And we want our little ones to have nice big brains full of processing power.

That’s why school teachers have told us they can tell which of the children in their classes go to The Little Gym!

Diverse Repetition is key to learning!

Babies aged 4 – 10 months need opportunities to repeat new experiences in various scenarios for their brain to grow and learn, and grow and learn some more.

Through repetition, the brain has the chance to grow new pathways. And the more pathways we have in our brains, the more efficiently our brains work, and the better our brain cells are at processing and exchanging information.  And that helps to make our Bugs super smart.

But we also want this learning to stick – or as we say, we want to hard wire all those connections in their little brains.

How hardwired these connections become depends on how much repetition your child experiences. After just one experience of something, the wiring is weak. But the more repetition a child has, the stronger and more hard-wired what they’ve learnt becomes. The child can then eventually perform actions without even thinking – and that’s when they’ve achieved what we call ‘automation’.

And that automation is exactly what we want for your babies and children. Once we have helped them to automate the simple things, they can go on to more complex learning, and that’s when they can truly live up to their potential.

Did you know that we actually have 7 senses?!

We have the usual 5 that most people know about and most sensory classes focus on – touch, taste, smell, sound and sight, but did you know about the extra two? These are called our proprioceptive and vestibular senses. These two sensory systems actually form the foundation for all of our learning, which makes them pretty darn important!

Activation of all the juicy new pathways we’re building in your baby’s brain occurs when a child experiences something new through not just five senses, but all seven senses. And to activate all seven senses, you need to get your Bug moving – proprioception and the vestibular system are critically developed through movement.

Imagine that your Bug is crawling on a piece of equipment in the Gym. Whilst they are crawling, they have to work out how to balance on their hands and knees. And they have to look where they’re going. And hold their head up so they can look for their parent. And also make sure that parent is still nearby! But then they also have to make sure they don’t fall off the end of the equipment, and must start to predict and problem solve where the end is!

This multi-sensory learning, repeated again and again in different situations, is key to developing automation, and creating the millions of connections our little Bugs need to set a strong foundation that optimises their learning not just today, but when they’re 2, or 4, when they’re at school, university and beyond!

Bugs Grow at The Little Gym!

The greater the new experiences your child has in every class at The Little Gym, the more opportunities their brain has for growth! And that enhanced brain activity and efficiency will provide the foundation for more complex levels of learning in the future. And what an exciting future that is for our little Bugs!

To find out more about our Bugs classes or to book into one of our classes give us a call on 01423 701560 or email us on harrogate@thelittlegym.eu

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