There are many activities is our Big Room that enable the children to engage their large (gross) motor muscles. These activities help strengthen muscles, grow their balance and coordination systems, and climb vertically. Each week the Big Room has a rotating selection of 5 or 6 activities. I started taking pictures 2 weeks ago and am sharing with you the activities that were recently available. There are more options that are in the rotation. but this will allow you to see what your children use.

Note that the Balance Circle Shape is comprised of different items for balancing. The ‘steps’ are actually the Rocky Boats turned upside down. There are quite a few other ‘balancing’ pieces of equipment that are interchanged when putting out this type of circle. Do you see that the Double Slide has two different tops? One side has a flat top; the other side has a continuation of the ladder that has to be climbed over before descending the slide. The children know that a teacher must always be on the high side of the slide. The ‘high’ side is often challenging for the new and youngest children. But with help, they succeed in being confident climbers soon after arriving. The next piece of equipment will take some explaining.

I wouldn’t be surprised if the Up-Down-Go-Thru does not exist anywhere else but at MWS. I do not know its origin story but can tell you that when my eldest daughter started at MWS in 1986 it was already in the Big Room. This is probably my favorite piece of equipment because of its versatility. There are multiple ways to use this, but when my class starts in September, they are shown only one way. Each child puts his/her head inside the circle and lays flat on his/her tummy. The goal is to pull him/herself up the contraption. By using their arms to pull up, their upper body strength grows. In September, very few children are able to do this on their own. The teacher will push the child up from their feet while having the child ‘pull’ with their arms. With help and encouragement, all the children are able to pull themselves up, usually by February. The development of their upper body muscles is apparent when they are able to pull themselves up unassisted. When they reach the top, they are taught how to change position so that they can slide down the other side on their backs. In late winter, when they have mastered pulling themselves up, it is opened up to other ways of climbing. They may walk up by straddling the pole along the top of the circles then slide down inside on the other side, or they may walk up the pole along the side and slide down inside on the other side. The Up-Down-Go-Thru builds upper body strength, encourages balancing when walking along the side, uses motor planning to transition at the top from going up to going down, builds self-confidence, and is a lot of fun on which to climb.