Welcome

Observing Children Moving is a software package that will be of great value to everyone working with children in Early Years education.

Observing Children Moving is the product of a Association for Physical Education (AfPE) research project and was created by a team of experts in children's movement development led by Patricia Maude MBE.

AfPE worked in partnership with Tacklesport (Consultancy) Ltd to produce the resource (supplied on CD-ROM for installation on the users hard drive). For ease of understanding, the resource is referred to as 'the CD-ROM'.

Observing Children Moving is a unique resource designed to enable practitioners to:

• observe and analyse children's movement
• enhance knowledge and understanding of stages of movement development
• promote high quality movement education and physical education for children aged 3-7 years.

Observing Children Moving includes 90 video clips of children performing a range of movement capabilities (i.e. roll, block build, run, climb, throw, catch, write, jump, clay activity, gallop, kick, strike).

Children at different stages of development are included and the capabilities are shown from a variety of camera angles. Accompanying each of the 12 movement capabilities are observation tasks, grids analysing the movement pattern of each child and suggestions of activities for children at different stages of development.

Also included are 'Hotspots' which indicate key points to enhance technical performance. These are designed to assist practitioners in helping children to improve their performance.

Observing Children Moving also includes a range of supporting material such as:

• Approaches to observation and analysis.
• Helping children to learn - ideas for practitioners to use in their movement work with children.
• Reflexes to Writing - a broad overview of motor skills.
• Movement Development and its relationship to the development of the whole child.

This website will offer a step by step guide to using Observing Children Moving, including examples from one movement capability.

Main Selector

This selector screen is the starting point for accessing the CD-ROM. To select from three options, users pass the cursor over the content buttons:

1. Using the CD-ROM.
2. Supporting Material.
3. Movement Capabilities.

Users can select and click on one button for access to that section (e.g. Movement Capabilities illustrated).

You can also click '?' for help and 'Quit' to exit. These options are available on all screens.