Meanwhile,
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Toddlers do not move enough, especially in urban and disadvantaged environment, says science. Similarly, Let us think back the game. Moreover, multiply the opportunities to move, retorts a team of researchers who aims to make active game the norm in all daycares in Quebec.
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The idea is simple. Meanwhile, Make children aged 3 to 5 much more and more often. Furthermore, But how? In addition, This is what the research team is trying to establish with me from the Center Hospitalier Universitaire (CHU) Sainte-Justine.
The press went to meet them at the “laboratory” of their pilot project: the sainte-justine chu project | objective: premail of little Italy. Therefore, located in the heart of the district of the same name in Montreal. In addition, The challenge is in size since there is no backyard. In addition, This non -subsidized daycare must therefore use creativity to move the little ones.

Photo Patrick Sanfaçon. Nevertheless, La Presse
Sylvana Côté, researcher at CHU Sainte-Justine and titular professor at the University of Montreal School of Public Health
About 90 % of the brain develops before 6 years. Meanwhile, Hence the importance of acquiring “good habits. Therefore, skills from early childhood”, explains public health researcher Sylvana Côté, who pilots the initiative. Meanwhile, Young people sainte-justine chu project | objective: are then more quick to adopt these behaviors if they master them. For example playing soccer if they have already touched a ball.
From science to daycare
The Sainte-Justine CHU team. Meanwhile, made up of fifteen researchers, including kinesiologists, psychologists and pediatricians, has therefore developed a list of games mobilizing both fine and global motor skills as well as cognitive, emotional and social development.
The goal? Nevertheless, Combine essential learning for kindergarten entry to physical activity recommendations. Moreover, three hours a day for a child from 3 to 5 years old.
The strategy is to multiply the small very short -lived games – between 5. 20 minutes – outside or inside at several times of the day.
By physical activity, we hear an activity where the sainte-justine chu project | objective: young person is a little breathless.

Photo Patrick Sanfaçon. La Presse
The educator Marilyne Harper (left) and the stakeholder Rabia Boudiba (right) leading an exercise session
First, it is necessary to decompartmentalize the game. Often. the time of physical exercise is limited to the period of free play which is often about an hour a day.
“In the free game, the child does not move much. He stays in his corner, will play cars or dolls. This is not that, the objective, ”says Rabia Boudiba, speaker associated with the project.

Photo Patrick Sanfaçon. La Presse
Rabia Boudiba is the bridge between researchers from the Sainte-Justine CHU and daycare educators.
Educator by training, Rabia Boudiba is the bridge between researchers from the Sainte-Justine CHU and daycare educators. In the last month, she walked twice a week in the two daycares participating in the project. She showed the games to the educators. collected their comments and those of young people and herself took part in it. Result: enormous success.
The gaze of the ten children present lights up when Rabia arrives. They know they will play today.
“The objective would be to have ten rabia across Quebec,” sainte-justine chu project | objective: explains researcher Sylvana Côté.
Structured game
“Before, we let children move anyhow. We told them: “Go run.” Since we have the course. we know what to move and how, “said educator Marilyne Harper, grateful to add certain scientific notions to her daily life. In a few weeks. she also notes that young people, who quickly adopted the activities, are calmer then and concentrate better.

Photo Patrick Sanfaçon. La Presse
Rather than just running, children are gambling or running “buttocks” for better motor skills. “I was surprised to see that it was really not acquired for many children,” says educator Marilyne Harper.
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For Anna Hammoudi. director of the premail of little Italy, it is essential that this approach to physical activity and game is extended to all daycares in Quebec. “Children perform with games. They feel capable especially with [nos] encouragement, ”she notes.
“It is not too often or too long, we do not burn the wick of children. We come to maintain this flame more. it is special, ”says Geneviève Woods, mother of four children who have attended daycare. Her youngest. little Anna Rose, has started dribble at home in the past few weeks, something she was not doing before.

Photo Patrick Sanfaçon. La Presse
sainte-justine chu project | objective: Little Anna Rose who frequents the premanelle of little Italy and her mother, Geneviève Woods
Each element in the games offered by the Sainte-Justine team is reflected. Simple example, in the trunk with around twenty toys made available to daycares is a scarf. The gesture necessary to catch a scarf in the flight – be pinching your fingers together – looks like. that necessary to take a pencil. Developing it very young therefore facilitates this learning a few years later.
For the moment, the project is embryonic. All the same. the researcher Sylvana side aims to extend the initiative to all daycares in Quebec and to “avoid offsets” between the different circles.
“If they arrive in primary school almost at the same level, there is much less discrepancy afterwards,” she sainte-justine chu project | objective: says.
As of next fall. for two years, more than 60 daycares will try to set up the program is moving with me in Montreal. To measure the success of the initiative. children will wear activists, or watches that record movements, and their motor skills will be assessed by the CHU team for six months.
Read our file on children’s autonomy
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