Motor skills activities and play for you and your baby

► BabyGym – motor skills activities for you and your baby

Motor skills are important for your child. You can help your child along already when he/she is a few days old.

It does not require a gymnasium or complicated equipment to help your child develop good motor skills.

With this app, you will get carefully picked exercises for your child aged 0-18 months. The exercises are instructed by professionals, so they can easily be performed at your home or wherever you need to play and do some exercise.

The app also contains training exercises aimed at the child’s parents. In particular, it focuses on exercise for dad. Many of the exercises can also be performed by mom. The child takes part in the exercises for the parents.

Support your child while it gradually gains control of its body. For example, your baby needs to learn to hold its wobbly head, creep and crawl, coordinate eyes and hands and turning. When your baby is a bit older, good motor skills improve independence and self-confidence.

When your child has had an adequate amount of sensory impression, your child will become aware of his/her body. Body awareness is a prerequisite for good motor skills, which demand physical activity, where social competencies are developed among other things. Motor skills and learning are generally related. That is the reason why it is very important to support your child’s development of motor skills in the best way possible.

► About the exercise videos:

• The videos have been chosen and are instructed by professionals.

• Our main focus is to facilitate your implementation of the exercises with your child. Given that we as people do not learn in the same way, we have chosen to instruct the exercises with the aid of video recordings. At the same time, all of the exercises have been supplemented by an instructional speak for those who learn better by listening and text for those who learn better by reading.

• The exercises have been categorised in five sections, and in each section you will see at least two different children with their parent, demonstrating miscellaneous exercises.

• Our basic philosophy is that exercising and playing are not just a matter of physical training, but can also create bonding and strengthen the relation between parent and child. We take this idea into consideration in the instructional videos.

If you are pregnant, it would be a good idea to already download the app now, so that you are prepared when your baby arrives. You can support your baby’s development through play and motor skills activities already when it is a few days old.

► The app contains:

76 instructional videos:

• 0-3 months comprises 14 exercises

• 4-7 months comprises 17 exercises

• 8-12 months comprises 14 exercises

• 12+ months comprises 16 exercises

• “Exercises for dad” comprises 15 exercises.

Additional information/material in relation to the motor skills activities and motor skill development in children.

► The BabyGym app has been developed by:

Bettina Steen Schöer:

Occupational therapist, VIA UC Campus Nord Aarhus

Occupational therapist in private practice

Teaches baby gymnastics, individually and in groups

Certified in infant massage and has carried out a number of courses in the children’s sector. External lecturer at the education centre for occupational therapy – within the children’s sector at VIA UC Campus Nord Aarhus

Andreas Schiørring:

Master’s degree in physical education from the University of Southern Denmark and Aarhus University

Master’s degree in pedagogy and didactics from the University of Southern Denmark

Teaches children’s gymnastics to children aged 1-2 years.

External lecturer at the Section for Sport Science, Aarhus University

Author of the book Fagdidaktik i idræt [teaching methodology in sport science] (2018, Frydenlund)

Consultant in physical education.

► Contact us:

Motorikapp Aps

[email protected]