The Importance of Rolling Down Hills

Every child I know goes through the spin phase.  Some children enjoy standing in one spot and spinning.  Some like to ride on spinning amusement park rides.  Some children like to be spun around by an adult holding their hands as their feet take flight.  My child likes to roll down hills.  He is great at finding hills to go down and will often seek them out when we are out places.  

Here's Miles at Putnum Park Raceway 

Here is a trip down the hill at the river front in Evansville.  

So you might ask why I encourage this behavior. I have seen some very compelling research that talks about the importance of building up the muscles around the ear drum and in the ear.  The research was done by Candace Meyer over at Minds in Motion.  There is also some amazing research that links movement to school success and reading success.  Allowing children the opportunity to spin in one way to build these muscles.   Plus who doesn't like to get a little dizzy from time to time.  I went down the hill once, but realized that I was having a Roger Murtaugh moment.

Miles of Pizza

I have been really trying to encourage loose parts play with Miles and so I brought home a large spool when the occasion arose.  He rolled it around the yard and asked what it was.  My reply was that it's what ever he wanted it to be.  He decided that he ought to make a table out of it and because it was raining we pulled it up on the front porch for the evening.

The next day, Miles decided that he wanted to open a restaurant in the front yard and call it, "Miles of Pizza."  He arranged the spool under the large maple tree in the front yard and put his blanket on the table as a table cloth.  He collected up chairs from around the house and decided that he and Dolly would eat lunch outside.  (He told me that I'd be the chef for the restaurant.) I told him that I didn't have pizza to make.That didn't seem to bother him. He stuck with the name, "Miles of Pizza."  I made Miles and Dolly a finger foods lunch to enjoy in the out of doors.

Loose Parts win!