Learning Through Movement Programs
see The Center for Kinesthetic Education for current programs

Learning through Movement Staff Resources © is a service of Moving On Center, directed by Martha Eddy, RSMT, Ed.D. Grants and donations to the Learning through Movement Fund help to provide workshops for care-providers and parents at centers in economically challenged neighborhoods. Resources are sometimes made directly available to parents who lack the financial means to access somatic education and other developmental movement resources.

The central theme in all workshops is understanding and experiencing the importance of DEVELOPMENTAL MOVEMENT progressions in how babies learn to express themselves through movement. With the developmental building blocks of rolling, crawling, creeping, standing, walking as guidelines, and an understanding of the influence of the environment on learning, each child is seen as an individual who learns in a unique manner. Learning through Movement helps caretakers to identify the specific movement strengths and challenges of each child, relating these non-verbal behaviors to their socio-emotional and physical development, and then to conscientiously to use movements, songs and games to support growth and development in small groups.

Martha Eddy and her colleagues and trainees use their skills as Somatic Movement Educators and Therapists to address issues that confront parents and childcare providers interacting with children in group settings. Adults can learn to match the learning needs of individual children even while working with several children with of different ages or with diverse needs.
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The themes of support for physical development in order to enhance social, emotional and cognitive growth are important for older children as well. While a primary goal nationwide is to work with children at their youngest if at all possible, it is understood that all children (and adults) can benefit from opportunities to move more. Carefully attuned movement helps children to rest more deeply, coordinate their bodies with greater ease, orient in the world more effectively, and express themselves non-verbally as well as verbally with a greater range of choices.

Workshops are experiential and cover such topics as:

* how babies learn to move
* how movement affects learning at every age
* the importance of positioning and movement in developing:
* body awareness and muscular control
* low, high or balanced muscular tension
* spatial orientation with each of the senses
* discussions about tummy vs. back lying during sleep and throughout the day
* sensitive handling tips
* movement suggestions for successful feeding
* specific movement activities for babies including
* basic developmental patterns
* reflexes and balanced coordination
* righting reactions balance/vertigo issues
* equilibrium responses and eye-body coordination

Martha Eddy, RSMT, CMA, Ed.D., has worked with the Hale House staff in Harlem, New York City since 2003 and graduates of her Somatic Movement Therapy Training have worked within the Bay Area public school system since 1998.

© Martha Eddy/Moving On Center Community Outreach 2004

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