Babies in utero are surrounded by different body rhythms: heartbeat, breathing, digestive rumbles, and the ordinary sounds of daily life they may hear through the womb wall.
Once born, their wider experience of rhythm will include changing seasons, night and day, sleeping and waking. Aligning personal body rhythms with the wider world and the demands of others can often be challenging in the first two years.
As children grow and develop, their experience of rhythm widens to include different languages and genres of music. Timing also emerges as an important physical skill as they explore the environment and engage with more complex resources independently.
Rhythm and timing inform, regulate and co-ordinate how we think, communicate and behave.
Rhymes and action songs should be central to good practice, says Helen Battelley from Music and Movement. ‘They are the primary origin of musical entrainment – the ability to synchronise actions and movements to music and rhythm.
‘They also facilitate communication, develop knowledge of the wider world and introduce mathematical concepts like pattern, sequencing and number ordering. If you make the actions in songs 100 per cent bigger, you can provide great opportunities to really move!’
WHAT CAN SETTINGS DO?
The first year of life is a huge rhythm and timing experience, hopefully full of the physical sensations of rocking, swaying, swinging. Plus there are the rhythms, songs and rhymes of languages and cultures, the timing of being fed and eating, washing hands and navigating stairs.
- Sing and speak to babies in a melodious and rhythmic way – nursery rhymes have a comforting, steady beat you can move to together. Notice the sounds they make in reply.
- Provide a range of rhythmic movement experiences like bouncing and swaying. Notice how babies drum their feet and clap their hands when on their back on the floor.
- Allow them to discover a comfortable rhythm to move in when beginning their personal journey to be upright, e.g. rolling, crawling, bobbing, walking.
- To support timing, say rhymes that have anticipation, e.g. ‘round and round the garden’.
- As children grow and develop:
- Play a range of rhythmic sequences using just hands when in a circle, e.g. tap hands on the floor x 4, then tap knees, tummy, shoulders, head, and get faster.
- Create a sequence with just feet, e.g. stamp x 8, jump x 8, balance on tiptoes x 8, squat and be very still x 8.
- Create short sequences of movements that may be repeated easily, e.g. four x jumps, four x claps, four x stamps, stretch up tall and hold the position.
- Roll a large ball across the middle of a circle. Ask children to stop it with their hands, then use a smaller tennis ball or table-tennis ball to make it more challenging.
- Play ‘pass the ball’ around a circle. The more rhythmic the passing, the faster and more smoothly the ball can be moved.
- Notice as schemas appear what rhythms emerge, e.g. pushing cars up and down, posting articles into small spaces.
HOW DO SPECIALIST SPORTS PROVIDERS SUPPORT RHYTHM AND TIMING?
Swim-coach Tim Legge says swimming provides an effective base for a wide range of sports disciplines. ‘Once the correct rhythm and co-ordination are established then different strokes can be introduced.’
Rebecca Crane from Kingston Gymnastics Club says, ‘I use ribbons to encourage rhythmic awareness. Probably the most challenging timing task is rolling a ball, performing a forward roll, then picking it up at the right moment.’
Heidi Thom from Walton Gymnastics Club says, ‘Gymnastics is very good for enhancing children’s reaction time. As they run, stop, turn, repeat; we don’t always use music, so children have to use their own internal sense of rhythm to get movements right.’
Tennis coach Phil Amos says, ‘Timing and control are central to being proficient at tennis. It’s essential to start with half-size racquets and do lots of work on speed and direction.’
HOW WOULD EY EXPERTS RESPOND?
Community dance artist Anna Daly advocates for young children to ‘noodle around’ as they explore movement possibilities. She says, ‘Often those who have no other experiences like gym and ballet are the most free and imaginative in their dance expression. They will all have their preferred rhythm and pace to move to – but simple circle dances with music encourages everyone to move as a group.’
‘It’s important the child knows what they are trying to achieve,’ says Open University sports scientist Dr Ben Langdown. ‘Once they understand the outcome, e.g. swing a racquet to hit a ball over a net, then it’s vital not to coach them into a specific model of movement or give them all the answers. So once basic movement competency is established, present movement “problems”. Allow time to experiment, embrace mistakes and celebrate variability, and allow them to find solutions that may emerge from physical, mental, environmental or task-based constraints.
‘Finally – let them experience speed, even if it affects good technique. Running fast, throwing long, kicking high is an important stage and should be supported.’
GETTING THE BEST FROM EACH APPROACH
- Provide many and varied opportunities throughout the day to move rhythmically together. Action songs, clapping sequences, rhymes, poems, acting out stories.
- To support timing ability, use familiar, everyday resources to represent bats, balls, nets, e.g. rolled-up socks, scrunched up paper bags, string, cardboard rolls and cups, balloons, bubbles, rulers. You can practise all the main ball skills with these.
- Use a table top to challenge timing. Roll a small rubber ball across the top and catch with a paper cup. Get faster, add more balls, hold a cup in each hand.
- Pat rolled-up socks around the floor with a short ruler. Create a ‘goal’ to aim at.
- Throw paper bags into a box set high on a table.
Rhythm and timing examined
Rhythm
Body rhythm is the internal sense of timing that co-ordinates body movements. It also includes heart rate, breathing, digestion and sleep.
Rhythm includes spoken language:
- Inflections, pauses, accelerations.
- Waiting for a turn to speak and reply.
- Rhymes and songs.
Timing
Timing is the external ability to predict, anticipate and judge the correct distance and action to interact with the world and others in a safe and positive way.
Playground equipment like slides, swings, monkey bars, see-saws, scooters and bikes require skilled timing for maximum enjoyment.
All ball sports rely on a high degree of timing for effective team work to score goals and win matches.
This will inform later life skills such as waiting at traffic lights when driving and having mutually satisfying phone conversations.
CASE STUDY: Ore Church Mice Preschool, Hastings, East Sussex
‘Cultural music is an important element to aid physicality/timing. It has to have a strong beat to it. We use anything from Cuban salsa, samba, djembe, reggae that children will naturally clap and stamp to,’ says head Glen Russell.
‘I often scatter cushions on the floor that we run between. I noticethe way we move together will synchronise with the music without thinking about it.
‘We often march around the setting with sticks and flowerpots singing or doing call and response chants like “oi oi saveloy” or “oggy oggy oggy – oi oi oi”.
‘Getting the difference between “stop” and “go” can be difficult. “Wait” doesn’t mean much as they think it’s the same as “careful”.
‘We play Granny’s Footsteps when they creep up behind me and “what’s the time Mr Wolf?” that links numbers and footsteps. We often change this to jumping with feet together.
‘Hopscotch is a good one, also Duck Duck Goose. We all clap and chant the names of children as they run around the circle.
‘We do lots of rhythm work with the environment, so we cut and whittled little sticks, and we go around the setting hitting things like the radiator covers or stacks of chairs and the railings in the garden.
‘We also roll cable reels [available from builders’ merchants] to each other across the tables or when sitting on the floor, singing and counting as we do so.’
