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Why Should Your Preschooler Do Gymnastics? – Part 3: Cognitive Benefits

At ASI Gymnastics, we believe very strongly in the power of learning and education to transform young people’s lives. Gymnastics has been proven to enhance kids’ academic achievement, and we love any way we can give our students an advantage in life. That’s why we’ve designed our Preschool program to incorporate early learning activities. In addition to learning excellent gymnastics techniques and valuable life skills, your child will be exposed to shapes, letters, colors, animals, seasons, and so much more. Did you know that this early introduction to basic concepts helps kids become more confident learners when they start school? On top of that, gymnasts tend to be earlier readers, and higher-achieving students, statistically speaking.

After decades of teaching gymnastics to young children, we know what it takes to keep preschoolers’ attention, so we encourage
imagination
in our classes to make learning fun. Why just walk from the trampolines to the pit, when you can fly like a butterfly, or sneak around like secret agents? Imagination between the ages of 2 and 5 has been proven to help kids later on in school when they’re learning about things they don’t experience directly, like history, or other world cultures. Imagination helps kids understand things they can’t see for themselves, which is an essential skill for learning.

Every week, your child will spend time at the “Music Circle” dancing and clapping and tapping small instruments to songs designed to get preschoolers moving. The rhythm your child will develop while they dance and play has been linked to faster cognitive development and can help with learning languages. Music is an incredibly effective tool for helping children learn, and we’re all about education at ASI!


We know how important structure is to a preschooler’s developing brain, so we’ve organized our floor, balance beam, and bars instruction into carefully developed circuits that will be easy for your child to follow. These circuits teach your child how to work independently and follow a sequence of instructions, which is going to be crucial once they start school. It’s never too early to start learning how to learn!


Your child’s early academic success can depend largely on their ability to follow directions given by a teacher. Your child will get excellent practice by taking directions from trained gymnastics teachers in a fun environment. A gymnastics lesson is a great way to ease your child into a classroom setting, while still allowing them to be a kid and blow off steam!


Did you know that crawling and climbing over different surfaces helps your child engage multiple parts of their brain at once, which helps prepare their mind for reading and math-related tasks later in life. That’s why we have our youngest students crawl and climb around age-appropriate obstacles, over ramps and under mats, through tunnels, up ladders and down slides. It not only challenges their growing arms and legs, but it engages their growing minds! Literacy and numeracy are two of the most important indicators of future success in school and in life, so we’re happy to do whatever we can to contribute to your child’s learning potential while we have fun and play in the gym!


Learning to count, or recite the alphabet, depends on your child’s ability to remember numbers and letters in a sequence. We’ve included multiple sequences of skills into our preschool programs, to challenge your child’s mind to remember skills in a specific order. This will help them learn to order their thoughts and identify and recall patterns when they’re doing math or spelling words in school.


One of our preschool parents said it best on our Facebook page last year” at ASI, we’re teaching so much more than gymnastics!

Click here to learn about the Physical Benefits of Preschool Gymnastics.

Click here to learn about the Behavioral Benefits of Preschool Gymnastics.

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Sport Parenting

Why Should Your Preschooler Do Gymnastics? – Part 2: Behavioral Benefits

Pound for pound, gymnasts are the most impressive athletes in the world, but gymnastics is about so much more than physical activity. The life-skills your child will learn in their gymnastics class will set them up for success in so many other areas of life. We view gymnastics as a way to build not just amazing athletes, but amazing people! Our coaches reward good behavior, praise progress, and positively redirect misbehavior with patience and loving discipline. Your child will learn to walk in line, wait their turn, share, cooperate, respect their coaches and cheer on their classmates in a fun and safe environment. We take an interest in your child’s behavioral and emotional development in addition to their athletic development, because we truly care about the kids we serve.

Some people think gymnastics is an individual sport, but teamwork is essential to success in gymnastics. We structure our classes to improve peer-interactions by including fun games and partner activities, and encouraging students to take turns and share props, equipment, and attention from their coach. These early peer-interactions are the building blocks for future success in friendships, teamwork, and conflict resolution.


While our Tiny Tots classes include parents, and our Kidz Gym classes focus on independence, both programs will enhance your parent-child relationship in their own developmentally appropriate way. In Tiny Tots, you will build trust in a very physical way, by holding your child in the air, lifting them to the bar, swinging them on the rope and helping them across the beam. This shows your child at an early age that they can rely on you for both physical and emotional support. When your child is ready for Kidz Gym at age 3, you are able to step back, support your child’s independence and watch them grow and learn at their own special pace while you cheer them on from the bleachers!


Developmentally, preschoolers are at an age where they have trouble recognizing the wants and needs of others, so patience is not always their strong suit, and that’s perfectly normal. We utilize gymnastics as a way to teach patience in many different ways. First, children will develop patience while waiting for their turn to swing on the rope, slide down the slide or jump on the trampolines. At a deeper level, it also takes patience to learn the more difficult skills in gymnastics class that may take weeks or even months to master.


Educators and child development specialists often stress the importance of resilience in learning and in life. It’s only natural for your child to fall off the beam once or twice (don’t worry, it’s only about 2 inches off the ground!) but the ability to get back on the beam and keep walking will prepare your child to take life’s challenges in stride. The grit and persistence your child will develop in gymnastics is linked to higher achievement in their athletic, academic, and professional endeavors throughout their lifetime.


Some gymnastics programs can be a little disorganized, with subjective standards for class advancement. When we created our skills-based preschool programs, we included a system for documenting which skills your child has mastered, and which skills they need to improve before safely attempting the next level. When you enroll in a class, you get a Skill Poster, which is a list of skills your child will learn. Each week, your child will receive a Sticker Sheet that keeps you up to date with what they’re learning, plus a sticker to place on the Skill Poster at home. As your child sees their Skill Poster begin to fill with stickers, they see what they’re working towards, which helps them become goal-oriented, a skill with serious implications for their future success in life.


Learning gymnastics is fun and engaging, but it can also be challenging sometimes. Some skills will come very naturally, and other skills may take more time to master. When your child finally learns a skill that has given them a little trouble, the confidence they develop from sticking with it is very gratifying. This encourages them to work through challenges and trust in their own abilities and strengths.


Click here to learn about the Physical Benefits of Preschool Gymnastics.

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Sport Parenting

Why Should Your Preschooler Do Gymnastics? – Part 1: The Physical Benefits

At ASI Gymnastics, we believe that every child can benefit from participation in gymnastics. Younger children have the most to gain from starting gymnastics, because they can begin to reap the benefits of this amazing sport at an early age. In fact, we’ve specifically designed our Tiny Tots and Kidz Gym programs to capitalize on the physical, behavioral, and cognitive advantages of early exposure to the sport of gymnastics, because we view gymnastics as a tool for improving children’s lives.

Just like adults, children need to be physically active to stay healthy, and gymnastics is the best athletic development for children, hands down. Our Preschool program will help your child engage their body in a way that no other sport can offer.

The cardiovascular exercise your child will get from bouncing on the trampolines and galloping around the music circle limits body fat and can greatly decrease their risk of developing obesity-related complications like diabetes or heart disease later in life.


Weight-bearing exercises like early handstand and cartwheel progressions will help your child build and strengthen their growing bones and muscles.


Weight-bearing exercises like early handstand and cartwheel progressions will help your child build and strengthen their growing bones and muscles.


The flexibility your child develops while stretching in class helps prevent injuries in and out of the gym.


Walking on the balance beam is obviously a great way for your child to develop balance. Did you know that balance contributes to confidence, concentration, equilibrium, spatial awareness, and even good posture?


Skills like front supports and bear walks on the bars help your child develop impressive upper-body strength, which is essential to success in gymnastics, and most other sports.


coordination. Crawling over different sized mats, throwing and catching soft objects, squeezing the bar, rolling down a mat, and bouncing on the springboard will help your child improve their fine and gross motor skills, which has even been linked to higher achievement in school!

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In The Gym

“Dream Big, and Always Have Fun!”

Reigning World All-Around Champion Simone Biles came to ASI Arlington on Saturday evening to meet fans, sign autographs, and promote the 2015 AT&T American Cup, where she will compete against some of the best gymnasts from around the world at AT&T Stadium in March.

Biles lived up to her reputation as a bubbly, effervescent role model. While gymnastics is a sport commonly associated with discipline and composure, Biles is famous for her upbeat approach to competition. She lights up whole arenas as she smiles throughout the duration of her world-class floor routine.

Her down-to-earth and friendly advice for the gymnasts in attendance included “Dream big, and always have fun!” So far, this mantra has paid dividends for Biles, who at 17 is on track to be the most successful female gymnast in US history. If she repeats as World Champion again in 2015, as she is heavily favored to do, she will be the first woman in history to win 3 consecutive World All-Around titles, and will carry that momentum into what promises to be a very successful Olympic Games in 2016.

Behind all of the hype surrounding the teen phenom is a kind, playful athlete who loves her sport, and loves her fans. As Biles was leaving ASI Arlington, a mom and her three adorable daughters rushed up to the front door, asking “Is she gone? Is it over? Did we miss it?” Allison Ford had driven well over an hour from Rowlett, in holiday shopping traffic, to give her girls a chance to meet a gymnastics legend in person. Even though Biles had already gotten in the car to leave, her Mother, Nellie Biles, met the Fords at the door and assured them they hadn’t missed their chance to meet Simone. “I’m the Mom. I’m in charge here! I’ll get her out of the car,” she promised them.

Gracious and very cognizant of her duties as a role model, Biles stepped out of the car to take pictures with the Ford girls and talk to them about following their dreams in gymnastics. (pictured above) The impact that Biles had on all of the girls that came out to ASI Arlington on Saturday pretty much sums up why we do what we do at ASI Gymnastics. When we’re fortunate enough to see the eyes of a child grow wide in amazement as a gymnastics super-girl like Simone Biles answers her questions and signs her grip bag, we recognize how blessed we are to serve the thousands of families that call ASI home.

From all of us at ASI Gymnastics, thank you for giving us the opportunity to work with your children. There is no joy in the world like changing a child’s life for the better, and it’s a responsibility we don’t take lightly. We wish all of you a very Merry Christmas and a monumentally blessed New Year. As Simone Biles would say, “dream big, and always have fun!”

News

Meet and Greet with Simone Biles Saturday, Dec. 20 at ASI Arlington

We would like to invite you and your family to come meet Back to Back World Champion and 2015 AT&T American Cup Competitor Simone Biles on Saturday, Dec. 20 from 6:00-6:45pm at ASI Arlington! Simone will be signing autographs and having a short Q&A session. This is a perfect opportunity for your gymnast to meet her in person just a couple months before she goes on to compete at the AT&T American Cup on March 7 at AT&T Stadium.

Autograph cards will be available, however, feel free to bring your own item to get signed. Please allow only one item per child. You will be able to take pictures throughout the event, but no individual pictures will be allowed due to the time constraint.

Don’t forget that tickets to the 2015 AT&T American Cup are on sale today through ASI Gymnastics! Get your tickets early before they are gone!

MEET AND GREET WITH SIMONE BILES

SATURDAY, DEC. 20
6:00-6:45pm
ASI Arlington

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