3 Balfour Terrace, Christchurch Central City, Christchurch 8011
Grow Active was established in 2017 by business partners and friends, Cathy Sherwood, Claire Rolls, Rob Farrell and Sam Rofe, merging their set of skills and experience in childcare, business, construction and inner city Christchurch commercial development to create a sincere company with a straightforward vision. We are all passionate about contributing to Grow Active and its forward plans, so that we continue to create the best opportunities to enrich the lives of the children and families that attend our centres.
Cathy and Claire co founded Launch active early learning in 2016, both have extensive experience with over a combined 30 years in the child care industry. They are passionate about providing quality spaces for children, families and teachers. Partnering with co founders of Box 112 Rob and Sam, their mission is to help make Christchurch the most liveable city in the world, by creating authentic one off spaces that add value to the community and provide continued growth for the city of Christchurch.
We have designed Grow Active around the concept of sustainability and active early learners. Grow Active provides nurturing and engaging spaces for children we value the importance of positive and trusting relationships and believe this helps to build the foundations for lifelong learning.
There is growing evidence about the importance of being active and the development of fundamental movement skills in young children. Learning about healthy and active lifestyles and the significance of physical, emotional, social and spiritual well-being is integral to developing children’s self-confidence, and therefore an essential part of Our Approach at Grow active. At Grow Active we believe our children will have a strong sense of identity; be connected with and contribute to their world; have a strong sense of well-being; be confident and involved learners and effective communicators through active early learning.
Our Approach starts by creating secure, healthy and welcoming environments, building a sense of belonging for children and their families. We inspire curiosity, foster creativity and support discovery with a variety of sensory rich experience spaces. Children have lots of space to move and explore with extended outdoor play spaces and natural environments to accommodate growing and inquisitive bodies.
Grow Active is custom designed to support your child’s individual emotional, physical and cognitive needs throughout their journey with us. The resources and materials at Grow are natural and open ended. Our teachers are passionate and committed to providing a nurturing and active early learning environment for each child and their families.
Children are natural learners and between birth to 5 years children grow and learn at the fastest rate of their lifetime. There are many ways a child learns – by watching, by listening but mostly by doing.
At Grow Active we support children to develop fundamental movement skills starting from birth, when motor skills like rolling, sitting up alone, pulling to stand, walking, running, throwing, jumping, catching and skipping begin to emerge. These skills are built upon, improved and better controlled throughout early childhood.
Fundamental movement skills are gross movement abilities that allow children to move in different ways, balance and stabilize themselves and use objects in their environment. They are the building blocks of more complex movements used in everyday life. Gross motor development provides the basis of all other forms of development.
It’s important for healthy brain development that children move. Moving and being active are critical to the development of the skills, attitudes and confidence required for children to participate in lifelong learning. Simply put, when a child moves, connections are formed within their brain, movement means experience and experience means learning.
Our child centre approach encourages an environment of creative and imaginative play opportunities so children can find out what their bodies can do. As they continue to gain physical competence children increase their movement vocabulary, extend their movement memory and enrich the quality of their movement.
Active movement helps your child to:
• Build the foundations for learning, moving and communicating.
• Be healthy, happy and confident.
Physical literacy can be described as the motivation, confidence, physical competence, knowledge and understanding that provides children with the movement foundation for lifelong learning. At Launch Active we enable children to be physically literate by supporting children’s physical, cognitive, social and emotional development this creates healthy active movers.
Physical literacy is about developing the fundamental movement skills that all children need, such as throwing, catching, running, hopping and jumping. It’s important for children to use large and small muscles daily to allow them to gain increasing control over their bodies.
Active early learning helps children to:
• Develop large muscles, strength and balance
• Develop flexibility and coordination including – hand eye coordination
• Develop skills such as throwing, catching, hopping, skipping, climbing and balancing.
• Develop awareness of space, such as over/under, in front/behind, on top/beneath, inside/outside.
• Develop mathematical concepts such as long/short, big/small, wide/narrow
• Be confident in controlling their bodies and learn limits.
• Learn to cooperate and share.
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