3 year olds

[ninjanurse]

Anyone out there have experience with a program designed specifically for 3 year olds? Our Master Instructor is planning to implement one and my feeling is that 3 year olds are inherently a lot different than 4 year olds (of which I have a few). I am looking for experience, horror stories, etc., as I want to get a feel of this before I have to jump in.

[bushido_man96]

I have never worked with a 3 year old. 4 has been the youngest I would take, and that would be on a case-by-case basis, too.

My son is 3, and I don't think he is ready for anything like that, yet. I am going to give it at least another year before I talk to him about physical activities like Wrestling and TKD.

I wish your Instructor luck with his program, though. Do you have an idea of what his plans for the kids are?

[BDPulver]

A 3 yr olds attention spam is very limited on what they want to do. Let me emphasize "what they want to do".

My teacher looked into it and decided 5 was the best age to teach a child. They are either already in kindergarten or getting ready. They are interacting with more kids at this age too.

3 yr olds and even some 4 are still to attached to there parent(s). Still get cranky if they dont have there nap and will sit out if something doesnt interest them. I learned most of that from a day care teacher when we were looking into it.

Some wont be use to the Ki or the constant activities either. This is where you'll start running into crying cause they might be too tired. Something hurts. So on and so forth.

Thats bout all I can think of at the moment though.

[ninjanurse]

Thanks for the input. I already have four year olds and they do fine with the program we have. The 3 year olds will be doing things more along the lines of gross body movement, balance skills, following directions, etc., -not a lot of martial arts. He wants to move the 4 year olds to this program too but I should have some flexibility like I do with 6 & 7 year olds-I hope!

[sensei8]

Sounds to me like another means to increase the bottom line. Can anybody say...the terrible 2's and the difficult 3's? Gross body movement would be about all that would be achieved overall; playing, imho. Baby-sitting is more like it....but...the bottom line would be increased!

How long would these classes be? Hopefully not long at all because there's nothing worse that a 3 yr old CONTROLLING the class when the 3 yr old gets bored quickly. Early Child Development experts say that a childs attention span in minutes is equal to the age of the child.

Good luck and let us know how it goes.

[Rateh]

Because of that attention span, I find it best to run the 3-4 year olds groups in sections. So you might work on kicks in lines (or rather a line, you don't want rows of 3 year olds) for 3-4 minutes. Then maybe kicking targets for 3-4 minutes. After that you might do some blocks, standing in a circle. Then maybe run an obstacle course that works on some gross motor skills. (obstacle courses can be run for much longer than the 3-4 minute span though, I find).

One thing with 3 year olds though, is that they tend to take much longer to get into the groove of attending a class than older children. New 3 year olds, in my experience, tend to spend time staring at their parents, or just generally confused, wondering why they are there in the first place. Those that have an older sibling whom they have been watching training for at least a few months tend to fair much better. I had a student who watched his brother train in the 3-4 year old class for a year, then joined a month shy of his 3rd birthday. Because he had been watching classes since he was 2, he showed more discipline than all of the other students, because he already knew from 1/3 of his life what was expected of him.

Also, as with other children, they tend to do best when told what to do/given something to do. Rather than saying "stop moving" say "sit still as a statue with your hands on your knees and your best tiger stare" (our kids classes are named after animals, and we use that to encourage the kids....)

Lots of pep and facial expressions helps too. As well as pointing out children who are doing what it is you want them to do.

Of course you would know most of this from teaching your other childrens classes.

[sensei8]

Century Martial Arts Supplies has a fantastic line of "tools" that would be excellent for 3 year olds in that they'd have fun, be challenged, not get bored, and learn the Martial Arts.

[jaddensinn]

In my experience the younger the children are the more "high speed" the class needs to be. In other words you kinda need to switch gears ofter to maintain the kiddies' interest. Other than that, you just have to really tailor the activities to things that will still teach the kids but not bore them, karate obstacle courses always seem to be a hit with the little ones at our school.

But the thing you always have to keep in mind, and its already been said a few times, the younger the child is the more fickle then tend to be, and really each child will be 100% different in terms of whether or not their attention is going to hold.

[bushido_man96]

If you can do a class that is about 30 minutes long, and stick to 5 to 8 minutes sessions, playing one learning game, and them moving to another, that should help to retain their interest. Anything longer than 30 minutes, though, I'd wish you good luck.