Gymnastics involves many movements of the human body. There are varies exercises
and performances completed in gymnastics which are performed at different levels
of motor skills. This is what allows us to see how children advance in motor
skills. As a young child many start off slow doing there activity the way the
feel comfortable. While I was observing the 5 and 6 year old children I noticed
right from the start that the boys and girls seamed to get along with each other
quite well. The boys in the group that I observed seamed to be very out going
doing the stuff they were told to do and then some. While the girls seamed to be
shy and quiet. Also the girls in general didn't seam to put as much enthusiasm
into what they were doing. When looking at behavior I found that the girls where
behaved much better then the boys, always doing what they were told and staying
in line. While the boys did what they were told, but at the same time they liked
to jump around and they seamed to like to be near the teacher hanging off and
trying to wrestle with him/her. I found that the boys wanted to go through the
action of the drills more ethuasticly. One boy especially was always trying to
butt in front of everyone else, so he could get more turns jumping off the
spring horse. When he would try to do this the other boys in line would get mad
and push him away. While the girls in the group wouldn't do anything. They
didn't seam to mind at all. When I compared physical differences between the two
different genders I concluded that there was not much difference at this stage.
As I watched the children I pictured them with bags on there heads, and at this
age it would be very difficult to tell between the two genders from just looking
at there bodies. I found that within each group there were a few kids of each
gender to fit into the three categories of endomorph, ectomorph, and mesomorph.
The greater percentage of the children would have to fit in the ectomorph
category being tall and slender. In the process of watching the children jump
off the spring board I tried to look for techniqes to try to differ one child's
skills from another. This was very hard to do. One kid was better at the take
off while another was batter at the actual jumping part and other kids were
better at the landing aspect off the routine. In this group the all around best
child at this activity was a little girl. She did exactly what she was expose to
do, right from the beginning take-off to the landing. Then she would run to the
back of the line and wait for her turn again. There are many reasons why, the
two groups boys vs. girls could be different. Parents of the children play a
major role of the children's skill level. In my Gender class last year we
learned that parent tend to treat boys as boys and girls as girls. What I mean
by this is that girls usually get the girly toys like tea set and Barbie dolls
while the boys get the baseball glove and guns. When a child is playing Barbie's
there motor skills are not going to be as stimulated as if they were running
around playing cowboys and Indians or catching pop flies at the baseball park.
Another thing could be the area in which the child lives. When a child lives in
an area that is highly populated with other kids they seam to want to go outside
more to play games with there friends. While the children who do not live in a
highly populated area seam to rather stay inside and watch TV. The child that is
outside playing with there friend are going to be more active and their skills
are going to have a better chance of being stimulated. There are many other
reasons why some children's skills are more developed then others. Some being
that if the child is involved in organized sports, if the parents are active and
if the child actually likes to be active. All of these examples influence a
child's skills, fitness level, attention span, and experiences. In conclusion I
feel that it is very important for a parent to go out of there way to able there
child to be as involved in all actives from crafted making to team sports to
enhance there motor skills in all directions making them a all round child.