Sample Of a Best Practice Physical Activity Policy For Family Child Care Providers
Dan and Kathy Fischbach, licensed home-based childcare providers in South St. Paul, attended the IMIL
training on November 20, 2010. Two days later they sent a letter and updated policies to their parents.
It read;
“Dan and I recently attended an all day workshop for “I am Moving, I am Learning,” which is
collaboration between the Dakota County Public Health Department and the State Health Improvement
Program. This program stresses the importance of physical activity for children of all ages, and
encourages childcare providers to increase opportunities for children in their care to be physically active
on a daily basis. It was a fun training because we not only learned new ideas for our program, but we
actually practiced them all day! We sang, danced, jumped, hopped, bounced, and shimmied to music all
day! We are already fairly active with the kids in our care, especially in the summer months, but had no
idea how much more we could be doing and how much fun it would be, until someone simply showed
us some new ideas. We have decided to incorporate our commitment to physical activity and healthy
habits into our contract and policies so parents have a better idea of how much physical activity their
child gets during the day.”
Their policy went onto read:
We strongly believe that regular physical activity contributes to the overall mental and physical health
and development of children. We provide a minimum of 120 minutes of active play time each day. This
will consist of at least 60 minutes of teacher directed activities and 60 minutes of free active play. During
teacher directed active play, children are not only moving their bodies and having fun, but they are
learning many things. With the use of balls, tunnels, hoops, flags, balancing equipment, music, ribbons,
instruments, wheeled toys, play equipment, open areas and just our bodies, children practice balance,
auditory cue discrimination, body control, cooperative play, language development, imaginative play,
sequencing/patterning, literacy, mathematics, science, shapes, letters, numbers, gross motor skills and
many other social, emotional and educational skills. They also learn and practice basic physical skills
such as jumping, kicking, marching, throwing, catching, swinging, tumbling, hopping, skipping and
galloping. Please dress your child appropriately for play every day. This includes wearing socks every day
of the year and no slip on shoes or sandals. Hats, mittens, and snow pants are required for your child to
participate in outdoor play in the winter months.
Dakota County Public Health