Important Developmental
Milestones
Group 4
Caleb Arthur, Crissy Bresson, Jason Hoehn, Laurie
Parent, Sarah Reef
Timeline of Developmental
Milestones for 8-11 Year Olds
Average Heights of 8-11 Year Olds
Males
Age 8 – Average Height (50”)
Age 9 – Average Height (52”)
Age 10 – Average Height (54”)
Age 11 – Average Height (56”)
Females
Age 8 – Average Height (50”)
Age 9 – Average Height (52”)
Age 10 – Average Height (55”)
Age 11 – Average Height (57”)
As you can see, females start gaining a slight height advantage around 10
years of age. In the below timeline, you can see that females tend to start
their growth spurts earlier than males.
Gross Motor Skills Improve
During the developmental stages of 8-11 year olds, improved balance,
strength, agility and flexibility support refinements in running,
jumping, hopping, and ball skills. Increased body size and muscle
at adolescence bring continued motor gains. Males and females
attain:
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Increased running speed
Increased vertical jump
Increased throwing and kicking accuracy, distance and speed
Continuous and more fluid skipping
Increased ability to use their entire body in batting a ball
Increased ability to dribble a basketball with a more continuous and
relaxed motion
Other Important Skills and Factors
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Children integrate previously acquired skills into more complex, dynamic systems of action. There
are sex differences in motor skills. Size and strength contribute to boys' superior athletic
performance in adolescence, physical growth cannot fully account for boys' childhood
advantage. Throughout this time period both boys and girls experience rapid growing of
hands,arms, feet and legs which may look disproportionate. Self-esteem can be gained and
lossed during this time period. Females tend to grow at a faster rate. They usually hit puberty
quicker than males do, which can sometimes lead to insecurity. Females not hitting puberty also
may face self-esteem issues. In both males and females – weight ranges have increased since
1990. Child obesity is a huge problem the world is facing with currently.
Childhood Obesity
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We believe an important aspect
during the developemental stages of
males and females from 8-11 years
of age is (child) obesity. Statistics
show that children have been
gaining more weight at a more rapid
pace than ever in history. We
believe a good way to instruct ways
to put a decline to childhood obesity
is to encourage good eating habits
and active play. Just as responsible
as the child - we believe parents
play an enormous role in the
development of body weight. We
need to stress parents not to take
their children to fast food all of the
time and to develop good eating
habits (fruits, vegetables, dairy,
etc.).
Ideas to Use in the Classroom
•
You can have a unit on the food pyramid and
one activity you could do is have them
create a food journal. The students can
track their healthy eating habits on paper at
home and school. Then they can graph to
see how many fruits, vegetables, etc. they
have had during that time period. Another
activity that can be done is to create healthy
snacks in the classroom. Students can work
in groups to develop different ideas of what
a healthy snack can be. We could get the
ingredients needs to create the healthy
snacks and students could then taste test
different snacks that they could make at
home. Finally, for physical health we would
get together with the physical education
teacher and collaborate on ways students
can exercise in fun and different ways. We
could take time out of the day to do these
things as a class and they could then do
them at home. These are different things
that could be incorporated in the classroom
to help with physical development and/or
health.
Ideas to Use in the Classroom
•
In a classroom, teachers can use creative thinking to promote physical development
and health within their lessons. An example of this is something I had a teacher do
for her math class. Jason had an idea from his own personal school days – we would
play "problem ball". In this, the teacher would start by throwing a NERF ball out to
the class. The person who caught the ball was then asked a question. If they got it
right, their team got a point, and then they would have to throw it to someone on the
other team. If you did not catch it, then you lost your turn, and the other team got a
question. This was definitely an activity that promoted physical movement as well as
problem solving in a class you would not typically find that.
Ideas to Use in the Classroom
•
Another activity would be to
discuss nutrition and the food
pyramid. Kids at this age need
more iron and calcium in their
diets and are also exposed to too
much fast food. We could have
our future classes write a
cookbook of healthy, low cost
recipes tying in language arts and
math. We could also have a
discussion about being active and
come up with a list of different
ways to exercise. We would also
discuss how many hours of TV
the students watch and make a
bar graph. Then maybe make a
class goal to get more exercise
and watch less TV.
Conclusion
• In conclusion, we need to
make a goal to incorporate
these ideas into our future
classrooms. If we don’t
make an effort to get our
future students more active
and more knowledgeable to
the child obesity problem: it
will just keep getting worse.
We should keep our
students physically active
and have them practice
good eating habits.