The book
The App
Gymnastics offers a multitude of skills, both physical skills for a healthy lifestyle and personal skills. Skills include coordination, strength development, flexibility, self-confidence, discipline, performance and many more. And encouraging a healthy and active childhood leads them more likely to carry that through into their adulthood.
Here, in my home town we are lucky to have a world class gymnastic center. Over the past couple of years, it has hosted international teams, including Canada, Australia, Japan, Scotland and Great Britain. The Club was also heavily involved in London 2012.
And this year I will be looking to get Jacob some sessions to see if he would like to take it up, I think he will like it, as he already wants to do Parkour, thus the best place to start for a 5-year-old I believe would be at the gymnastic center.
So when we were offered to review the Head Over Heels About Gymnastics Book and App I thought it was the perfect opportunity for the two youngest to learn the basics at home.
The book and the App begin with example warm-ups and stretches, moving on to cover posture and all basic gymnastics shapes. More complex skills are then covered in the next sections; jumps, skills, rolls and leaps. Bringing all of these skills together, the book then demonstrates how combined, these skills can be used to create routines. In the back of the books, there are judging sheets enabling the children to track and record their progress, so they can see how well they are doing and where they need to improve. The advantage that the App offers are the in-app bite-sized video tutorials, where the children have access to clear audible instruction on how to ensure the position is carried out correctly. The book stands like a tent that helps the child refer to it more effectively and enables them to complete the moves more easily.
Whether you choose to buy the book or the App (or both) either would be perfect for anyone who needs ideas to get their children more active, or for any child that is considering taking up gymnastics; it will also compliment children who already take gymnastic classes - all done in the comfort of your own home.
