"Gymnastic" education

[gck21]

I have been reading The Liberal Arts Tradition (Clark & Jain) and have been thinking through their idea that early education should be primarily composed of "gymnastic" (sports, but also training the body and developing coordination) and "musical" (stories, poetry, myths, and music) education. (I'm using quotes because gymnastic and music aren't being used in their most common modern form).  

Homeschoolers in general tend to be pretty good at the "musical" side of things, in my experience at least. There is certainly a lot written for and about those types of subjects. But I was really intrigued by their discussion of physical education and its importance. I think I agree, but I can't quite figure out the practice part for our home school. I think a school (with lots of kids, a coach, and dedicated PE times) has advantages in some ways. My kids have tons of free time, but I don't see them naturally choosing that time to run or work on ball skills (students become like their teacher--eek). They do run around the backyard/bike/scooter around plenty, but I don't think that is what the authors are referring to? I think they are envisioning "gymnastic" education as a more conscious training to do things that are physically challenging. When I have recently tried to incorporate exercise into our morning school time, it was really hard to get everyone back inside to do any sort of focused work, and my older ones were grumpy because they just wanted to play AND it was now close to lunchtime and I still wanted to do math with them. We do some organized sports but aren't a competitive sport family, so that is more hanging out with friends time than physical education.

I am trying to think of things other than the global pandemic and cratering economy these days, so I was wondering if anyone else was reading this book or had ideas for home-based physical education for young children?

[Jean in Newcastle]

There is an old book which I have packed away but it was similar to this one:  https://www.amazon.com/Home-School-Family-Fitness-Curriculum/dp/1578262747

I didn't do everything in the book but I did choose lessons a couple of times a month in addition to our family sports (gymnastics, running and martial arts in our case).  When we did kickball we had neighbors (including adults ) come over and ask if they could play too. 

[wathe]

We've intentionally put ours in both weekly swim lessons  and weekly rec gymnastics ( both Sept-June, starting at age about 3, and still going with it at ages 10 and 12).  We didn't offer a choice - but the kids like them both well enough and we've had no push back.  We chose those physical activities because they are foundation sports that develop whole body awareness (and swimming is also a safety issue in my mind).  I think it has been very good for their physical development.  Each kid also chooses a rec level ball sport that they play for one "season" (works out to about 3 months) each year - so far they've tried soccer and volleyball.  This is definitely something I've had to outsource.