Written by: Gan Chee Kiam (Founder of Gym N Care, Diploma in Journalism)

Playing and Learning

Child play is one of the most important activities during the growth and development of children. They move every necessary part of their body to achieve all the physical demands during playing. Their minds concentrate happily so that their muscles all over the body coordinate as whole to carry out the task.

The process of learning during child play is unique to every child. Children learn according to their unique perceptions determined by their own physical conditions, sensory sensitivities, mental maturities, logical abilities, and many more indescribable feelings. Their abilities developed as a whole. Because of this wholeness in grouping the possibilities to solve problems, they become creative in finding solutions to overcome obstacles they are facing throughout the playing. They become energetic to explore all the goodness within themselves in these happy moments.

As puts by Dr Andre Dehant in his article ‘Playing and Learning’ that “Playing assists the development of the different senses, the motor capabilities and the personality.”

Balls and Rody

Historical evidence shows that ball games have been existing from as early as 3,000 years ago. We can imagine how  round object attracted ancient human by observing how a cat is fascinated by a ball of knitting tread. It is quite common in our daily life to witness young parents and their children are playing with balls. The interactions among them during these happy hours encourage the sense of independence to the children while remain intimate from a distance. The size, colour, texture, and the weight of a ball play an important role to children in their sensory integration developments.

In terms of size, Gymnic provides consumers with balls ranging from 4 cm in diameter all the way up to 180 cm that allows the user to exercise any part of the body or the whole body. In terms of colour, it provides Italian style of colour scheme, bright and positive including red, yellow, blue, green, magenta, purple, even transparent and so on. In terms of texture, Gymnic has varieties of ball skin including smooth with cold touch, smooth with warm touch, soft and pliable, soft and bouncy, hard but bouncy, hard and spiky, as well as soft and rather spiky and many more. In terms of weight, it can be as light as about 20 g all the way up to about 9 kg. Even inflatable items not in round shape made by Gymnic are as bouncy as round balls. They are normally in oval, peanut or animal shapes.

Rody and friends are the bouncy inflatables for children to ride upon. They sit and bounce on these inflatables of either oval or animal shapes. To keep themselves balance during the bounce, they must sit upright. Sitting upright with bouncing movements train their core and supportive fine motor muscles. When these muscles are strong, they will keep the body upright easily.

In view of the popular use of smartphones and computers, workouts that keep the users in neutral posture has become more important than ever. The beauty of these exercise toys lies in the moment while the children enjoy playing alongside uncousciously performing the workout.

Educaton and playing

Education through playing is not an easy path for parents, especially when it is commonly believed that playing will interrupt their kids' learning. Factors of physical exercise, sensory stimulation, mental training, logical sorting, and all other feelings within the children interact together when education as whole is concerned. They learn not only logical sorting as in maths, not only sensory stimulation as in drawing, they in fact learn how to incorperate all of these factors in a way unique to each individual to solve problems. 

Playing without interruption is the best gift to children, for “every child has the right to rest and leisure, to engage in play and recreational activities appropriate to the age of the child and to participate freely in cultural life and the arts.” (Article 31, UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.)

With this basic philosophy in mind, we provide effective exercise toys to all parents who care.