What is body geography?
The short answer–body geography is knowing where the different parts of your body are.
When a baby is born, they have no orientation as to where they are in space or in relation to themselves. As their senses develop, especially the Four Foundational Senses, the baby discovers their hands–and that those hands belong to them, that they can control them. They go on to discover their feet and eventually they know the whole map of themselves. Then they’re ready to discover the rest of the world!
Why is it important?
Nancy Blanning, my friend and mentor, describes it this way:
[T]he sense of self-movement/proprioception gives the child her first “map” through the experience of body geography. Which are my shoulders, my elbows, my hands? What is their order in my body? Do I know them so well that I do not need to see where hands and arms are to put on my jacket? Can I sense how hard to pull to zip it up?
From “Educating the Movement Body” by Nancy Blanning–on page 20 of this Gateways Journal
While self-movement gives us a geography of
the body in relation to itself, balance gives us our
orientation to the earth.
So you can see how important it is to know where are body is in relation to itself–to know which pieces are where. If we haven’t internalized this map of ourselves, we can’t learn to move through space–or much of anything else.
When babies are little, they need lots of time and a safe space to explore their own body. We can’t teach them these things.
2 body geography songs
But once they’ve learned the basics, we can play with body geography. Here are 2 songs to share with your kids.
You probably know the first–Head, shoulders, knees and toes (and the words are below in case you need a refresher). It’s good for littles from around 3 or so and older.
The second song, one I learned from my daughter, Gabi, when she was in first grade, is for kids a little older–maybe 5 and up. But you can try it with littler ones if you want. When I did it with littler ones, they just got confused–but everyone is different! Anyhow, it’s called “Tony Chestnut” And the words are below, too.
Here are the time stamps, in case you want to just listen to the songs:
0:00 Introduction
1:15 Head, shoulders, knees, and toes
2:20 Tony Chestnut
3:10 Conclusion
The words to the songs
I've got head, shoulders, knees, and toes, knees and toes. I've got head, shoulders, knees, and toes, knees and toes. I've got eyes and ears and mouth and nose, I've got head, shoulders, knees, and toes, knees and toes. Tony Chestnut knows I love you, Tony knows, Tony knows Tony Chestnut knows I love you, That's what Tony knows
[…] I took a trip down memory lane. I wrote a post for Soul Blossom Kids about body geography. (Which is knowing where your different body parts are, basically). But whenever I think of body […]