Holibods was started in Swansea South Wales in October 2005 by two Early Years Teachers.

From their shared belief in the importance of high quality, child centred play opportunities & their passion for nurturing happy, healthy children, Holibods was born.

They recognised the need for increasing the awareness of the importance of movement and its benefits to whole child development and the need to increase physical activity and exercise throughout the early years of a child’s development.

They combined their ideas with their practical experience, training and research to come up with the Holibods programme.

All of the Holibods sessions are planned in accordance with Birth to Three Matters, Desirable Learning Outcomes & the Foundation Phase Curriculum.

The importance of active physical play

Babies are born helpless and must grow and develop to the point that they can control their muscles and do things for themselves. At birth infants can’t even hold their own heads up, but through play they will master this skill and more. Babies and children use play to work with all of their muscles, which means that play helps them develop gross motor skills (controlling their large muscles) and fine motor skills (controlling the smaller muscles of their hands and feet) as well as general coordination and balance.

For babies and children play is hard work. What may seem like fun, cute or even silly activities to adults are really the ways in which babies and children learn about their world. Through play, babies and children explore their surroundings, understand their place in the world, develop physical, cognitive and emotional skills and learn social cues to practice their social skills.

It’s important for your child to be able to practise their physical skills: run, climb, jump, swing, push, pull, roll and generally leap about. It is only by using their whole bodies to their physical limits that children can learn to control and manage them. The more practice your child gets at this stage, the more agile, well co-ordinated and safe she or he will be as a preschool child. Furthermore, using energy in physical play is relaxation from the stress of new thinking and careful hand-control.

What Holibods offers:

Holibods™ offers active play sessions that stimulates the minds and bodies of babies & children under 5 through movement and play and nurtures connections between child and carer. Classes for babies, toddlers & pre-schoolers.