Sophie M Phillips

Children require opportunities to develop motor skills. (Getty Images /Unsplash)

What are motor skills? Evidence‑based ways to support children’s fine and gross motor development

Habitually practising different motor skills can help ensure young children have the key competencies and abilities to move and use their bodies in ways that prepare them to lead healthy lives.
Child-care settings play an influential role in early childhood development. A two-year-old child plays outside a child-care centre in Montréal in April 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chris Young

Kids in child care need healthy movement — and guidelines can improve their health

Best practice guidelines for healthy movement in child-care settings serve as a critical step to create more active and health-promoting child-care centres.
There are many barriers to promoting physical activity in child-care settings. Children play in a sandbox at a daycare in Vancouver, in 2019. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck

Kids’ physical activity in child care is essential — how an online course equips educators to lead the way

Research shows an online course increases early childhood educators’ knowledge, confidence and intentions to incorporate physical activity during the child-care day.
New research shows that young children with disabilities have markedly low levels of physical activity, which means they are missing out on the numerous benefits of engaging in physical activity. (Shutterstock)

Young children with disabilities are excluded from national physical activity monitoring. That needs to change.

Given the physical, social and economic prioritization of physical activity in our society, why are young children with disabilities missed from physical activity monitoring and reporting?

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