ABOVE: Kelly Denney guides her son, Henry Denney, to hit the ball with the bat at the Tiny Tots Sports Camp on Wednesday evening at Fairmont Elementary School. The Tiny Tots Sports Camp is a program coached by Deb Heinrich and offered through Community Education and Recreation. It is focused on athletic growth for children ages 3 to 5, with the help of their caregivers.

FAIRMONT — Strengthening a child’s motor skills is important and can be lasting if done with the support of their loved ones. Fairmont Community Education and Recreation (CER) takes children’s athletic enrichment to new heights with the Tiny Tots Sports Camp, which will improve athletic skills of all kinds and encourage active participation for children under the guidance of their guardians. The program is for children ages 3 to 5 and is held four days every spring and fall.

Deb Heinrich is the coach of Tiny Tots and has monitored the program for approximately eight years. After taking her grandson to a similar children’s sports camp out of town, she was inspired to bring the program to Fairmont and include several more activities than the one she attended. This year, the Tiny Tots program has more than 13 activities to try, including basketball, baseball, bowling, tennis, hurdles, obstacle courses, beach ball toss, scooter racing, hula hoops, soccer and more. Families will take individual turns at each ‘activity station’ and rotate to the next following a music signal from Heinrich. The diversity of available activities allows children to grow in the ones they enjoy while trying something new.

“The purpose of the program is to develop movement coordination, so the children can ‘understand’ the sports,” Heinrich stated. “You see their confidence and comfortability [in the activities] shine at each session. They know what’s going on.”

Jumping and obstacle courses are the two new activities added to the program. The program strives to focus especially on strengthening mobility and movement confidence, a skill that will greatly benefit children as they grow.

“The children learn to use the left and right sides of their bodies, and small and large motor skills. They’re having fun with their family. To some of them, they may feel like their older siblings, who may already be in [extracurricular] sports. It’s a unique experience to work and learn together as a family,” Heinrich said.

Heinrich noted that many of the children enrolled in Tiny Tots mirror demonstrations from their guardians, encouraging them to learn more while spending quality time and building lasting memories with their loved ones.

“It’s fun for parents, too, to work with their kids,” Heinrich said. “It’s good to teach something like this at a young age.”

Additionally, Tiny Tots benefits the children psychologically, encouraging the use of both their left and right sides of their brains and bodies simultaneously, and learning to alternate between both sides to develop necessary motor skills, and make decisions that will allow them to become athletically successful in their chosen activities.

“The right and left sides of the brain develop in different ways. As a physical education teacher, it’s important to me that a child is confident with something like this,” Heinrich expressed.

Heinrich agreed that the Tiny Tots program can also help with extracurricular exploration. By trying more than 13 unique activities, children and parents alike can discover which sports or activities they fit best with or like the most, which may determine what extracurriculars children will excel in, should they choose to pursue school activities later on. While improving on their movement and talents, Heinrich prizes the fact that participants are having fun at each session

“It’s a great beginning activity for kids to understand how fun movement and activities are with their family,” Heinrich said.

Tiny Tots sports camp program will open registration again this fall. For additional information regarding the athletic camp and other enrichment opportunities for young children of the community, contact CER at (507) 235-3141 or visit the CER webstore at www.fairmont.k12.mn.us/o/cer.