Munchee Moves
Hello and welcome to the Munchee Moves We are so excited that you and your child are going to join us for movement based fun and learning. At Myo Munchee we understand that parents are doing what they can to ensure their child has the best opportunity to grow and develop to their optimal potential and we want to make the task of chewing a Munchee as easy as possible. We understand that in this modern world it can be hard to fit everything into a day. We are often balancing work and home life. It can be challenging to feel that we have covered all the essentials each day let alone doing extras such as “Chewing a Munchee”. We have developed Munchee Moves to make the process of getting your child chewing easy and fun and hugely beneficial. If you can spend 5 minutes each day with your child doing the Munchee Moves you will have covered family time fun, essential movements for both your body and their body as well as exercising the muscles of the lips face and jaws and practising the all-important nose breathing. The benefits of doing all these things at once will have some
bonus side effects in areas such as behaviour and sleep. Each of the movements that have been chosen are specific for developmental milestones of baby and toddler development and will help to improve the overall postural strength of each child (as well as parents). The modern world that we live in does not really give as much opportunity to move as would be ideal for optimal physical growth and development. We may already be aware that movement and exercise is essential to grow and develop strong and functional bodieswhat may be new to us is that we need to move and exercise our jaws to get the best growth as well. (In an ideal world we should have jaw bones large enough to fit all our adult teeth!) The Munchee Moves are a great way to get children moving more and have been specifically developed to cover the early development childhood milestones.
We use animal movements to stimulate and activate the muscles that support optimal body posture and strength. Fish, Frog, Bunny, Bear and Human will ensure that all the essential movements for humans get at least a 5-minute activation each day. We know that when we have good strong body posture, we are more likely to have good strong and balanced oral posture and function. We also know that when we have strong upright body posture our breathing patterns will be more functional as well. All of this gives each child the best opportunity to learn and grow to their optimal potential. So have fun and spend the 5 minutes together each day doing the Munchee Moves!! Dr Mary Bourke
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The Munchee Moves Handbook The creator of the Munchee Dr Kevin Bourke, spoke of the two C’s - Consistency and Commitment These are essential to Munchee compliance and motivation. From this we have developed the Munchee moves program to support families consistency and commitment for best Munchee outcomes. This program was developed as an adjunct for our Munchee users to assist daily use of the Munchee in a fun and functional way. The program follows forest animals on the journey down the stream and through the trees discovering their body movements and growing to be strong and competent Munchee users. Learning to nose breath, where their tongue should rest and how to swallow correctly are enabled through basic myofunctional exercises. Here we go! Altogether, it’s not just for your child it’s a family activity! Seeing what you can all do, the best part is seeing the different ages and how they can develop…
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The FISH Movement one is the FISH. We are going to start down on the floor with our arms by our sides, beginning to discover movement through rolling, twisting and bending. We are going to slowly discover our hands (or fins) and see what they can do and where they will take us. These ground movements are our foundational movements; the isolation of head movements is where it all began as a baby. We are taking it right back to primitive reflexes, floor/ tummy time and the first phases of rolling, ensuring our oral posture is correct from this first stage of life and so we rediscover our body movement in its most basic form. Steps: 1. Start on the ground, laying on the stomach with arms by sides. 2. Move around like a fish swimming down a stream. 3. Try to roll without using your arms or hands, slowly and controlled. 4. Lift your head and look around 5.During this your mouth should be closed. 6. You should be taking long deep breaths in through your nose and out through your nose. Try to fill your tummy and ribs like you are filling those big fish gills. Spend 2-3 minutes here exploring these movement and feeling like you are drifting down stream...
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The WIDE MOUTH FROG This sequence of movements is in preparation for Munchee use with basic orofacial myofunctional exercises and stretches. We will be focusing on increasing awareness of correct tongue rest position and finding their tongue resting ‘spot’. Through the next myofunctional oral movements we will create tongue strength and awareness with the ablility to isolate the tongue’s movements. Once we are able to isolate the tongue with strength and stability we will be able to navigate to and rest our tongue on the ‘spot’. The ‘spot’ is where our tongue should be always resting and particularly during swallowing. Once we have the tongue on the spot, we are going to take a ‘fly’ and learn how we should all be functionally swallowing. STEPS: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11.
We will start in a frog like position, knees out wide. Open your mouth wide and use your two hands to stretch out your cheeks wide. Breathing through your nose. Hold here; find your balance and stability in the core and pelvis. Find a sultana or something similar and place it on the tip of your tongue. Stretch your tongue out long, open your lips. Hold this position for 30 counts (building up to this if it’s a bit tricky!) Bring the sultana into your mouth and try and place it on your MAGIC spot. Hold the sultana there and try and jump around like a frog. Now time to chew, place the sultana onto your molars and chew, chew, chew. Lips closed! Chew, chew, chew. Now – BITE – SMILE - SWALLOW. Let’s try that again… chew, chew, chew, chew…. BITE – SMILE - SWALLOW.
Spend 2-3 minutes here exploring these movements and feeling like you are a big, wide mouth frog exploring the squishy riverbanks.
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The BUNNY We now understand how to breathe through our noses; quiet and steady so it’s time to munch. We will be introducing chewing and the correct use of the Munchee while maintaining balance and a centred posture as well as increasing and using some body flexibility. We will be learning how to hold our oral rest position while introducing head movement. This move brings in awareness of all senses; chewing and tasting a hard carrot, seeing into the forest, hearing what’s around, smelling and breathing through our noses and touching the ground strong and firmly. STEPS: 1. Push up from the frog position and sit up tall with knees together. 2. Place your hands on the ground with knees stretched and hips up high. 3. Try rocking back and forward between our hands and feet. 4. Rock back into a bunny-like squat position hands off the floor, with your body upright. 5. Look around with your “sniffing nose”, head up, sniffing and breathing through your nose. 6. Find your ‘carrot’ or your Munchee 7. Put in your carrot/ Munchee. Make sure the ‘v’ is to the top. Keep your lips closed. 8. Calmly breathe through your nose. Hold it there. 9. Let start’s chewing! Lips closed, small, delicate rabbit-like chews. 10. Let’s put it all together again! Move through this sequence for another 5 minutes. See what you can see and smell on the forest floor and up high in the trees.
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The BEAR We will be targeting our upper body coordination and strength. Working on holding ourselves up and being stable. We will be strengthening our chew while holding stable and strong like a bear. We will also be introducing some flexibility through the hips and legs and developing the skills of crossing our midline while holding correct oral rest position and with the necessary postural support. We will also be working on our heavy breathing which increases our awareness of breathing and strengthens the soft palate which supports our airway. STEPS 1. Put your Munchee in, ‘v’ to the top, lips closed. 2. Start on all fours, hands on the floor, toes on the floor knees long and hips high 3. Stretch and walk each arm and leg crossing them over midline, flexing our knees and hips, let’s try 5 each side. 4. Explore the room with your big bear walks. 5. Munchee in, lips closed, breathing through your nose. 6. Don’t forget to swallow and breathe 7. Growl like a bear; the growl is made in the back of our nose the way back, as the bear breathes in and out slowly. 8. Push backwards onto flat feet into a squat and squat up and down. 9. Let’s get chewing, like a bear chewing its “meal” with large chews. Lips closed! Let’s get moving; up and down “eat and chew, eat and chew”. GROWL!
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The HUMAN During this movement sequence we will commence full body movements while maintaining correct oral positions and use of our Munchee’s. We are going to start to control breathing, salvia, and rest tongue rest position with our Munchee in with greater aerobic demand. We are also going to learn the MUNCHEE SLUUURP! Steps: 1. Make sure you have your Munchee 2. From your bear squat rise into a full upright position. 3. Keep breathing through your nose quiet and steady, and your lips stay closed. 4. Watch for the Munchee letters. See if you can spell out Munchee with us 5. Let’s getting Munchee moving! See if you can spell your name or try some of the move the Munchee kids are doing. 6. Play here with your Munchee in for at least 5 minutes. 7. When you are done try the MUNCHEE SLURPP; while taking out your Munchee take a big SLURRP and make sure no salvia comes out with the Munchee.
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Magic spot/palatine spot explained... -It is 1-2 cm behind your front teeth -On the middle rugae (wrinkles behind upper front teeth) -Try saying ‘nnnn’ where your tongue goes for this sound is where your tongue should be sitting.
When the tongue rests in this proper position several other things are facilitated: -breathing, particularly nasal inhalation -proper swallowing -speech and the ability to articulate certain sounds -proper occlusion
BITE, SMILE, SWALLOW SEQUENCE This is as it sounds. In the Munchee Moves program we use a sultana to introduce this. This basic exercise starts us thinking about the correct swallowing positions and sequence. It promotes the lift of the tongue to the ’spot’ and palate during the swallow as well as reduced the ability for the tongue to push forward and out of the teeth during a swallow. 1. Place sultana on molars 2. Chew in a rotary motion. 3. Once chewed move it to the middle of the tongue 4. Then BITE teeth closed 5. Then SMILE showing your teeth 6. Keep lips open 7. Swallow This is a simple way for us to also check that a child is keeping their tongue in behind their teeth during a swallow. It takes practise!
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Munchee Moves additional resources Myo Munchees are available on our website www.myomunchee.com/buy For toddlers and young primary school children you can find additional information and support on our Oral Milestones Facebook group here Please follow us on instagram @munchee_movement If you have further questions or need support from our Customer Service team please get in touch via hello@myomunchee.com
Thank you for joining the Munchee Movement!
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