FRANKTON — Nicklaus Bennett stepped into a ring Tuesday and counted off 10 jumping jacks. He had just finished an obstacle course set up on the stage at Frankton Elementary School. Instructional assistant Kelli Rainey helped the 4-year old listen to his heart with a stethoscope after finishing.

“What’s it sound like now?” Rainey asked him.

“It’s faster!” he said excitedly.

Bennett was one of 10 children in the morning early childhood development program that navigated the course this week and last. Another 10 students, ages 3 to 5, in an afternoon class also participated in the physical activity that combines learning of shapes, colors, numbers and letters with large- and small-movement dexterity skills that young children need in order to be ready for kindergarten.

Nannette Rastetter, early childhood teacher, said she has a theme for each week, and this course fit into the study of physical fitness. Students first learned to recognize physical activity by looking at pictures; next, they learned that such activity can cause changes in the body, such as faster heartbeat and harder breathing. This teaches children concepts like “fast,” “slow,” “softer,” “harder,” “forward,” “backward” and more.

“While they are going through the course, they are doing physical activity and learning the academic part of it, too,” Rastetter said. “It challenges the children — and the assistants, they are a big help to me.”

Each child started the course by listening to his or her heart at rest. Then the students had to learn to hop, standing on a shape and naming the next shape as they hopped to it. Running in place in a circle, they had to count backward from 10 before going to the next station.

Once there, they had to sit on a toy and spin five times. Next they stepped on circles, but this time had to know the color to move to the next circle on the floor.

“Then they walk on the balance beam on the floor,” Rastetter said. “Each child has a different set of goals. Some need help keeping their balance; others can bend down and pick up a letter that we’ve learned this year.”

A girl, Elizabeth Mosbaugh, 5, picked up a letter.

“K!” she shouted. At the end of the balance beam, she lay down on a blue dolly and pushed herself along a tape that zig-zagged across the floor. She shouted out if she was going to the right and shouted “left” when she turned left.

“This helps get the kids ready for kindergarten,” Rastetter said.

They have to know their shapes, colors, numbers, directions and the significance of letters and how they make words, she said. Each child is at a different stage of development, she added, and it’s the philosophy of the class that children learn through hands-on experiences. They do this by working with the teacher, individually, with assistance and in direct activities. The focus is broader than the one exercise. It includes cognitive, language, social communication, emotional and self-help.

Mosbaugh leapt up from the wheeled dolly and ran to a long green tube called The Worm. On her hands and knees, she crawled through the tube, then ran to the last circle, where she did her jumping jacks, this time counting forward.

“One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine,” she said quickly, then ran to listen to her heart. But then, she turned and jumped back into the circle again to finish what she forgot.