In your response, evaluate what your peer had to say about the strategies they would implement outdoor play in their work with children. What can they add to their activities or strategies to foster more group participation? Ask your classmate questions that may cause them to re-evaluate or add components to their initial responses. 5 sentences or more.
Three positive aspects of outdoor play is physical and cognitive development and better overall health. The solution to the fitness and obesity dilemma for most children is not complicated. Ensure that children (and their parents), both at home and at school, receive a balanced diet of nutritious food and engage in regular, sustained physical activity (Frost, J., Wortham, S., & Reifel, S. (2011). When playing outdoors children engage in activities that require large and small muscle development. Running, climbing, jumping, hand eye coordination, and then observation’s they make while playing increases both cognitive and physical development. When children and adults partake in these activities it increases your health benefits due to the exercise, peace and pleasure of the outdoors and fresh air. These things all help keep us healthy.
It is recommended that children get at least 60 minutes of outdoor or physical playtime each day. If I have the children all day, such as in a daycare setting the children would get 2 thirty minutes opportunities to go outside or to the gym. In a half day program I would implement 1 thirty minute or longer if the children are really enjoying themselves. An activity I would engage the children in is going outside with our “discovery box”. In the discovery box I have bug catchers, magnifying glass, feathers on strings, hand shovels, flashlights, and journals with pens. Since I live in a very rural area and most of the centers I work at are in very rural areas there is lots of land, woods, and grassy areas for the children to run, jump, climb on rocks, and observe. While we are on our walk we encourage the children to look under things, observe the clouds, wind, and shadows. The children can draw in their journals and make observations of bugs, birds, or whatever else we may encounter when outside. We always have 3 staff so we would make sure to keep the children safe and away from anything that may cause harm, such as poison ivy, snakes, etc.
I would implement outdoor activities because I believe all children need to get out and move. It helps them to settle down later for activities indoors and relieve all their pent up energy. While outdoors I would encourage interactions between children, talk about what they are doing, push them if needed on the swings. Before going outdoors I would go over rules, safety issues, and I would also give a 5 minute warning when it’s time to come indoors for anyone who has difficulty stopping their play. Extensive health benefits—prevention of obesity, heart disease, high blood pressure, and diabetes—all implicated in related diseases and shortened life spans (Frost, J., Wortham, S., & Reifel, S. (2011). The solution to the fitness and obesity dilemma for most children is not complicated. Ensure that children (and their parents), both at home and at school, receive a balanced diet of nutritious food and engage in regular, sustained physical activity (Frost, J., Wortham, S., & Reifel, S. (2011). As an educator my understanding of the benefits of physical activity and how to get children involved in this type of activity will not only help the children, but also gives me that chance to observe children and make notes of goals they need to work on. I will also be able to share this information with their parents and give information on how they can increase these types of activities at home.
References
Frost, J., Wortham, S., & Reifel, S. (2011). Play and child development. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merrill/Prentice-Hall.
