Daily outdoor play is a wonderfully enjoyable part of our program here at Little Tot’s Early Childhood Care & Education.  Throughout all seasons of the year, children have the opportunity to experience many exciting adventures outdoors.  We long for the days of sun, but daily rejoice in the opportunity to run and jump, scream and holler, and to just be free. 

Generations ago, children spent the majority of time outdoors.  Children’s programming was limited, and parents expected children to play with the neighborhood children, they did not worry as we do today, nor did they regularly schedule activities for their child to be involved in. 

Here at Little Tot’s we definitely cherish these outdoor play experiences and make this time a key part of our day.  Weather permitting all children, even babies are taken outside, this is a school policy, implemented for the health and well-being of all children enrolled.

Below is an excerpt from the book A Place for Play:

“Most adults recall the joy of childhood time spent outdoors.  Whether you played in the backyard, explored the local wild lands, participated in periodic hiking and camping adventures, maintained a garden, or just became engrossed in a wooded window view from a classroom, you are likely to have fond childhood memories of nature and the outdoors.  You also may have an intuitive sense that nature is good for us – in particular, that the natural environment is beneficial to children.”

“Recognizing the recent demise of spontaneous outdoor activity, Richard Louv heralds the need for a Leave No Child Inside movement … Using our vanished frontier as a marker of American’s relationship to nature, his last Child in Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder sets the stage for understanding how children themselves have become our last frontier.  Their bodies, minds, and spirits are now contested ground in our changing global order.  Choices made by planning and school boards, parks and corporations, families and legislators today will determine how the next generation envisions the future and reshapes the earth.”

“Exposure to natural settings has been associated with enhanced cognitive function and diminished stress… Brain studies demonstrate that play is a vehicle for increasing neural structures, and a means by which all children practice the skills they will need in later life.” 

Goodenough, E. N.  (2008).  A Place for Play.  United States:  National Institute for Play.

The Value of School Recess and Outdoor Play

Source: National Association for the Education of Young Children

The delights of the outdoors are among the deepest, most passionate joys of childhood, however increasing demands on parents working outside of the home have resulted in growing numbers of children with less time to play under adult supervision in their neighborhoods or in their yards. Instead, they are spending more time behind locked doors watching television, playing video and computer games, and as recent studies have shown, growing obese. Other children often have afternoon schedules full of structured activities, including music, dance instruction, drama classes, and tennis lessons.

Compounding the dilemma is a trend among many public school districts throughout the United States to eliminate recess in elementary schools. Those doing away with outdoor activity claim that it is a waste of time better spent on academics, that playground injuries promote lawsuits, that children are at an increased risk of coming in contact with threatening strangers while outdoors, and that there is a shortage of teachers and volunteers willing to supervise play activities.

While these concerns are valid, school recess is often the only time during the work week that children are able to be carefree--a time when their bodies and voices are not under tight control.

It is a widely held view that unstructured physical play is a developmentally appropriate outlet for reducing stress in children’s lives, and research shows that physical activity improves children’s attentiveness and decreases restlessness. Following are a few reasons why school administrators should carefully consider the benefits of outdoor play before eliminating recess from their curriculum.

1. Play is an active form of learning that unites the mind, body, and spirit. Until at least the age of nine, children’s learning occurs best when the whole self is involved.
2. Play reduces the tension that often comes with having to achieve or needing to learn. In play, adults do not interfere and children relax.
3. Children express and work out emotional aspects of everyday experiences through unstructured play.
4. Children permitted to play freely with peers develop skills for seeing things through another person’s point of view--cooperating, helping, sharing, and solving problems.
5. The development of children’s perceptual abilities may suffer when so much of their experience is through television, computers, books, work-sheets, and media that require only two senses. The senses of smell, touch, and taste, and the sense of motion through space are powerful modes of learning.
6. Children who are less restricted in their access to the outdoors gain competence in moving through the larger world. Developmentally, they should gain the ability to navigate their immediate environs (in safety) and lay the foundation for the courage that will enable them eventually to lead their own lives.

Our society has become increasingly complex, but there remains a need for every child to feel the sun and wind on his cheek and engage in self-paced play. Children’s attempts to make their way across monkey bars, negotiate the hopscotch course, play jacks, or toss a football require intricate behaviors of planning, balance, and strength--traits we want to encourage in children. Ignoring the developmental functions of unstructured outdoor play denies children the opportunity to expand their imaginations beyond the constraints of the classroom.

Additional Resources

Rivkin, M.S. 1995. The Great Outdoors: Restoring Children’s Right to Play Outside. Washington, DC: NAEYC. #108/$8

Rogers, C.S. and Sawyers, J.K. 1988. Play in the Lives of Children. Washington, DC. NAEYC. #301/$6

Reprinted with the permission of the National Association for the Education of Young Children.  © 2008 NAEYC