Natural Play And Nature Play

“The developed world deprives children of a basic and inalienable right: unstructured outdoor play. Children today have substantially less access to nature, less free range, and less time for independent play than previous generations had.” This quote is from the research based paper titled, “Where the Wild Things Should Be: Healing Nature Deficit Disorder through the Schoolyard." This article touches many aspects of how children now a days need more exposure to nature like it was on the older days. Currently, there are many playgrounds around the United States and even more the world. This article is trying to bring awareness to the problem of if playgrounds do not have enough nature or is too safe then it is

The theme of this reflective account is engaging children in participation, and enabling children to have a voice. The Every child matters documentation (Department for Education 2010) focuses on the important role of the adult in enabling children to make decisions and encouraging them to participate and make a positive contribution. As a result through this account, how children in my setting are encouraged to participate in the outdoor play space will be explored. A small piece of research was carried out which will be reflected on, as will theory relating to children making a positive contribution in the early years.

Practitioners who show good practice understand the early years educators theories and take inspiration from them. They also identify the benefits of outdoor play and promote it at their settings for children’s learning and development.

“Outdoor education is in line with current thinking, but also echo’s the philosophy of the McMillan sisters. Practitioners today should be aware of the opportunities afforded by outdoor provision, not only in terms of developing children’s learning, but also with positive benefits to their health” (Cooper 2004)

When exploring water and gardens, it is important to apply the EYLF to children’s learning and development. Outcome two, children are connected with and contribute to their world allows children to develop a sense of belonging to groups and communities, respond to diversity with respect, be aware of fairness, and show respect for the environment (DEEWR, 2009). By developing these outcomes children begin to broaden their understanding of the world they live in. This can be explored by providing children with opportunities to explore the environment through gardening or water play and promote positive responses

We know that a rich and varied environment supports children’s learning and development. It gives them the confidence to explore and learn in secure and safe, yet challenging, indoor and outdoor spaces.

Being outdoors has a positive impact on children's sense of well-being and helps all aspects of children's development.

The use of outdoor settings for learning, enables children to achieve further progression in their ‘mastery’ of Mathematics skills.

"Daily outdoor play is an important part of children’s learning and is required by the EYFS. It offers many new learning experiences, and boosts mental and physical wellbeing and confidence. Free-flow play adds

The terms “play”, “learn” and “teach” are commonly used in the early childhood sector. This essay attempts to define and interconnect these terms to produce a holistic understanding of how play can be used as a medium to help children learn.

Finding ways to keep students interested in schoolwork and increasing their cognitive abilities has been a constant struggle for teachers. It is common knowledge that when a child’s interest wanes, it becomes harder for them to learn and retain knowledge on the subject. One tool that can be used to combat this issue would be the use of an outdoor classroom or learning outdoors. During the late 60’s and 70’s outdoor education was highly recommended in curriculum guidelines to enrich educational experiences, but later declined in the 80’s (Eaton, 1998). Today, outdoor education only plays a small role in children’s education experiences, despite the benefits it could provide. Teachers should take advantage of outdoor education to increase children’s cognitive skills, provide physical and emotional benefits, and decrease the bio phobia many children seemed to have developed.

Play is inevitable when it comes to children. Given the right environment and objects (of any sort), children will find a way to play. Jarvis, et al state that educators must offer inspiring, playful environments which include hands-on activities and interesting resources. This will empower children to educate themselves (2009). Along the same line, Wood and Attfield consider that an environment inclusive of varied resources will provide room for growth in their learning and will support the child’s “creativity, inventiveness and originally” (2005, p.231).

In addition to play promoting pleasure as well as physical activity, play forms the holistic growth in children’s development, or to put it in another way using Brown (2003) acronym, acknowledged as ‘SPICE’; play represents the ‘social interaction’; ‘physical activity’; ‘intellectual stimulation’; creative achievement and emotional stability, (with the addition of “compound flexibility”) in a child’s development. Compound flexibility is the idea that a child’s psychological development occurs using the relationship between his/her environment with the adaptability of the child himself. Thus the flexibility of surroundings and his/her adaptableness can provide children the means to explore; experiment and investigate (Brown, 2003, pp. 53-4). On the contrary, the absence of social interaction and physical activity through the means of play can inhibit children’s overall development and without the consistency of play children suffer a “chronic lack of sensory interaction with the world, [which leads to] a form of sensory deprivation” (Hughes, 2001, p.217 in Lester and Maudsley 2006).

The Council for Learning Outside the Classroom (2017) believes that outdoor learning is a powerful tool that is proven to raise achievement, improve social, emotional and personal development and contributes to the health and well-being of children and young people. There is no doubt that children will learn better if they are given space to discover and explore for themselves. The Northern Ireland Curriculum: Primary (2007, p.44) states that outdoor learning has an important role in the emotional development of children where they are “free to run, shout and play exuberantly.” Children can learn about important

This is a critical analysis of ‘Toward a model of early childhood environmental education: foregrounding, developing and connecting knowledge through Play Based Learning” by Amy Mackezie and Susan Edwards (2013). Researchers want to introduce an innovative learning model in the field of education to help teachers and educator incorporate environmental education while playing in preschool (Cutter & Edwards, 2013). This article engages pedagogical accents allied with environmental education as well as early year’s childhood education (Creswell, 2012). Based on the qualitative research of Amy and Susan, they studied earlier researches and identified new ways to educate young children about environment through play . The main purpose of the study done by Amy and Susan was to develop a thinking model to help early learning educator connect environmental learning in early childhood education.