Please enjoy this article written by Bridgitte at Natural Pod on the benefits of natural play.

The wonders of natural play

 More play and less structure. That may seem like an oxymoron for many of you. After all, aren’t you as teachers here to help children succeed? Parents turn to you to help set up the foundations for children to become tomorrow’s doctors, lawyers, politicians, scientists and corporate leaders. So one would think that offering less playtime and more focus on academic learning would be the recipe for success. Not quite so.

 Welcome to the world of natural play, where children enjoy unstructured and uninhibited playtime using items found in nature and basic, open-ended toys. Natural play is pure bliss for children and is ideal for their brain development (and yes, it can lay better foundations for success in their adult years).

 As an educator, you are in an exciting position.You have the ability to incorporate simple items from nature into your classrooms, and see your students thrive. Watch children’s imagination, creativity and sensory exploration come alive while playing with nature’s toys like pebbles, pinecones, twigs, leaves, and the list of items is wonderfully long.

 Allow your children to explore and play with these simple objects from nature and you will see that this form of play sparks curiosity, imagination and builds a sense of wonder, which is a substantial motivator for life-long learning. Natural play also allows children to think symbolically, learn cooperative skills, and teaches self regulation.

 Children get to be creative and active at the same time. They love to build teepees out of twigs, fortresses out of wooden blocks, or study the colours and shapes in rocks.  This hands-on exploration helps with the development of understanding and inventiveness. As you know, children live through their senses, and with natural play, they discover with all their senses, which is a source of sensory stimulation, an essential element for healthy development of an interior life.

 Connecting to the natural world helps increase self-esteem and acts as a buffer to stresses in life. Studies have shown that children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) have a reduction in symptoms when exposed to natural play. 

 The most wondrous thing to note is the exploration and invitation to natural play starts with you and all it takes is very simple objects. Bring in that stack of twigs from outside and see the creative play that takes place in your classroom today!

~Bridgitte Alomes

Natural Pod

CEO of Play/Co-founder 

bridgitte@naturalpod.com

Registration is open for UVIC’s 3rd annual Kindergarten Institute. Please share this exciting learning opportunity with others.

 ”Kindergarten Today: Voice and Choice for Children”

Informed by recent experiences with implementing full day kindergarten, join UVIC for a richly practical program of sessions designed to highlight the key characteristics of play-based, inquiry-framed, literacies—rich, experiential curricula that honour the integrity of childhood and the creativity of teachers. Documentation as a tool for deepening learning and building community will be a recurring theme. Great speakers, lively interactive sessions and opportunities for frank exploration of problems and dilemmas.

www.uvcs.uvic.ca/Course/Kindergarten-Today/EDKI100

This course can be taken in either a credit (1.5 unit) or non-credit format.

The institute is offered by the Faculty of Education in partnership with the Division of Continuing Studies and the Centre for Early Childhood Research and Policy.

For further information, contact:
Continuing Studies in Education
University of Victoria
Phone: 250-721-8944
Email: brandh@uvic.ca

On March 27^th the new Canadian Physical Activity and Sedentary Behaviour Guidelines for the Early Years  was released by the Canadian Society for Exercise Physiology and ParticipACTION, with support from with support from the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario Research Institute, Healthy Active Living and Obesity Research Group.

For healthy growth and development, the Canadian Physical Activity Guidelines for the Early Years recommend:

• Children under the age of one should be physically active several times daily – particularly through interactive, floor-based play. This should include supervised indoor and outdoor experiences such as tummy time, reaching and grasping, pushing and pulling, and crawling.
• Children aged one to four should accumulate at least 180 minutes of physical activity at any intensity spread throughout the day. This should include a variety of activities in different environments where children can develop movement skills, such as climbing stairs, playing outside and exploring the environment, brisk walking, running or dancing.
• By age five, children should progress towards at least 60 minutes of energetic play, such as hopping, skipping and bike riding.

Read the joint press release from the Canadian Society of Exercise Physiology (CSEP) and ParticipACTION.

Rough play is inherent among all young animals – including children. This type of play comes by many names – rough-housing, big body play, horseplay, play fighting. Children start this play early in infancy by waving their arms and legs, crawling over things, and increase the intensity of this type of play as they age, pushing each other down, chasing, fleeing, and wrestling are a few examples.

Educators and parents often mistake this play style for real fighting or inappropriate behaviour. In appropriate rough play, children’s faces are relaxed, their muscle tone is not tense, and they are usually smiling and laughing. Positive rough play is considered a universal children’s activity, is adaptive, evolutionarily useful, and linked to normal brain development. There is a known connection between the development of movement and the development of cognition.

Learning that occurs during rough play:

• Language, both verbal and nonverbal
• Social development such as learning to negotiate, take turns, wait, compromise
• Make and follow rules
• Cause and effect
• Empathy
• Optimum physical development

Educators can do three specific things to provide for and support rough play with minimizing the potential for injury:

• Prepare both the indoor and outdoor environment (e.g.. A designated area)
• Develop and implement policies and rules for rough play (e.g. No hitting, pinching, stop when you are told)
• Supervise rough play so intervention can occur when appropriate

 In Practice:

Big body play does not need to be limited to just outside or gym time. We can encourage children to engage in big body play even within a traditionally immobile setting such as circle time as seen in the example below:

Turning Finger Plays into Big Body Play – Five Little Pumpkins

Five little pumpkins sitting on a gate

(Children squat bouncing up and down)

The first one said, “oh, my! It’s getting late

(Children jump up from squat and jump up and down)

The second one said, “There is a chill in the air”

(Children shiver and shake vigorously)

The third one said, “But I don’t care”

(Children throw arms out to the side and sway back and forth)

The fourth one said, “I’m ready for some fun!”

(Children dance around in circles)

The fifth one said, “Let’s run and run and run!”

(Children run around)

“Woooo” went the wind and out went the lights

(Children drop to the ground)

And the five little pumpkins rolled out of sight

(Children roll around on the floor)

Sources:

Big Body Play – Why boisterous, Vigorous, and Very Physical Play Is Essential to Children’s Development and Learning, Frances M. Carlson

We came across an excellent resource developed by the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario called “Primarily Play: Engaging Primary Learners through Play.”  The resource includes varied and practical information for teachers about the important role play has in the primary classroom. We know of a number of districts in BC where primary teachers are using the document to engage with and stimulate discussion about learning based play. 

 Chapters include:

• Why children need to play in school
• Connections between play and curriculum
• Planning and decision-making related to play, and
• Bringing play from practice into policy.

The resource includes:

• Research from the field about the benefits of play-based learning
• Scenarios to illustrate important ideas
• Questions to think about practice, and
• Personal reflection about the children you teach each day.

Whether you’re a new or an experienced teacher, Primarily Play: Engaging Primary Learners through Play  will stimulate discussions to support play-based learning in the 21^st century.

Cost: $20.00 plus tax and shipping.

To order the Primarily Play document visit: http://www.etfo.ca/shopETFO/Documents/PrimarilyPlay.pdf  or call toll free at 1-888-838-3836.

A common challenge that comes to those working with children often surrounds equipment. Concerns around types of equipment, accessibility, appropriateness, cost and use of the “stuff” in classrooms is shared across the sector. We came across this article in the high-tech Wired Magazine on the Top Five Toys. The article is a tad tongue-in-cheek, yet has an air of truth which we found refreshing. You may find this provides a fun way to start a conversation on children’s play.

What are your top toys?

Many schools are currently hosting Ready, Set, Learn events for families around the province.

Have you already hosted an event?

How did it go? What types of activities did you provide? We’d love to hear about your event. Post your comments here, and/or send your photos to our Ready, Set, Learn Coordinator at: Melanie.Bradford@gov.bc.ca

Planning an event?

The booklet “Ready, Set, Learn: Helping your preschooler get ready for school” offers parents helpful tips and easy and fun learning activities for three-year-olds. The parent booklet is available on the Ministry of Education website.

Web: http://www.bced.gov.bc.ca/early_learning/rsl/

We are in the midst of educational transformation in B.C.. What better way to dive into the years of complex research and ideology behind it than a cartoon!

The Born to Learn illustrated video series are  fun, yet informative, and help us easily discover more about the research related to how humans learn.

Here is a look at the first video in the series.

Born to Learn from Born to Learn on Vimeo.

We are pleased to announce a new feature on our blog. We have enabled the comment feature so you can now leave comments! Please refer to our Moderation Policy  and the Privacy Statement  prior to leaving a comment.

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The Affiliation of Multicultural Societies and Services Agencies of BC (AMSSA) created a new resource to document ‘promising practices’ of early childhood programs for immigrant and refugees. This resource offers unique approaches for those working with immigrant and refugee children to create culturally safe and welcoming programs.  The resource indentifies practices for creating supportive environments, relationships and culturally responsive programs.

This resource is of benefit to early childhood educators and managers working in child care, family resource programs and/or StrongStart BC programs, as well as others serving immigrant/refugee families and young children.

http://boards.amssa.org/ancie/members/viewPost/post_id:416