Benefits of Outdoor Time
Spending an excessive amount time in front of computer screen or television may be unhealthy to a child’s development. Children benefit from outdoor time in a variety of ways. As parents, you may not recognize the valuable effect of outdoor time on your child’s learning potential.
Physical Exercise
Outdoor time gives children a chance to master a variety of fine and large motor skills. Being indoors does not promote the value of physical activity on a child’s health. At a playground, children love to run, jump, leap, climb and explore the various types of equipment. Achieving exercise during play can help decrease child obesity and other health related issues. At the same time, the simple process of going for a walk can inspire natural curiosity about the natural world.
Educational
Spending as little as a 15-minute timeframe in the outdoors can turn into an educational experience. Children love to learn about the world around them. For example, pointing out a plant or flower can inspire gardening, horticultural, ecology, and environmental activities. The curious learning will be able to continue building on the one simple outdoor activity.
Communication Skills
Children will increase communication skills. As children explore an outdoor area, they communicate with adults and other children in the group. Sharing outdoor time with peers is a great way to expand communication skills by inventing imaginary play, developing leadership roles or simply talking about the environment. Along with communicating with others, the experience can increase vocabulary by learning the correct names of items found outdoors.
Social Development
Being outdoors encourages children to interact with each other. When indoors children often remain in specific areas of interest, the result may include many children not interacting with peers. Being outdoors, the restrictive space is not an issue. Children are given a chance to run, play and join activities with others. Increasing valuable social interaction helps children develop leadership skills, learn social rules and engage activities.
Inspires Creativity
Outdoor time inspires creativity. A child can imagine all sorts of worlds, scenarios, and made-up games by being outdoors. The natural environment becomes a place to stimulate young imaginations. The process can help inspire later activities and educational pursuits.
Learning and participating in an outdoor environment is beneficial to your child’s social, cognitive, and physical development. As a parent or guardian, if you would like more information on how outdoor time can increase your child’s potential, please contact the Bay Area Montessori Schools. The instructors and caring staff members will be more than happy to answer all your questions.
