<strong>How Gross Motor Play Promotes Development</strong>

Outdoor play is essential for children’s health and well being. The sense of peace and pleasure children experience when they take in fresh air, feel the warmth of the sun on their backs, and watch a butterfly land gently on a flower is immeasurable. What is very evident is how much children enjoy running, jumping, climbing, and playing outdoors. The time children spend outdoors every day is just as important to their learning as the time they spend in the classroom. For teachers, the outdoors offers many ways to enrich the curriculum and support children’s development and learning.

<strong>Social/emotional development</strong>

Children experience a sense of accomplishment and growing competence when they spend time outdoors every day engaged in purposeful activities. You can see the sense of pride a child feels when she can keep a swing going on her own, climb to new heights, throw and catch a ball, and complete an obstacle course. Social skills grow as children share equipment such as tricycles and shovels, work together to build a tunnel in the sandbox, and follow safety rules.

<strong>Physical development</strong>

Many reports suggest that the number of children ho are overweight is increasing steadily. One factor contributing to the problem is that children do not get the large muscle activity essential for their healthy development. Part of the problem is that in many places it is not safe for children to play outdoors and children spend too much time watching TV. Thus, it’s even more important to make the most of outdoor time while children are at school. Children develop their gross motor skills as they run, leap, hop, jump, swing, slide, and climb. These activities allow children to take risks and try out new skills. Children also use their fine motor skills outdoors to weed a garden, collect bugs, and pour sand through a funnel.

<strong>Cognitive development</strong>

The outdoors is a natural laboratory for scientific explorations as children observe and explore nature firsthand. They find and study bugs and butterflies, plant seeds and watch vegetables grow, observe leaves change color, taste snow, touch the bark of a tree, hear crickets, and smell the air after a rain shower. They count the seeds they plant and the number of petals on a flower; measure how tall a sunflower grows and calculate how long it takes for a flower to appear; note patterns on the bodies of caterpillars and butterflies; and solve problems, for instance, how to make water or sand run through a plastic rain gutter.