Importance and Purpose of Outdoor Play

There are two fundamental reasons why outdoor play is critical for young children...

First, many of the developmental tasks that children must achieve—exploring, risk-taking, fine and gross motor development and the absorption of vast amounts of basic knowledge—can be most effectively learned through outdoor play.

Second, our culture is taking outdoor play away from young children through excessive TV and computer use, unsafe neighborhoods, busy and tired parents, educational accountability, elimination of school recess, and academic standards that push more and more developmentally inappropriate academics into our early childhood programs, thus taking time away from play.

Outdoor play is one of the things that characterize childhood.

... the best preparation for adult-hood is to have a full and enjoyable childhood. Thus childhood must include outdoor play. Children need opportunities to explore, experiment, manipulate, reconfigure, expand, influence, change, marvel, discover, practice, dam up, push their lim-its, yell, sing, and create. Some of our favorite childhood memories are outdoor activities. Read more about the benefits of outdoor play»

Excerpted from Play, Development and Early Education by Johnson, Christie and Wardle