Latest Teachers Article

Every month throughout the school year our teachers provide an informative and useful article for parents. Here you will find the latest published article.

Teachers Article December 2009

This article is excerpted from a column in the Northern Virginia Association for the Education of Young Children's Child's World.

 

I've been talking to parents recently about why children should play outside in the winter. It is a reasonable question. When the weather is chilly or windy and wet, why not just stay inside and curl up? For those of you who exercise daily, this thought will undoubtedly cross your mind but you remember that you will feel better if you just get up and get out---so out you go. You've probably got special clothes to wear when you run in the rain or bike to work in winter. If you can't stay comfortable, exercise is no fun.

Kids feel the same way. Outside they can shout and run and feel how strong they are by swinging from a bar. They exercise and feel better mentally and physically. As long as the children are properly dressed they will be comfortable outdoors. Some outerwear is so bulky the kids feel like little sausages --no one can move in clothes like that—if children can move freely, they will be active.

Outdoor play is just plain healthier than indoor play even in winter. Indoor surfaces and air in a classroom with the windows closed is much more likely to harbor germs than the outdoors. Germs and viruses cause illness in humans—not being cold or wet, no matter what your grandmother told you.

Sometimes you might notice that a child seems a little lost outdoors. Outdoor play makes different demands on children's social and imaginative play skills than classroom play. Indoors, childcare programs have toys and materials such as dressups, art materials and housekeeping supplies that suggest specific play themes. Spaces are more confined indoors and the children are more likely to interact with each other.

Playing outdoors can be challenging for preschoolers and for that reason it is particularly important. Outdoors children have to be able to pretend that a rock is a stove or a cliff or a cave. There is typically more space outdoors so children who want to play with others have to convince others to play with them.

Being in natural environments and having a role model who validates one's interest in water, plants and insects are key factors in becoming a person who cares about the environment. Author Mary Rivlin says, “Since so many factors in contemporary life combine to restrict children from the natural world, it is incumbent on school people and others who work with children to help them reconnect to the natural world---the sky, the wind, the rain, the trees and plants, the streams and ponds. The grounds of schools are particularly important places for this reconnection to begin because children spend so much time there…Education is better when it is not limited to classrooms and better when play undergirds it.”

The whole topic of how modern children need to be saved from nature-deficit disorder is discussed in the book Last Child in the Woods by Richard Louv. The school has purchased a copy of this book for you to borrow—look for it in Room 2, the 2's room.

So out we'll go at Annandale , to explore snow, ice, wind and the different phases of winter!