Take a deep breath……..close your eyes……….. and think back to your best childhood memories from the four seasons. If we had to guess, we would imagine they look something like this:
Jumping in piles of leaves and pumpkin picking in the Fall.
Building snowmen and going sledding in the Winter.
Digging for worms and wiggling your toes in the mud during Spring.
Running through sprinkler, climbing trees, digging in sand in the Summer.
Were we right?
Now try it again, only this time think about what you see children (yours and others) doing during each of those seasons. We don’t know about you, but we see less of outdoors and more video games, watching television, and sitting at a computer.
As the speed of our day-to-day lives starts to move faster and faster, so do the lives of our children.
Too often we see parents, who are exhausted and over extended, sitting their young ones down in front of a screen for hours on end. Even in Walt Disney World, a place designed for families to share experiences and create memories, parents were seen handing old iPods to fussy children in strollers rather than engaging them in their surroundings.
Outdoor play not only moves us away from this “screen epidemic”, it is also incredibly important to your child’s growth and development.
Outdoor play encourages physical activity!
According to First Lady Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move! campaign, “ nearly one in three children in America are overweight or obese”- a problem that may lead to heart disease, diabetes, or a number of other health risks. Outdoor, open spaces encourage running, jumping, climbing, and many more physical activities that are beneficial to adults and children alike!
Being outside promotes creativity!
The moment they step outside, your children are surrounded with colors, shapes, and textures. What a perfect place to inspire a young artist or builder without the fear of ruining your new carpeting! Throw on some old jeans and a ratty t-shirt and get to work building with mud and drawing on sidewalks. Draw on the sidewalk with chalk or water color paint! We promise your children (and you) will love this form of self-expression!
The outdoors is incredibly stimulating!
There is so much learning that can go on the moment you step outside. Young children learn through their senses so, the simple act of smelling a flower, watching a butterfly flap its wings, or hearing the leaves rustle in the breeze help shape their minds as they begin to understand the world around them.
Here at the Friedberg JCC Early Childhood Centers we will be joining the rest of our nation to celebrate two very important “holidays” this month:
Earth Day on April 22nd. What better way to celebrate Earth Day than getting outside? Join us at the Henry Kaufman campgrounds for an open house. Meet former NY Yankee Ron Blomberg and enjoy some fun Earth Day craft projects. Check out our website for more information!
Screen Free Week from April 30th-May 6th. Throughout the next three weeks, we will be encouraging every one of our families to move away from their screens and into the great outdoors! We’ll be posting our favorite ways to do this on our Facebook page starting Monday!
Looking for more information on the importance of getting outdoors? Check out this great article Take It Outside! from Early Childhood News!
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