Today usage of advance technology for indoor activities including high screen time taken place in daily lives of our children. Today we can see around us many kids are spending their most of the time on Mobiles, Television or Computers. Advance technology is good for knowledge and development but higher screen time for kids is having its drawbacks. Today’s technology provides platform of improvement and knowledge to its user, but overuse have its own drawbacks. Therefore outdoor activities and learning is important to be implemented in their daily routine which will help to our children for overall development.
The importance of outdoor learning for children’s development:
1. Physical Development and Health:
Outdoor learning helps in improving physical development of children. Outdoor activities help to learn activities, which not only develop their body but also help in their mental ability development. Children’s who spend their more time in outdoor activities such as running, climbing, jumping and hiking, all of this activities help children to build their physical health and develop their motor skills which lays a foundation for more physical and mental health during the child development.
Today many children face issues such as weight gain due to unhealthy lifestyle and higher screen time and lack of physical activities. Outdoor learning helps to encourage more physical movement and active play. During outdoor play exposure of natural light and fresh air help in producing melatonin and serotonin which supports better sleep and wellbeing. Outdoor activities in children help to improve their immunity, reduce allergies, illness and improve mind and body strength.
2. Mental Ability development and critical thinking:
Outdoor play and environment helps children to be curious about their surroundings and make them skillful. Activities help kids to learn problem solving skills and analytical skills and critical thinking abilities.
During outdoor activities, kids observe plant or animals and other elements in their surroundings, they learn to identify, and categories them which improve their mental ability to understand their surroundings. Outdoor activities also helps children to learn problem solving skills such as cross the road or water body, find shelter, safeguard them from any threat, encourage their thinking and creativity.
Outdoor learning offers subject as biology, geography and environmental elements which create connect and understand the environmental concepts in real world. Such as observing growing tree, studying seasonal changes, understand people behaviors and know the emotions.
3. Social and Emotional Development:
Outdoor learning is an excellent way to develop social and emotional skills in children. During outdoor play children learn to collaborate with others, solve problems together and learn the social interaction. Group games, team building, physical exercises and team projects required communication, negotiation, co-operation all this things contributes in improving interpersonal skills in kids.
Outdoor play helps children to learn emotions and empathy to people, living creatures and environment around us. Children learn to care for trees, they learn responsibility, and they learn patience and nurture their skills from the environment around them. The outdoor play experience helps kids to create deep connections with nature and improve sense towards environment with responsibility.
Natural world effects on children, outdoor activities reduce stress and promote emotional wellbeing by providing a break from the routine study and reduce pressure. Outdoor play time reduce the anxiety or depression symptoms in children and improve their mood and emotional strength.
4. Fostering a connection to nature:
Urbanized world disconnected children from nature, But, outdoor play helps to provide a nature experience to children and make them more aware about their surroundings. Nature connection helps kids to be more aware and responsible toward the environment. It also encourages kids to develop a sense of care and motivate them to protect the nature in future.
Upon interacting with nature children learn to appreciate the diverse ecosystem and know the value of independence of all living things. Such as, observing bees during pollinating flowers, or how butterflies collect their food by going from one flower to another.
5. Improved Focus, Attention, and learning outcomes:
Children generally struggle to concentrate in school, under the environment of distraction and pressure. Outdoor learning has been shown improved focus and attention by providing children more engaging environment. Nature with its natural view, sound, texture draws children attention which lacks in indoor play setting.
Research also shows that outdoor play experience impacts on children academic performance. As per studies, it is found that children who spend more time in outdoor play have more mental ability and problem-solving ability. It experience learning where children learn to explore their surroundings which is a best outcome of developing the personality of kids for their future life.
6. Fostering independence and confidence:
Outdoor playing environment provide opportunity to children to take risk, make decision and engage themselves in self-learning. It help them to learn how to approach a challenging situation, learn encouragement and step out of their comfort zone and be responsible for their actions. It also helps to nurture self-confidence and independence which are very important personality development quality.
The outdoor environment is unpredictable, and children adapt the change impacts by outdoor play. Children learn to inner strength and, problem solving skills and help them to develop and grow their mindset of self-ability and fight with challenges.
Ways to add Outdoor Learning into Children’s routine:
There are many benefits of outdoor learning for children’s, it is important to adopt it in children’s daily routines. Following are few ways to introduce outdoor learning in their practical life:
1. Nature walks and exploration:
It is one of the easy ways to add outdoor learning routine, through nature walk and exploration. Simple activities such as walk in park, hiking the mountain, visit to nearby nature environment which provide endless opportunities for children to learn new things. Encourage children to observe and inquire about the plants, animals and other natural features. Carrying note book during such nature walks and making notes helps children to note down their findings, nurture their curiosity and feeling of discovering anything new which they don’t know.
You can also organize themed walks based on specific topics such as plant identification, animal habitats and seasonal changes which help children to improve their knowledge of nature.
2. Creating an outdoor classroom:
Designing outdoor learning space that shows the traditional classroom similarity but actually represents a natural environment. This outdoor space may include a picnic table, whiteboard, natural shades such as tree shades, Outdoor classroom provide engaging and promote learning environment for children. Children can engage themselves in reading, writing, drawing, or group discussion and enjoys the outdoor.
3. Gardening Projects
Gardening is an excellent way to collaborate learning with outdoor activities. Children can participate in tree plantation which helps them to be more curious about trees, flowers, vegetables and herbs. Observing growth of plants encourage child to not only learn something interesting but it also make them aware about the environment. Sustainable gardening helps children to learn patience, hard work, and given them information about biology and ecological importance of nature and plants in kids.
4. Outdoor Art and Creativity:
Outdoor environment are rich source of inspiration for creative projects. Set up an outdoor art station where children can use natural materials, such as leaves, sticks, stones and flowers to create art work. It allows children to learn the creativity, express themselves freely and use the available natural things to do creativity.
5. Field Trips and Outdoor Visits
A Field trip to local parks, zoo or gardens and nature reserves helps children to interact with wildlife and nature. This helps them to understand the natural ecosystem of our nature earth. Many schools offers the practical learning experience including environment conservation, tree plantation, wildlife protection and programs so our children can understand the nature of our earth clearly and responsibly.
6. Physical Activities and Games
Outdoor game and activities not only provide fun but also encourage physical and mental development of our kids. Organizing treasure hunts, nature obstacle courses, team-building games, relay races, tug-of-war are best group games where kids can learn team co-ordination. Physical activities promotes physical fitness, teamwork and social interaction and connects children’s with earth’s nature.
7. Science Experiments in Nature
Outdoor learning provides the perfect setting for hands-on science experiments. Collecting soil samples, measuring rainfall, observing insects and animals, studying plant growth, studying seasonal changes helps children to know the scientific concepts easily and with interactive ways and improve their knowldge.
8. Imaginative Play and Storytelling
The outdoor activities are perfect to improve the imagination and creativity in children’s. Children’s can learn being more creative and also create their own stories and think about various scenarios with the help of natural and outdoor learnings. Outdoor activities helps to improve the mental development of our kids including improving storytelling, communication and emotionally connecting with the world around them.
9. Challenge-Based Learning
Introduce challenges based outdoor plays, encourage our children to think critically and work together. For example, you could set up a “nature treasure hunt” or challenge children to build a shelter using wastage and natural materials. Such types of challenges helps in promoting problem-solving skill, teamwork and a feeling of achievement.
Outdoor learning offers many valuable benefits to our children, from enhancing their physical health and mental development to fostering emotional strength and social mixing and communication skills. By engaging with the nature around us, children develop a deeper self understanding, other people and the environment. adopting outdoor learning into children’s routine doesn’t require any major resources, as it can be as simple as a walk in the park or as involved as creating an outdoor classroom. Outdoor learning is an investment in a child’s overall growth and future wellbeing. By making outdoor learning a routine part of a child’s life, this will also help them to develop the skills, knowledge and mindset which need to cope up with a rapidly changing world and need of natural awareness.
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You may also like to read our few other articles. https://gymbag4u.com/habits-to-foster-mental-strength-in-children/ and https://gymbag4u.com/nurturing-health-and-well-being-the-impact-of-sports-culture-on-children-in-the-usa/ and https://gymbag4u.com/parenting-tips-for-teenagers-raising-a-responsible-teen/