Understand The Importance Of Play For Children

Evaluate the key principles of play and their relevance to Forest SchoolThe Encyclopaedia of Children’s health (healthofchildren.com) defines play as" ...activities performed for self amusement that havebehavioural, social and psychomotor rewards. It is child directed, and the rewards come from within the individual child; it is enjoyable and spontaneous" At Forest School unstructured play can provide a sense offreedom in wilder spaces not normally found in day to day play. It can give participants a stronger sense of responsibility and self preservation. They give themselves permission to try things and if they don’t go according to plan they have learned and explored anyway. There is no-one there to judge them or tell them their ideas have failed or were wrong.

It is important that children are able to receive holistic care while in a play environment, both inside and outside. Some of the principles which would apply to both indoor and outdoor play include a child centred practice, ensuring the child 's welfare and safety, promoting a child 's rights, and enabling a child to reach their full potential.

Understanding the world • The way in which children find out about nature and the world around them. • How children find out about their local communities. • The way in which children develop their confidence when using ICT equipment. Expressive arts and design • The development of children‘s creativity and imagination through art , dance and music . • How children use play to develop these skills Personal , social and emotion development

Students in a classroom need to have a set time to be able to go outdoors. As a future teacher, I plan to incorporate nature inside and outside the classroom. For example; in the classroom one can accomplish the walls to have trees, and the ceiling as the sky, and the floor as the ground. There are many ways to include nature inside the classroom for students to be able to learn and to communicate. In the book, “Last Child in the Woods” talks about researches “demonstrating on children how they have the ability to selected where they want to play through natural settings” (Louv, 89).

As humans, all of us are entitled to human rights and children are entitled to their own rights. This comes in the form of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC, 1989) as world leaders recognised that people under the age of 18 might need special care and consideration. Under the CRC, the articles listed recognised the child’s rights to various issues such as the “inherent right to life” from Article 6.1 and the “right to freedom of expression” from Article 13.1. It even recognises the “right of the child to rest and leisure, to engage in play and recreational activities appropriate to the age of the child” as seen from Article 31.1. This signifies the importance of play in a child’s life. There are many theories that support play as a way for the child to develop socially, cognitively and emotionally.

However, Parents now days feel that playing outside would not be safe but, the essential elements of development mostly gain in rustic play (Burdette & Whitaker, 2005). Children then are more exposed inside the house using technology like gadgets since they are not permitted to go outside. Positive

This has affected the way they face challenges later on in life by not facing high heights and overcoming their fears. Parents worry more about park safety than ever caring how it could really effect their children moods growing up. Children falling on soft mats don't stop injuries at parks. The more of a change a child would take the chance to fall down can cause them still getting hurt. When the park has hard floor the more the change a child going try get over the jungle without falling down.

Play accompanies and encourages development while keeping the child interested and engaged (Thompson, Stanford,

It has been shown that play is very important to a childâ€TMs learning. Learning through play helps a child make positive contribution.

"Play is so critically important to all children in the development of their physical, social, mental, emotional and creative skills that

Playing outdoor has a multitude of benefits. It allows children to feel at one with the natural world. They can explore and use their imagination. It keeps them active and enhances their physical development. Playing outside enables children to feel free and this is something that cannot be replicated indoors.

Explain the process of managing risk and how it applies to Forest SchoolThere is increasing debate around the idea that children need to take more risk in their play. The prevalence of indoor, gadget based play and screen-time as downtime means children are spending less and less of their day “playing out”. Even if they do go out to play children are very rarely given a freedom to roam. In fact according to a recent study the distance a child is permitted to wander from their home has decreased by 90% in the past 30 years.1This has become such an issue that an all party parliamentary group on a fit and healthy childhood recently examined the problems and potential solutions and published their report “Play”. Among other conclusions were the statements that children should engage in ....

Children are not experiencing the outdoors the way they used to. It used to be that children would look out the window at the world when they went on road trips but now they are constantly absorbed by their electronic devices. The Last Child in the Wood by Richard Louv is making a very strong argument on this topic. Richard Louv is concerned with making sure children make the same connections about nature that many generations have made before them. In this piece Louv used rhetorical questioning to draw attention to his most crucial points.

Children are able to develop and practise motor skills and bodily movements through physical plays. During some cognitive games, such as board games and educational toys, children can improve their mental fitness and brain function. Play also provides opportunities for children to make friends, to negotiate with others, and to develop their communication skills. It helps extend language and improve children’s social ability. I believed that play is essential to children’s education that cannot be minimized and separated from learning.

1. INTRODUCTION A play where children create and act the roles are defined as dramatic play. It is when they play or act the roles out of reality and become someone or anything that different from themselves. Children that are growing up like to play dramatic play and roles and pretend be someone else like superheroes, doctor or anything that they like and dramatize the situations and also will did the action to play along with the roles that they played.