School Holiday Change Up
These days it is becoming the norm for kids to play on tablets and phones more than playing outdoors or using their hands to create.
While there most definitely are benefits of counting, vocabulary and memory challenge game-based learning Apps for tablets and phones, there does need to be balance and variety in the forms of learning and development we introduce to our kids.
Outdoor play matters
Child’s play is not just all fun and games says the University of Missouri-Kansas City’s (UMKC) School of Education’s Edgar and Rheta Berkley, the physical and mental stimulation that comes with play does have a place in your child’s development.
The act of play is a crucial component in the growth and development of the brain, body and intellect. “Studies of how young people learn have proven, that children, especially, acquire knowledge experientially, through play, experimentation, exploration and discovery.”
For example, when children move over, under, through, beside, and near objects and others, the child better grasps the meaning of these prepositions and geometry concepts. When children are given the opportunity to physically demonstrate action words as stomp, pounce, stalk, or slither, or descriptive words such as smooth, strong, gentle, or enormous, word comprehension is immediate and long lasting. The words are used and learned in context and children have a much greater understanding of these than children who are just presented with the words and definitions.
Sensopathic play
Our hands can help us develop thoughts and ideas, through embodied learning. Embodied learning can be defined as the learning technique which combines the mind and body to enhance the learning experience.
Maria Montessori, the physician and educator who is known for the Montessori system which focuses largely on practical experiences in a prepared environment to help nurture a child’s intellect, as well as their social and psychological skills and abilities says: “Movement, or physical activity, is thus an essential factor in intellectual growth, which depends upon the impressions received from outside. Through movement we come in contact with external reality, and it is through these contacts that we eventually acquire even abstract ideas.”
This is supported by professor of psychology Sian Beilock, who says the way we use our hands even affects our brain in developmental stages; “using their hands can often help children process certain ideas and even respond quicker within a learning environment.” She encourages parents to encourage their children to regularly use the biggest sensory system in their body: their sense of touch by playing with things such as plush toys and dolls, finger paints and play dough, or enhance the sensory experience for them by simply drawing on their back during bath time.
So, this school holiday exchange tablet and TV time for creation and cardiovascular time for your kids.
Do expect more stains, more laundry and more cleaning up, but remember it’s all in the name of learning!
