Home / Curriculum / Is Your Child Spending Enough Time Outdoors?
Especially with the influx of computer and video games, children are spending less time than ever before outside. Even if you shoo them outside for a few hours a day, they still might not be getting enough time in nature to stimulate their inquisitive side. Here are a few reasons why spending time outdoors is essential for your child – and why you might want to consider chucking the TV altogether.
Curiosity
The children who do best in school are those who are naturally curious about the way things work. In any subject, a child doesn’t succeed until he takes an interest in why it’s this way instead of that way – which includes everything from why the area of a triangle is one half the base times the height to why Shakespeare is considered the most brilliant playwright of all time.
When your child plays games or watches TV, they’re in a passive state. They follow the rules of video games because that’s how the game is played – they never have to question why or find out the answers. The same goes for TV; they don’t have to discover for themselves how the story ends, or what happens next. That lack of curiosity means they never develop the inquisitiveness that will help them thrive in learning environments for the rest of their lives.
Outdoors, on the other hand, children constantly have to question why a beetle is a certain color, why leaves change, why the sky is blue. They get used to asking questions and finding out the answers, and they enjoy that process. When they start learning more involved processes in preschool, kindergarten, and beyond that curiosity serves them well.
Physical Development
One of the reasons the outdoors is a better place for your child to get physical activity than, say, the ball court at the YMCA is the diversity of the landscape. Different surfaces, everything from dirt to grass to asphalt, mean your child’s limbs develop more quickly because of the variation. Their muscles will be stronger and they’ll be healthier.
The outdoors is also far more engaging because of those qualities, offering something for every kind of child to be interested in. This means they’re more likely to continue to play, since they have so many different kinds of games to choose from, and that means they’ll become stronger and have more endurance.
If you’re looking for a great preschool or kindergarten class in West Chester, Pennsylvania that offers a wonderful emphasis on spending time outside, look no further than the Discovery School.
