• The Importance of Outdoor Play •

At Discovery Trails Early Learning Academy we believe the outdoors is the very best place for preschoolers to practice and master emerging physical skills as they:

• Run, leap and jump
• Learn ball handling skills like throwing, catching and striking:
• Exercise resistance as they push, pull and carry

The outdoors helps children’s physical well-being while:

• Burning more calories

• Preventing obesity and heart disease

• Outdoor light stimulates the pineal gland that regulates the “biological clock” and is vital to the immune system

• Supporting happiness

Outdoor play contributes to learning by:

• Impacting cognitive and social development

• Promoting self-expression is supported by inventing games

• Encouraging autonomy, decision making, organizational skills

• Rehearsing communication skills and vocabulary

• Relating numbers as by keeping score and count

• Understanding social customs by playing together and cooperating

Learning to appreciate the outdoors as:

• Impacting cognitive and social development

• Promoting self-expression is supported by inventing games

• Encouraging autonomy, decision making, organizational skills

• Rehearsing communication skills and vocabulary

• Relating numbers as by keeping score and count

• Understanding social customs by playing together and cooperating

Preschoolers learn much about the outdoors through their senses like:

• Seeing: animals, birds, plants

• Hearing: wind blowing, birds singing, leaves crackling

• Smelling: trees, flowers, rain

• Touching: bark on the trees, sand, rocks, sticks

• Tasting: snow, raindrops, fresh air