The Significance of Play and Outdoor Activities in Early Learning

This essay discusses effective early learning practices, emphasizing the importance of creating a conducive environment and engaging activities for young children. It highlights the significance of exploration, play, active learning, and critical thinking in the early years. The essay also explores the benefits of learning through play, focusing on the development of cognitive and social skills, self-confidence, and emotional maturity. Furthermore, it examines how outdoor learning complements indoor activities by providing opportunities for children to develop practical skills and creativity, while underscoring the teacher's role in facilitating and observing these learning experiences. Desklib provides access to similar solved assignments and study tools for students.

Running head: EARLY YEARS
Early years
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EARLY YEARS
Effective early learning
Clark, (2016) says that effective early learning involves creating a conducive environment and
activities that assist the children at a younger age to learn effectively. The process involves
exploring the environment and playing, learning actively, thinking and coming up with new
ideas. When the child shows the above three characteristics, it is evident that the people leading
the learning process are achieving their objective. The people who drive the process of active
learning mainly use predictions to confirm whether children are learning or not. For instance, a
child who is eighteen months old may not be able to think critically and make his or her own
decisions effectively according to Bredekamp, (2014). There are various tools that the teachers
can implement to asset the children in active early learning. One of the devices is the use of cards
to bring out different pictures that assist the child in education. The cardboards mainly remind
children what they are supposed to do every time. From there they can master the schedule of
learning.
Learning through play
Learning through play is a mechanism that the prediction uses to show the way children observe
and learn to create some sense in what they are seeing. The technique gives the children the
opportunity to come up with various skills such as cognitive and social skills. Besides that, it
assists the children to have self-confidence and mature emotionally. There are multiple ways that
people use to help children during learning through play in reference to Britto, Proulx,
Yousafzai, Matthews, Vaivada & MacMillan, (2017). The first approach is allowing the children
to communicate with other people, make them active, will enable them to visit mentally and
physically challenged people. After viewing such environments, the child can start developing
critical thinking ability. However, while implementing learning through play, the situation

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EARLY YEARS
should be enjoyable to the child, the children should act voluntarily without an external push
from any individual. Another thing is that, when setting the play, it must have the goals it wants
to achieve at the end, and the participants should be active throughout according to Follari,
(2015).
Enhancing learning in the outdoor area.
Children learn best when they play and explore the new environment. The outdoor learning aims
at putting in practice what the children have gained in class in reference to Connors, (2016). The
children have the opportunity to develop hard skills to compensate the soft skills from the indoor
activities. In administering outdoor learning, the practitioners make use of various tools. The
first main tool is the use of tires that the children use to play around in a particular environment.
The children can also make use of wooden boxes to create various houses according to Black,
Walker, Fernald, Andersen, DiGirolamo & Devercelli, (2017). The teachers would allow the
children to make their things and watch them from a distance. Different children have different
capabilities, and from what they make in the field, the teachers can identify the creativity in the
child and how the child can think critically. However, the teachers should not interrupt the
outdoor activity, to allow the children to learn more skills. If the teachers want to provide snacks,
they should do it at the end of the session. It can take up to one and a half hours to stage an
engaging outdoor activity according to Bilton & Crook, (2016).

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EARLY YEARS
References
Bilton, H., & Crook, A. (2016). Exploring Outdoors Ages 3–11: A guide for schools. Routledge.
Black, M. M., Walker, S. P., Fernald, L. C., Andersen, C. T., DiGirolamo, A. M., Lu, C., ... &
Devercelli, A. E. (2017). Early childhood development coming of age: science through
the life course. The Lancet, 389(10064), 77-90.
Bredekamp, S. (2014). Effective practices in early childhood education: Building a foundation.
Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.
Britto, P. R., Lye, S. J., Proulx, K., Yousafzai, A. K., Matthews, S. G., Vaivada, T., ... &
MacMillan, H. (2017). Nurturing care: promoting early childhood development. The
Lancet, 389(10064), 91-102.
Clark, R. M. (2016). Exploring the contexts for early learning: Challenging the school readiness
agenda. Routledge.
Connors, M. C. (2016). Creating cultures of learning: A theoretical model of effective early care
and education policy. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 36, 32-45.
Follari, L. (2015). Foundations and best practices in early childhood education: History,
theories, and approaches to learning. Pearson Higher Education AU.
Sluckin, W. (2017). Imprinting and early learning. Routledge.