Press Room

Best Practices – The Outdoor Play Experience
by Barbara Crossley and Beverlie Dietze

Best Practices in Early Childhood Education Play Experience: The Outdoor Play Experience (ISBN: 0-9696808-2-9) has been reprinted with permission from a booklet developed by Loyalist College through support from the Social Development Partnerships Program of Human Resources Development Canada. Best practices were documented through consultation with child care professionals, educators in early education, professors at colleges and physicians and research involving focus groups, workshops, conferences and discussions with individuals and groups.

Best practices emerge from documented child development principles and through action research. These practices model knowledge of the development of the child and the influence of environments on developmental processes. Best practices are inclusive of social, emotional, cognitive, physical, aesthetic, cultural, moral and language developmental domains.

Community and family partnerships and locally appropriate curricula provide the framework for best practices. This facilitates the design of curricula, which offers choices and variety, while building on the developmental and learning needs of children.

Best practices are modes of action that address the child's emerging needs and interests, the individual, group and cultural appropriateness of children's experiences in a prepared environment, and opportunities for experiences to be child-centred, child-initiated and facilitator-framed.

Indicators of Best Practices for Outdoor Play Experience

1. Attitude
Weather Conditions
Children need outdoor experiences each day, in all types of weather.
Respect
Facilitator shows children respect by offering choice of materials and opportunity to participate in outdoor physical activities.
Facilitators encourage children to develop positive attitudes about themselves and the outdoors.
Empowerment
Facilitators encourage children to participate in the decision making process that determines outdoor play activities.
Planned outdoor experiences provide equal access for girls and boys to participate in play experiences and there is a variety of activities that are gender-neutral.
Outdoor programming is based on the interests of the children rather than the facilitator's interests or preferences.
Facilitators create a climate that supports freedom, flexibility, psychological safety, and encouragement toward indoor and outdoor play experiences.

2. Health and Safety
Ratio
.Maintain ratio of staff to children as governed by provincial regulations.
Playground Design
.The design of an outdoor play space ensures maximum safety of the children.
Programming
.Children have opportunities to engage in a variety of activities involving risk-taking.
The duration of the outdoor play experience is fluid.
There is a balance of planning and spontaneous serendipity experiences.
Safety
.The playground equipment and materials are checked daily to ensure they are in good repair.
Children's clothing is appropriately maintained and fastened.
Health
M onitor children's body temperature.
Ensure drinking water is available to all children.
Choose outdoor time so that it is not at the maximum UV rays.

3. Program Planning
Time Management and Program Flow
Facilitators respect children s need for access to equipment and activities that support them in using their time effectively. There are programming techniques used to support children while they wait for turns or are eliminated from a game.
The outdoor play experiences provide children with large blocks of time so that they may engage in complex, integrated and in-depth exploration of play options.
Sense of Curiosity
Materials and equipment support children in their need to engage in exploration, time and experiences that offer challenge, variety and a sense of wonder.
Children have opportunities to engage in age appropriate activities that support them in gaining an understanding of movement concepts such as body awareness, spatial relationships, and competence in gross motor skills.
Children are encouraged to explore movement concepts with other curricula areas including art, music, and dramatic experiences.
Children are encouraged to participate in new learning opportunities, issues and experiences that lead them to effective problem solving techniques.
Developmentally Appropriate Practices
The equipment, materials and experiences offered consider the child's abilities, interests, culture, race and progression of skills from simple to more complex in task.
The outdoor programming segment has a daily schedule that provides predictability and security to the children.
Partnerships between parents, children and community is evidenced by participation in the outdoor program.
Outdoor programming offers children developmentally appropriate experiences with a balance of skills, concepts, games, rhythms and dance experiences that support the interests of individual and groups of children.
The Facilitator
Facilitators provide opportunities for children to engage in questioning, integrating and applying knowledge from indoor experiences to the outdoor domain.

4. The Environment
Materials and Equipment
There is a variety of materials and equipment that offer loose parts and are open-ended, thus offering numerous opportunities for creation of support materials for children.
Space
The space provides children with areas for individual and group play, spontaneous play, large vehicle usage, dramatic play, construction, places to pause and open areas for movement.
The outdoor play time is peaceful and predictable the majority of the time.
There is space that offers children shelter from the weather elements without reducing the outdoor play time.
There is a variety of ground spaces and terrain.

5. Curriculum Support
Facilitator
Facilitators offer children a variety of materials, textures and experiences that lead them to engage in solitary and group play.
There are opportunities provided for children to engage in solitary and group play.
Materials
There are materials that are interchangeable from the indoors to outdoors and vice versa.
There are sufficient materials available for the number of children in the play area.

6. The Role of Facilitator
Communication
Facilitators engage in interaction with the children so that they acquire a sense of the needs of individual children.
There is a balance of interaction and guidance between the facilitator and children through the adult-child involvement.
Facilitators provide opportunities for children to engage in questioning integrating and applying knowledge from indoor experiences to the outdoor domain.
Education
Facilitators offer parents up-to-date information on the relationship of outdoor play to development and to healthy living practices.
Children have the opportunity to become involved in activities that allow them to exhibit active living principles.
Application of Theory
Children are given opportunities to observe, explore, refine and integrate skills at their individual rate over a period of time, rather than for experiences to be available on a short term basis.
Child Guidance
Child guidance principles support the child in managing behaviour in acceptable ways rather than being removed from outdoor programming as a means of punishment for misbehavior.
Observation
The outdoor segment of the program is planned and organized based on the children's interests and skills.

References
Ainslie, R. C. (1990). Family and centre contributions to the adjustment of infants in full-time day care. New Directions for Child Development, 49:39-52.
Benson McMullen, M. (1999). Achieving best-practices in infant and toddler care. Young Children, 54(4):69-76.